“The first time I saw Douglas Sirk was in college. I didn't encounter him on the late, late, late show like a lot of people; people a little older than me, maybe. But I saw him already as someone to take special note of in an academic context in college. I was immediately in a state of visual splendor.”

American film director, screenwriter, and producer

Todd Haynes is an American film director, screenwriter, and producer. Working across four decades, he is known for films that engage melodrama, historical pastiche, and queer cinema. His work often examines the emotional and psychological effects of social repression, especially around sexuality, identity, illness, and conformity. He is also associated with the New Queer Cinema movement of the early 1990s, and is noted for reworking classical Hollywood forms, including the woman’s picture and the biopic, to explore marginalized experience and unspoken desire.