As you can see above, Floridian turned Brooklynite Holly Herrick knows a thing or two about flowers, but this is just where her expertise begins. The programmer of Sarasota’s quickly emerging film festival has taken up programming duties at the Hamptons Film Festival, which kicks off on Wednesday. We spoke recently about why Agnes Varda’s new film shook her up, the new record from The Walkmen and why she’s looking forward to Examined Life so much.

What films or television shows have you seen recently?

I work as a Programmer for two film festivals, so I see a lot of films, and not very much television. I just got back from the Toronto fest and my favorites there included Birdsong (Cant des Ocells), Three Monkeys, The Wrestler, Les Plages D’Agnès and Genova. I also recently watched and loved Wendy and Lucy, A Christmas Tale, and Two Lovers.

Which ones stuck with you and why?

I think everything I listed stuck with me, each pulled at my heartstrings in different ways. Cant Des Ocells was quite a revelation. It stripped away all the artifice and kitsch from one of western culture’s most essential narratives and reinvigorated a religious story by removing the religion part. That film is pure magic. It’s also worth noting that I think I cried about 24 times in Agnès Varda’s new film, Les Plages d’Agnès. The way she makes her own aging so personal and accessible and so unabashedly invites you to share her experience and her memories, it all really pushes me towards extreme emotional response mode. I love everything she makes.

Similarly, I don’t know if I have to explain my feelings about Michael Winterbottom, Nuri Belge Ceylan, Kelly Reichardt or Arnaud Desplechin. All these people have created new movies that are remarkably intelligent and inspiring and in some cases, even beyond reasonable expectation. They’ve all made a real sucker out of me and I’ll watch anything that they make.

Does your interest in them have anything to do with your own work as a programmer?

I think sometimes that a lot of programming is about empathy and conviction. Not to over dramatize or anything, but essentially a big part of the job is to get passionate about something in the hopes that others will too. So yeah, my excitement about these movies has a lot to do with my work.

How often do you read fiction? Do you wish you read more?

I just moved to Brooklyn this spring, and it’s made reading fiction a lot easier since taking the train to work buys me at least an hour a day of reading time. Still, of course I wish I had more time to read, who doesn’t? But since all of my reading time goes to reading fiction, actually I wish I read more non-fiction.

What would be your ideal literary adaptation and why?

I don’t have one. I don’t believe in adaptations for the sake of retelling a story. I think too much of the time no one gets what they were hoping for. I am less concerned about hearing a story retold than seeing the essence of a great piece of art recaptured in a different guise. To that effect, some cinematic reincarnations I’d like to witness would involve the works of Emile Zola, Carlos Fuentes, Arundhati Roy and Richard Yates.

How, if at all, has reading informed your programming?

I experience books and movies very differently.

What are you listening to recently?

I like the new Walkmen record “You & Me” quite a bit. It seems to fit the weather and the season very well. I’m also very enthusiastic about the new Silver Jews, Lookout Mountain, Lookout Sea, which I think is fantastic. Regia has been coming up regularly lately, and since I moved out to the Hamptons for the fall, Elliott Smith sounds just right.

Are their any musicians whose participation in a film project immediately sparks your interest? How about filmmakers who’s films you always know will have dynamic music?

There are a ton of musicians who help to inspire my interest in a film because of their own merit. I’m really looking forward to seeing Astra Taylor’s Examined Life, and I know a great highlight will be the score, composed by Heather McIntosh of The Instruments / Elephant 6. I love the concept of the movie and I’m looking forward to discovering how Heather’s music takes shape. Truthfully, I would want to see this movie anyway, but The Instruments involvement is a huge bonus.

I like to discover music because of a film, and because I’m exposed to a lot more films day to day than music, this happens a lot! A Catalan film from a few years ago called August Days featured a haunting song by Francoiz Brut that made me buy her record. I recently discovered Arthur Russell’s music because of the documentary about him called Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell. I’m sure a person could score about a thousand thoroughly disparate movies if you had access to his full collection.

I think making music really work ingenuously within a film is tremendously difficult. Even though I’m a sucker, I feel tricked when films rely on the soundtrack to convey what I’m not getting from the movie itself. I know it is not easy to marry your film with your music and have it really working as one. And yet there are those people who go balls out with their soundtrack but are talented enough to make it work, and all of your conviction tells you this shouldn’t be working but your heart shamefully admits that it is. Gus Van Sant and Werner Herzog fall into this camp. I love Herzog’s meticulous opera selections. It’s so good it’s almost upsetting.