I wish you all a Merry Xmas and a joyful period of festive days. Remember to take everything slow. Use the festive days for some well-deserved downtime. You can watch a slow film, for instance. Or a slow film every day until the end of the year. There are plenty on offer to help you slow down.

Admittedly, things have been a bit quieter than usual in the last few weeks. I was in a different slow universe, having focused exclusively on writing my thesis. So I’m not getting lazy and there will be lots more to read on this website next year. Slow films are piling up – there’s still Manakamana to see. And Ben Rivers’ new film A Spell to Ward off the Darkness. Then there is this slow film from Paraguay, whose title I can’t remember, but which I can’t wait to see. Wang Bing’s films are slowly piling up, too. I also need to return to a few earlier films by Tsai Ming-liang and Apichatpong Weerasethakul and write at least a brief comment on them so that they’re logged in my database of slow films. I’m also waiting for Tito Molina’s interview answers. There’s a book I recently bought on Green Cinema, or something that comes close to it. It’s all about environmentalism. There’s a chapter on contemplative cinema in there, so I’m keen on exploring this further in the next couple of months. I’ll also review the German-language book on Béla Tarr, which I’m reading at the moment (and which is promising indeed!).

The way it looks, I shouldn’t get bored next year, and you should get new material to read. For this year, however, I withdraw into my slow cave of slow work and festive days and I’ll be back next year with more written slowness.