Experimental Short Film, 6 min
German with English Subtitles 
Text: Vanessa Beck, Laurie Mann, Isa Metzger, Morten Holtegaard Nielsen, Robin Ogunmuyiwa, Mio Voisin
Camera, Editing, Voice: Thea Marie Klinger

Letter to the Baltic Sea is an experimental short film addressed to the Baltic Sea. It is about the memories people keep of the coastline, and about the unease that comes with suspecting those memories may outlast the place itself. The sea is spoken to directly throughout, and in being spoken to, it becomes someone to reminisce with, to thank, but also someone to be worried about.

The text is based on six letters written to the Baltic Sea. The authores were asekd to write to the sea as they might write to an old friend. Those letters were edited into a single text, building the base of the film. What recurs across all six is consolation and pleasure, and beneath them a quieter worry that goes unnamed. It surfaces only at the end, when the sea disappears.

The images were shot over three cold days on Copenhagen coast. Close detail is held in long takes and interrupted by black, over which a second, whispered voice asks the sea questions it cannot answer. The film takes its bearings from hydrofeminist thinking, mainly from Astrida Neimanis's account of water as something that carries meaning as well as matter, and from initiatives such as Osoba Odra, which campaigns for the river Oder to be recognized as a legal person. It argues none of this. It asks instead what happens in us when a sea is treated as someone we owe a letter to.