And the So, The Hello I'm Ryan Stitt and welcome back to the history of ancient Greece. In today's special guest episode,

I am joined by director and screenwriter Esmay von Hoffman,

who was the Festival of Cinema, New York City 2019 winner for Best Director for her film Ovid in Love.

It is set in a mash-up world of contemporary Detroit, complete with Toga, sneakers, hip-hop,

and poetry slams, and filmed amidst the Motor City's classical ruins, graffiti,

and burgeoning art scene.

It is based on the life and times of the famous Roman poet, Publius Ovididesus Neso or Ovet for short

who would write two particularly scandalous poems the Amores and the Arzomatoria The Art of of Love, both of which are filled with eroticism, sex, and romance.

For these poems, plus a mistake, Ovet would find himself exiled from Rome by the Emperor Augustus. The film is available to

stream on all major platforms on May 19th 2020 and in honor of that

Esme came onto the show to talk about her background with classics and Roman history,

what drew her to make a film about the life of Ovet,

her artistic vision and adapting the film to a modern audience,

and some of the decisions that she made in writing its

script. So without further ado here is my conversation with the award-winning

director screenwriter Es. May. Hoffman.

Thank you for coming on. This is awesome. I really enjoyed the film.

It was really great. I watched it like three times the last couple of weeks.

The first one was kind of for like enjoyment.

I didn't even.

And then the last two were kind of just like looking at it

from a historical perspective.

...