Diary of a Film

By Niven Govinden

Lush, sensual, and atmospheric, Diary of a Film is a love letter to the creative process: how we tell our stories, and how we're changed by their telling.

Together with his lead actors--two men developing a burgeoning off-screen romance--an unnamed Italian filmmaker attends a prestigious European festival to premiere his latest work. Alone one morning at a backstreet café, he strikes up a conversation with a local woman, Cosima, and becomes enthralled by her life's story. Following her on a walk through the city as she details her tragic relationship with a graffiti artist whose suicide shattered her life, our auter keenly seeks out the artist's extant murals that stand as a testament to their love, eager to translate this star-crossed affair to the screen as a fragile, hopeful affair between his two actors blooms before him in real life.

Meandering through moments in time the way its characters meander the lively city streets, Diary of a Film evokes the full-body experience of falling in love: sun-drenched European cobblestones; the bubble of champagne on the lips; winding, intimate late-night conversations. Our narrator obsesses over the love he witnesses in the present and the past, and his hand in the stories he feels fated to tell. At once romantic and cerebral, Diary of a Film mines the age-old question: "How do you reconcile life and art, and not settle for a life deferred while art is being made?" (The Guardian)

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1646054423
• ISBN13: 9781646054428
• Release Date: August 2026
• Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing
• Length: 184 Pages