The Tom Luddy Connection: The Man, The Movies, The Rolodex

The Kitchen Sisters Present

The Kitchen Sisters & Radiotopia

Society & Culture

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 27 February 2025

⏱️ 55 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Tom Luddy was a quiet titan of cinema. He presided over the Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley for some 10 years, co-founded and directed The Telluride Film Festival for nearly 50 years, produced some 14 movies, match-made dozens of international love affairs, and foraged for the most beautiful, political, important, risky films and made sure there was a place for them to be seen in the world. And that the people making this powerful work were known and knew each other.

Tom Luddy with his photographic memory, his infinite rolodex, his encyclopedic knowledge of global cinema and his catalytic ability to connect people, caused the most unusual of collaborations to come to be.

Tom championed the French New Wave, the Czech New Wave, Brazilian cinema novo, dissident Soviet cinema, directors Francis Coppola, Jean-Luc Godard, Werner Herzog, Agnes Varda, Les Blank, Paul Schrader, Agnieszka Holland, Barry Jenkins, Laurie Anderson and countless others.

Tom passed away on February 13, 2023. There’s a giant hole in the screen without him here. But his DNA is in the hundreds of filmmakers, musicians, writers and activists he nurtured and inspired.

The Tom Luddy Connection: The Man, The Movies, The Rolodex was produced by Evan Jacoby and The Kitchen Sisters (Davia Nelson & Nikki Silva) in collaboration with Brandi Howell and Nathan Dalton. Mixed by Jim McKee.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Radio Topia.
0:02.2	Welcome to The Kitchen Sisters present.
0:04.3	From PRX.
0:05.6	We're The Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson, and Nikki Silva.
0:10.7	Hi, this is Nikki of the Kitchen Sisters.
0:13.2	I don't know about you, but I'm really looking forward to cooking this year.
0:17.3	There's a lot going on.
0:18.6	And home cooking is a wonderful way to calm yourself,
0:21.4	put your energy into something creative, and feed the people you love. And to help us on the
0:26.6	culinary journey, I cannot recommend enough one of our newer Radiotopia shows, The Recipe,
0:32.4	with Kenji and Deb. The show is hosted by two of today's most popular and acclaimed home cooks, Kenji
0:39.1	Lopez-Alt, and Deb Perlman. Between Kenji's YouTube, Deb's iconic blog, Smitten Kitchen,
0:45.8	and seven New York Times best-selling cookbooks between them, they've helped literally millions of
0:51.7	people eat better at home and have fun while doing it. In each episode,
0:56.0	Kenji and Deb talk about the essential ingredients and techniques, the little things that make a
1:01.1	dish really sing. Beware that they have very different styles and sometimes they will downright
1:06.6	disagree. Kenji is an MIT grad and is an expert at the science of cooking. Deb creates
1:12.9	luscious, luxurious dishes from a small New York City kitchen. From Radiotopia from PRX, The Recipe
1:20.2	with Kenji and Deb. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
1:28.6	I used to divide people into two categories.
1:33.6	People I knew through Tom Lutty
1:36.5	and people that I knew without Tom Lutty.
	...

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