Statement of intent

Hello!
I was wondering if you could help me out with a statement of intent for a university. So here it goes...

Dear members of the selection committee.

There are numerous memories, some hazy, some vague, some unusually clear, that I carry from the time when the brain cells had begun to hold impressions. My earliest full film memory has to be my father forcing me to watch Frankenstein (1931), which traumatized me. This, of course, set me on a lifelong path of obsessing over horror and black and white films.

I graduated my bachelor studies from The Art Academy of Latvia in June 2011. I decided to study photography as I was interested in the relations of pictorial and verbal representation. But as I discovered by the end of those 3 years of study I had spent my time on writing essays about moving image - film. On the same year I started my Master's degree in Art History, The Art Academy of Latvia writing my M.A. thesis on Latvian film education and narrative cinema of recent times. Meanwhile I have been a freelance artist and a critic.

I would like to apply for Master's Programme in Cinema Studies because of my growing interest in cinema. I’m very much interested in theory, and most of all research. I’ve been trying to take as many film classes as I could during my previous studies, but it’s been combined with then photography and now art history. Both specialties I value highly as they have given me strong art history and contemporary art base. But what I would really like would be concentrating on film exclusively. My goal would be to work in that field as a full-time job instead and starting M.A. studies in Stockholm University is the best next step to take in that path. I could also use education and experience I get in Latvian film as our film researcher and is still in baby’s shoes.

My interests include besides film history of former Eastern Bloc - visual culture, semiotics of culture, and the construction of identity on screen, especially in terms of nationality, gender, and sexuality.

Besides matching my interests, becoming a M.A. student in Cinema Studies would enable me to work with other students and faculty members of Department of Media Studies. Being able to work and exchange ideas with these people would certainly be interesting and fruitful.

Yours sincerely,