The Oscar-qualified short The Letter Men is based on the largest-surviving collection of LGBTQ+ love letters from the WWII timeframe. Directed by Andrew Valentine, the eight-minute short shares letters written by Gordon Bowsher to Gilbert Bradley between 1938 and 1941, while England was fighting in World War II. The letters, which were uncovered in 2017, are unique in that they were never burned to protect the respective parties. In fact, in one correspondence, Bowsher dreams of their story being published at a later and more accepting point in time.
The Letter Men stars Garrett Clayton (NBC’s Hairspray Live!, King Cobra) and Matthew Postlethwaite (Netflix’s Peaky Blinders). Ninety percent of the cast and crew of The Letter Men identify as LGBTQ+, with Andrew Valentine having co-written the project with his husband, Danny Vallentine. The live-action short film was produced by Cameron Hutchison, Mike Diaz and Siddharth Ganji, with Oren Soffer serving as its director of photography.
According to Valentine, the project as shot using an Arri Alexa Mini and Cooke S4 lenses.
“We edited the short in Adobe Premiere,” he recalls, noting that Blackmagic Design’s DaVinci Resolve was used for the color grade.