1960 Detroit, Michigan 1

Cynthia Wybranowski
Born January 1st, 1952
Detroit, Michigan
Interviewed by Bianka Ukleja on January 30th, 2018

Wow, I feel old.

My first movie? Let me think. It was a French film, The Red Balloon. Very short. Like maybe 35 minutes.

I was in elementary school by then, so it must have been in the 60s. 

I remember my mom took me. Oh, my gosh. My mother loved cinema. My mom pretty much transmitted all her passions to me.

I had no idea I was going to see a movie. Since I was an only child, my mom dragged me everywhere. She wanted a companion, and I was it.

I saw it somewhere in Detroit — it could have been downtown — but I don’t remember exactly where. I don’t think I was paying too much attention.

I don’t remember there being any dialogue. Or maybe very little dialogue. Just the music. The music was absolutely gorgeous.

In the film, there was a little boy — his name is Pascale, very French — and he’s followed by a shiny red balloon. You see where he goes on a daily basis, how the balloon follows him or doesn’t follow him. The balloon is like a pet.

Then there was a girl with a blue balloon. I thought that was super cool.

You could tell all the kids in the movie wanted a balloon like that. He gets all these envious looks when he walks down the street.

Anyways…these older boys steal his balloon and they destroy it. It shocked me. When you’re so young you never forget it. It was short scene, but very intense.

At the very end, though, Pascale is lifted up up and away by maybe a hundred or a thousand colorful balloons. It was a very emotional ending. Very hopeful.

When I was in my teens, Mom and I were always searching for international films showing in the theaters downtown. About that time, the Detroit Film Theater was started at the Art Institute (at the Detroit Institute of Art). We would hang out there on the weekends because they had an outstanding selection of foreign films.

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Cynthia would later go on to study French and Italian at the University of Michigan.