OCTOBER 21, 2022
A Note from
Charlotte Wells
SHAR E
Dear Movie Lovers,
I hope this finds you well, willingly subscribed,
and not spammed. Ordinarily I’d be in therapy
on a Tuesday afternoon, but this week I’m on a
plane, listening to the Tindersticks soundtrack
to Stars at Noon en route to LA for the
October 21st release of my first feature,
Aftersun, and writing to you. It’s a surreal
situation on many counts, so please forgive
what follows.
Memory is a slippery thing; details are hazy,
fickle. The more you strain, the less you see. A
memory of a memory endlessly corrupting
itself. I’ve caught myself recently claiming that
feeling is more robust, but it’s tricky. Because
in recalling a point in time and how that
moment made you feel, it is framed by a new
feeling—the feeling of what that moment
means to you now. In Turkish, a language rich
in vocabulary not easily rendered into English,
hasret means some combination of longing,
love, and loss. It seems particularly appropriate
in this context and to this film.
Aftersun is about a young 30-year-old father
and his 11-year-old daughter on holiday at a
resort in Turkey in the late 1990s. It is told—
subtly—through the point of view of the
daughter, Sophie, as an adult 20 or so years
later. A memory of intimacy from a point of
distance. Hasret. Truthfully, I don’t want to say
too much more about it. It’s best experienced
without context, without having seen our
gorgeous trailer, and with patience and an
open mind. It accumulates to a feeling which I
found myself best able to express through the
language of cinema (“ch-inema”) and not in
words or by any other means. And there is
room for you in this film too. I hope you can
take it, fill it, in order to feel it.
What I will say is that Aftersun is not mine
alone. It was made by the combined efforts
and talents of many people among whom are
some of my closest creative collaborators and
friends. They elevated the words from the page
and the pride and gratitude I feel for their work
is immense. Collaboration is what makes
filmmaking so special and through
collaborating, the process of making this film
gave me the clearest sense of purpose and joy.
To make it was a privilege I never took for
granted, much like the opportunity to share it
with you now.
Before I sign off, the elephant on the page is
the degree to which Aftersun is a personal film.
Most films are, of course, but this film more
than even those most. The essence of what I
have to say about that is held within the
145,440 frames on screen. This film is
unmistakably fiction, but within it is a truth that
is mine; a love that is mine. Photos, videos—
records of different types—are enclosed in the
film and so it felt appropriate to enclose one
here. A photograph of my dad and of me—the
starting point for this project—each a single
shot because photos of us both are in short
supply in that pre-selfie era. I am 10 or 11,
Sophie’s age in the film. My Dad is 31 or 32, a
little younger than I am now. We happen to be
in Turkey.
Sincerely,
Charlotte
P.S. T.S. Eliot
“At the still point of the turning world. Neither
flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards;
at the still point, there the dance is, But neither
arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither
movement from nor towards, Neither ascent
nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the
dance.”
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