Anne Gjelsvik

A list without Werner Herzog, Alfred Hitchcock, Terrence Malick and Wim Wenders – all among my favourite directors – and without any female directors; how is this even possible? Having to select only ten movies was harder than I imagined. However, aside from a somewhat melodramatic touch. I think the list does credit to the diversity that describes great filmmaking: the wonder of love, the terror of war, remembering what it’s like to be a child, learning what it means to become old, the coldness of loneliness or, how unfulfilled love can be meaningful. My list spans the grandiose and the intimate, the realistic and the allegorical. Some films are remembered for the imagery, others for their stories or their characters – all of them for teaching me about life. I learned to love the movies through Hollywood. This – and the fact that I am Scandinavian – has made my choices less international than I would have wished. (No Russians, no films from Asia.) But leaving out Bergman and Dreyer would have been impossible.