I originally put together this series of exercises in order to prepare my summer intern to work on curatorial projects, but I think these could be useful for a lot of people so I wanted to share more widely!

These are specifically geared towards film programmers, but I think they tie into a crucial set of skills for anyone wanting to work in film. No matter what your role or path is, you will be well served by the abilities to:

1. Engage in the ongoing process of honing your taste in film
2. Develop clear and concise language for communicating your unique artistic perspective by referencing the work of others
3. Identify talent in the wild

Without further ado, here are the exercises themselves:

PART ONE: IDENTIFYING & REFLECTING UPON YOUR CURRENT TASTE
This part can be done with little or no research. 

1a. Off the top of your head, list your top 10 favorite movies of all time. Don’t look anything up for this part. 

1b. Go back to your list and format it with title, director, country of origin, and year of production. You can use Google for this. Example: In The Mood For Love – Wong Kar Wai (Hong Kong & France, 2000)  

2. What patterns, trends, or tendencies do you notice in your list? (time period, location, cinematic movements, genre, vibes etc.). 

3. Name or describe the qualities that most or all of your favorite movies have in common. Try to be as precise as possible but think bigger/more abstractly than the above question. Example: All of the movies in my list have fast paced plots, non-naturalistic acting styles, and most make heavy use of handheld cinematography. 

4. Reflecting on the films on your list, what do you think are your knowledge gaps/blindspots? Which of these gaps are you most interested in learning more about?

PART TWO: FINDING NEW, TASTE-ALIGNED WORK
This part will require research and new watching. The goal of this is not to change your overall taste but rather to help you learn how to find contemporary work that excites and interests you. 

Come up with a list of 3-5 contemporary films (released in the past 3 years) that you’re excited about. Don’t worry about loving these on the same level as your top 10, just find things you like enough to be excited about right now. This list of films should include: 

-at least one short film
-at least film that does not have distribution
-at least one film that you saw in theaters
-at least one film that you watched through reaching out directly to the filmmaker and requesting a screener
-at least one film that is recommended to you from an industry contact 

^one film can fulfill multiple criteria 

PART THREE: COMMUNICATING CURATORIAL PERSPECTIVES
Now that you’ve defined what you love about these films, it’s time for you to find ways to communicate that excitement to others.  

1a. Find the oldest film from your top ten list and copy/paste the synopsis from IMDB or Wikipedia here: 

1b. Now imagine you are throwing an event where you screen this film and you want your friends and friend-of-friends to show up. Rewrite the synopsis in your own words to appeal to contemporary audiences. 

1c. For the aforementioned event, you also need a blurb that will get people excited about seeing this film. Write a paragraph that speaks to why you like the film, why you think other people should see it, and what makes it interesting to watch now in 2025.

2a. Imagine that you are putting together a screening of all the films you selected in part two. Copy/paste all the synopses from Letterboxd, IMDB, or Wikipedia below (if possible): 

2b. Rewrite all of the synopses in your own words. Try to standardize the writing style and approximate length across all of the synopses. 

2c. Rewrite all of the synopses so that each one is 20 words or under (you may use any combination of previous answers and new writing to make this happen).

Okay that was the end of the exercise for now but there are theoretically infinite variations on this that could be done. All the criteria for part two were geared towards finding things that align with your current taste, but I could imagine doing an infinite number of “scavenger hunts” with highly specific criteria that sort of force you to move out of your comfort zone and change/challenge/widen your current taste.

If anyone does this exercise or some parts of it I would love to hear how it went for you! Let me know if you’re interested in me creating some additional exercises or scavenger hunts. If literally one person reaches out to me about this that will likely give me the motivation to do it. Also if you send me your own variations or expansions on this I would love that and could post them on my blog and credit you if you want!

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thanks to my intern for being great so far and for prompting me to think about my work in new and exciting ways and to lou for some helpful editing suggestions on this and also pretty much all public writing i ever do ❤