Kathy Sperberg’s New Film About Smell Memory

A few years back I was interviewed on camera by Canadian filmmaker Kathy Sperberg for a documentary about smell memory. As I understood it, the film was to be a personal memoir blended with interviews and voice-overs by a variety of olfactory experts. I stayed in touch with Kathy as she assembled her footage and applied for grants to complete her artistic vision. She kept at it and now, at last, the film is ready for its first screening at the NFB Montreal Cinérobothèque in Montreal on May 22.

miscellaneous symptoms: sweet basements & gasoline

a film by kathy sperberg

A film about the potency of Smell Memory and its arresting grip on our emotions, language – or the absence thereof – and the space it inhabits. Featuring the scent industry’s top Noses, cultural theorists, sensory psychologists, urbanists, and through personal narrative, the film situates why its imprint matters in the new philosophy of Smell.

With its mix of the subjective and objective, Miscellaneous Symptoms promises to be an unusual and creative take on a topic that, to my knowledge, has never been explored on film. I’m eagerly awaiting a chance to see it.