The Garden Cinema Film Talk: Recent Episodes
The Garden Cinema
Celebrating the Art of Film. The Garden Cinema is an independent art-house cinema in Central London. We invite directors, producers, actors, and film commentators to talk about the films we show. Most of our podcast episodes are recorded post-screening, and with a live audience. We welcome recommendations! Our first few episodes feature Garden Cinema founder Michael Chambers.
In partnership with The Canary UK, the Rainbow Collective screened their latest feature doc at the Garden Cinema. The filmmaking duo, also behind To Kill a War Machine, joined us after the film to discuss the film, their documentary and filmmaking background covering international stories, the aftermath of Bloody Sunday and the long fight for justice, and the legacy of the Irish independence movement today.
Director Jack Hazan and editor David Mingay (Rude Boy) had access to David Hockney and his circle from 1970 to 1973, a critical period for the internationally-acclaimed artist following the break-up of his relationship with Peter Schlesinger. As much an intimate study of love gone wrong as a portrait of an artist at work. A Bigger Splash chronicles the emotional ripples that separation casts on their coterie. With appearances by such art scene icons (and subjects of Hockney's work) as Celia Birtwell, Ossie Clark, Henry Geldzahler and Patrick Proctor, this ground-breaking film is presented here in a newly remastered version..
Dominic Lutyens is a freelance arts writer. He is the co-author with Kirsty Hislop of the book, 70s Style & Design. He also wrote Celia Birtwell the textile designer’s biography, with her. His latest book Perriand, a monograph on architect and designer Charlotte Perriand, was published last year. Here he is in dicusssion with Sarah Bailey, founder of the Fashion Film Club.
This screening of this multi-award winning Merchant Ivory classic is presented by the Fashion Film Club and will be followed by Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop curator Keith Lodwick.
This adaptation brings the novel by E.M. Forster to dazzling life in the Florentine countryside and in the well-appointed homes of the English Edwardian upper classes. A comedy of manners with a quick wit and impeccable comic timing, A Room With A View is also a portrait of the quiet solitude that lies beneath Forster's characters, and of the need for human connection in a world of rigid convention.
The young Englishwoman Lucy Honeychurch (played by Helena Bonham Carter), arrives in Florence on a Baedecker-style grand tour with her aunt Charlotte Bartlett (Maggie Smith). Through a series of events involving English expatriates Miss Eleanor Lavish, an unflappable novelist (Judi Dench), and the Emersons, a free-thinking father and son (played by Denholm Elliot and Julian Sands), Lucy's life is changed forever under a loggia in Florence and in the Tuscan countryside. (Merchant Ivory)
Curator of Costume Couture: Sixty Years of Cosprop at The Fashion and Textile Museum, London (until March 8th), Keith Lodwick is an expert on costume in Merchant Ivory films. A writer, curator and historian, Lodwick was formerly Curator of Theatre and Screen Arts at the V&A.
The Q&A will be hosted by Fashion Film Club founder Sarah Bailey.
"Power Station began in the depths of lockdown - and in the aftermath of our previous film Bank Job, where we purchased and blew up £1.2 million of local debt - with the question ‘'what could we do from where we live, with the people around us, to build power - of energy and imagination?’
Working to turn a street and local schools solar, Power Station is a scalable in-your-face prototype of community led power. Channelling Withnail and I and Ealing comedy the film charts the financial and emotional trials and tribulations of making change together. From sleeping on rooftops to growing thousands of sunflowers and attempts at Christmas number one, community spirit and resilience are at the heart of this documentary."
Co-directors Hilary Powell and Dan Edelstyn join us to discuss their wild journey as part of our Planting Seeds strand. You can follow the strand to get updates on new screenings.
14-year-old Zeina and her family are the last to have stayed in their besieged hometown of Damascus in Syria. A missile rips a giant hole in their home, exposing them to the outside world. When a rope is mysteriously lowered into the hole, Zeina gets her first taste of freedom, and an unimaginable world of possibility opens up for her. As the violence outside escalates, the family is pressured to evacuate, but Mutaz, her father is adamant that they stay, refusing to flee to the uncertain life of a refugee. Faced with a life or death dilemma, Zeina and Hala, her mother, must make the choice whether to stay or leave.
Sarah Agha discusses casting, magic realism, filmmaking in the Arab world, and how the film resonates a few years down the line.
Crosspollinating with our Planting Seeds strand, as we are joined by Danusia Samal from Green Rider, a movement of artists and productions shifting the TV & film industry towards a fairer and healthier way of working, and by Josh Cockcroft from Climate Spring, a global organisation dedicated to shifting our cultural response to the climate crisis by championing storytelling that transforms how it is represented in film, TV, and popular culture.
In defiance of the Paris Peace Conference Italian poet and military officer Gabriele D’Annunzio led a rogue, short-lived, and ultranationalist occupation of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) in 1919. Over a century later, filmmaker Igor Bezinović revisits this strange historical episode, blending archive, reenactment and interviews with residents in the present, interrogating how a city remembers and forgets, and the enduring presence of European fascism.
A stark and peculiar lesson in the history that is not past, Fiume o morte! (Fiume or death!) won the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2025 and is Croatia’s submission for the Oscars.
Film writer Savina Petkova discusses the film with director Igor.
Ken Loach's longtime collaborator Rebecca O'Brien joins Gareth Evans for a discussion following Sweet Sixteen, showing as part of Ken Loach: A Retrospective at the Garden Cinema.
This Q&A was also filmed. You can watch it on our YouTube channel.
Have we become a nation of strangers? In Dragonfly, neglected pensioner Elsie (Brenda Blethyn) finds an unexpected ally in her younger neighbour Colleen (Andrea Riseborough). Over time, Elsie gains a friend and the troubled Colleen finds a fresh purpose in life as she shops, cleans and cares for her. It brings brighter days for both of them.
Dragonfly is a well-crafted slow burner anchored by outstanding performances from Andrea Riseborough, Brenda Blethyn, and Jason Watkins.
Though firmly grounded in reality and echoing social realist traditions, the film also functions as a thriller through its consistent high tension and effective misdirection. There's an abstract danger lurking, and we're never sure from where or how it will manifest.
The Garden Cinema's Joe Miller talks to Paul Andrew Williams, Andrea Riseborough, and Brenda Blethyn to discuss the the film.
Join us for an evening of screenings and a live Zoom conversation with Ken Loach as he discusses some of his most controversial and suppressed films - works that TV networks and other institutions have tried to keep from the public. We will discuss The Gamekeeper, The Navigators, The Save The Children Fund Film, Which Side Are You On?, and A Question of Leadership. Films that revealed the complicity of union bosses, the creativity and solidarity of striking miners, the problematic attitude of large aid organisations, police brutality and a lot more...Discover the untold stories behind these banned and buried films, as well as first-hand accounts of the battles Loach fought to bring them to the general public.
Lebanon in the UK: Diaspora Shorts was a programme of short films by 5 (women) Lebanese filmmakers based in the UK, part of our season: New Lebanese Cinema: Reclaiming Storytelling. The season is focused on contemporary filmmaking in Lebanon which sees a new generation of directors telling authentic stories of life on the ground, eschewing as much as possible some of the constraints of European financing bodies and co-productions.
The five filmmakers discuss filmmaking in Lebanon today and what it means to be part of the diaspora. The films discussed are:
Neo Nahda, dir. by May Ziade
A Tempo the 3rd Act, dir. by Maria Abdel Karim
The Sun Sets on Beirut, dir. by Daniela Stephan
Three Centimeters, dir. by Lara Zeidan
Submarine, dir. by Mounia Akl
https://www.thegardencinema.co.uk/film/lebanon-in-the-uk-diaspora-shorts/
The Greek actress, best known for Yorgos Lanthimos' Alps, Dogtooth, and The Lobster, and currently to be seen in Mahdi Fleifel's To A Land Unknown, discusses Yannis Oukonomides' Matchbox and Greek cinema with Erifili Missiou, the curator of the Garden Cinema's Contemporary Greek Cinema: Beyond the Weird Wave season.
A special event to mark the re-publication by leading London independent press Prototype of a facsimile edition of Derek Jarman’s early, extremely rare and only poetry book A Finger in the Fishes Mouth, originally published in 1972
Joining publisher Jess Chandler and editor Gareth Evans are poet and writer CAConrad and scholar Declan Wiffen. With thanks to James Mackay.
More podcast episodes can also be found at:
https://thegardencinemafilmtalk.podbean.com/
Recorded 30th November 2024 at The Garden Cinema
39-41 Parker Street London WC2B 5PQ
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A creative biography of the Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. One of the most important women in British modern art, the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a highly inspirational figure, whose work was deeply impacted by a pivotal event in her life.
A Sudden Glimpse into Deeper Things feature documentary is Mark Cousins' love letter to Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a significant yet often overlooked British modernist painter.
True to Cousins' unique style, the film takes different angles to investigate her legacy, combining an account of Barns-Graham's climb to the top of a glacier in Switzerland that was pivotal to her art, a lengthy contemplation over one of her photographs as an elderly woman, and a documentation of his acquisition of a Barns-Graham-inspired tattoo. As with all love letters, Cousins' exploration of Barns-Graham's innovative mind is deeply personal and idiosyncratic, weaving together fragments of her life and art in a complex tapestry.
Writer and director Mark Cousins joins us for a post-screening Q&A about the film.
Director Khalid and lead actor Rizwan joined us for a post-film Q&A to discuss researching and shooting In Camera with host Fatima Serghini and the Garden Cinema audience.
Nida Manzoor, creator of the BAFTA, Peabody, and Rose d’Or award winning sitcom We Are Lady Parts, made her feature directorial debut with Polite Society. This exuberant feminist action comedy, turns genre etiquette on its head whilst examining the complexities of navigating life as a British-Pakistani teenager.
Actress Priya Kansara who plays the lead part of Ria joins film theorist and lecturer Kulraj Phullar to discuss her role, martial arts training and her foray into acting, genre-bending cinema, community, and South Asian Heritage Month.
Polite Society is part of both the South Asian Heritage Month and the Women Aren't Funny seasons.
Young people took to the streets with political muralism all over Chile in the late 60s, at the same time that young people in New York were starting modern graffiti, and May 68 took place in Paris. Chile Estyle is a documentary film which explores the past and present of Chile's unique street art tradition, which comes from a remix of political muralism and graffiti, and has been part of Chilean cultural and political life since the 60s. The result is a visually arresting, informative, and entertaining film.
Director Pablo Aravena discusses his work and interest in street art, DJing, Hip Hop, and graffiti, and how the scene ties in with regional politics.
Ernesto (Armando Espitia) is a young Guatemalan anthropologist tasked with identifying the bones of the people killed by the military government in the 1980s. One day, while hearing the account of an old woman, he thinks he has found a lead that might guide him to his father, a 'guerrillero' who went missing during the war. Meanwhile, his mother Cristina (Emma Dib), is about to testify at the trial of former soldiers who took part in the genocide.
Our Mothers is one of the rare films looking at the massacre carried out by the US backed military against the indigenous population.
Our Mothers won the Camera d'Or and the SACD Prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It received six nominations at the 10th Magritte Awards, including Best Film and Best Director for Díaz, winning Best First Feature Film.
César Díaz talks to Pablo Navarrete from Alborada and our audience about the film. The screening is part of our New Central American Cinema season.
AWAN partnered with The Arab Film Club to present Another Reality: Genre Shorts by Arab Women Filmmakers, here at the Garden Cinema, a programme curated by Sarah Agha.
AWAN is the UK’s only contemporary multi-arts festival dedicated to showcasing inspiring works from Arab female artists.
Sarah discusses the shorts with their respective directors, and the growth of genre cinema in the Arab world more generally, with input from our audience.
Ladies Coffee (2024) by Amal Al-Agroobi - 10’
On the prowl for lady suitors, Roula invites Zeina and her daughter over for Arabic coffee. But when young Reem participates in a cup reading ritual, she gets more than she bargained for.
The Call (2023) by Riffy Ahmed - 14’
During a difficult visit to her single immigrant mother, Athena discovers that what she thought was age-related mental decline is in fact an inherited magical gift.
In Vitro (2019) by Larissa Sansour - 28’
In an underground orchard in Bethlehem, decades after an other worldly eco disaster, two scientists ruminate on exile, loss, identity and nostalgia.
Journalist and critic Sophie Monks Kaufman discussed the The Zone Of Interest with the Garden Cinema's Joe Miller. Sophie and Joe talk in-depth about all the inception of the film, the cinematography, the many layers and themes the film evokes, history, resonance, resistance and the dehumanisation of others.
...OR, THE INCREDIBLY STRANGE RISE AND FALL OF THE WORLD'S WILDEST CINEMA AND HOW IT INFLUENCED A MIXED-UP GENERATION OF WEIRDOS AND MISFITS
A feature-length big screen documentary telling the riotous inside story of the infamous sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll repertory cinema which inspired a generation during Britain's turbulent Thatcher years.
Journalist Saskia Baron discusses the history of the iconic venue and the filmmaking process with its two directors here at the Garden Cinema, with input and comments from our audience!
We discuss new forms of storytelling, genre, Afrofuturism and conversations around storytelling amongst the Black diaspora with writer Irenosen Okojie who curated the Black To The Future festival. We are very pleased to be showing two of the programme's films here at the Garden Cinema. We strive to expand the reach of the films we show and look forward to introducing new and original work to our members and visitors. You can find the listings, and book here.
Ken Loach’s The Old Oak, tells the story of Syrian refugees relocated in a old mining village in the Northeast of England, amidst poverty, resentfulness and anger. As ever, Loach’s message is one of compassion and hope. Dave Turner who plays the lead character of TJ Ballantyne, the pub landlord, joined us at the Garden Cinema for a chat with journalist Steve Topple (whose voice you might recognise from the Bella Ciao discussion, which can also be found in this podcast series).
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Alborada teamed up with the Garden Cinema to show the documentary Chicago Boys, which explores the The film tells the story of the Chicago Boys, a group of Chilean economists who studied at the University of Chicago, under Milton Friedman returned to their country after Augusto Pinochet's coup to become the main architects of the neoliberal economic model in Chile, which also served as a template for other countries around the world.
We discuss the film with scientist and ex-political prisoner Roberto Navarrete, journalist John McEvoy (Declassified UK) who explores the role of Britain in the coup and the policies that resulted from it, and our audience.
Every winter Mikma and her family travel by foot from their village deep in the Himalayas of Nepal to sell local medicinal plants in urban markets. This year, construction of a new highway to China has begun in their roadless valley, and things are never going to be the same. The documentary film Baato, distributed by Tull Stories is at once a sensitive portrait of a family that has thus far existed largely apart from the trappings of modernity, a fascinating chronicle of the epic journey they embark on each year, and a penetrating depiction of the culture and politics of Nepal. The Garden Cinema's Joe Bond talks to co-director Lucas Millard during a satellite Q&A following a screening of the film.
We were joined by director Dionne Edwards, producer Georgia Goggin and editor Andonis Trattos, the team behind Pretty Red Dress, a BFI-distributed gem of a film currently on here at the Garden Cinema for a post-screening chat with our audience.
Join us to delve behind the scenes of this wonderfully nuanced and upbeat film, as we chat about filming in South London, Natey Jones' gracefulness on screen, casting Alexandra Burke, the tussle between masculinity and femininity and the script development process.
We welcome all comments, input and recommendations!
Writer-director Carolina Cavalli’s darkly comic feature debut, which received its world premiere at the 2022 Venice Film Festival, is a deliciously satirical character study of a twentysomething looking for purpose… and maybe also a friend.
We had the opportunity to chat with Carolina over zoom about the film, her previous work, her time studying in Paris, audience expectations and the particular role of childhood friends in the lives of expat children!
Amanda will be screened from 9 June at the Garden Cinema.
We chat to a panel of producers, actors and directors about the current film scene in the Arab world, what is means to be an "Arab film", what the sources of funding tend to be, the topics and genres that appeal most internationally, the intricacies of subtitling and other issues our audience asked about. The event was held as a launch night for the Arab women filmmakers season at the cinema and involved producer and curator Elhum Shakerifar, actress and programmer Sarah Agha and filmmaker Soudade Kaadan.
To mark Italy's Liberation Day, we screened documentary Bella Ciao - Song Of Rebellion. The documentary traces the origins of the revolutionary song, the myths around it, its international appeal and use, its potential commercialisation. Directors Paul Russell and Andrea Vogt joined us to chat about making indie films, Bella Ciao and the deeply moving meanings behind it with Mydylarama journalist Steve Topple.
Teenage rebel Mick Travis (Malcolm McDowell) returns to his upper-crust English public school, caught between the sadistic older boys known as the Whips and the first-year students, known as Scum, who are forced to do their bidding. The petty thefts and anti-social behavior of Travis and his two henchmen, Johnny (David Wood) and Wallace (Richard Warwick), soon attract the attention of both the Whips and the school's out-of-touch administration, and lead to an unexpected showdown.
This British classic was screened at the Garden Cinema with a Q&A with David Wood. David co-starred as one of the three rebel schoolboys in a public school, alongside Malcolm McDowell (Mick) and Richard Warwick (Wallace), and they led the revolution against authority – which was regarded by many as a metaphor for the social and political situation in the UK.
He
This British classic was screened at the Garden Cinema with a Q&A with David Wood. David co-starred as one of the three rebel schoolboys in a public school, alongside Malcolm McDowell (Mick) and Richard Warwick (Wallace), and they led the revolution against authority – which was regarded by many as a metaphor for the social and political situation in the UK.
Here
This British classic was screened at the Garden Cinema with a Q&A with David Wood. David co-starred as one of the three rebel schoolboys in a public school, alongside Malcolm McDowell (Mick) and Richard Warwick (Wallace), and they led the revolution against authority – which was regarded by many as a metaphor for the social and political situation in the UK.
Join us for this podcast to hear David sharing behind the scenes stories and other anecdotes.
This film was proposed by our member Paddy Cooper. To propose your own screening, log into your members’ account to visit the Members’ Area. We also show members’ choice selections as regular ticketed screenings.
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We chatted to Italian director Mario Martone about his latest feature film, Nostalgia, which stars one of Italy's most famous working actors, Pierfrancesco Favino, sporting am eerily accurate Arabic accent. We delve together into the film's esoteric and spiritual dimensions, its gorgeous and loving portrait of Naples and its depictions of the city's element of criminality.
Curator, artist and Brighton-resident John Marchant joined us here at the Garden Cinema for a discussion following our screening of Laura Poitras's All The Beauty And The Bloodshed. The film tells the story of photographer Nan Goldin's tireless campaign to expose the crimes of the Sackler family and the part they played in the opioid crisis in the US and to kick the Sacklers out of the art spaces they gave money to to whitewash their actions.
John tells us about her artistic process, her resilience, their work together and what the campaigning achieved.
We gathered here at the cinema after our screening of The Shining, as part of our Jack Nicholson season, with Professor Roger Luckhurst who wrote The Shining: BFI Film Classics. Roger shares with us gossip and tales from behind the scenes, tells us about the film's negative reception at the time and the differences with the novel and gives us some context to understand its place as part of the horror repertoire.
Enjoy!
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We gathered in the Garden Cinema den with our regular group of City Lit film students to discuss and share anecdotes about Antonioni's The Passenger, screened as part of our Celebrating Jack Nicholson season. The Passenger was one of our most popular members' suggestions. Grab a drink and listen in!
Join us in the Garden Cinema Den for our post-film chat.
Following our screening of Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, as part of our Hollywood on Hollywood season, we all huddled around a drink in the den to chat about the film and listen to Dr Lucy Bolton share with us the gossip, highlights from and insights into the shoot. We chatted about the film's "useless" men, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis's legendary rivalry, the former's star power, the latter's dedication to her craft, and everything from Oscar shenanigans to the evolution in women's representation on screen.
We've recorded this discussion for everyone to enjoy remotely, from home or on their commute.
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We held a Q&A with Dr Kiki Tianqi Yu following one of our screenings of Return To Dust. The film film follows Ma and timid Cao who have been cast off by their families and forced into an arranged marriage. Uniting with Earth’s cycles, they create a haven for themselves in which they can thrive.
Dr Kiki Tianqi Yu talks about the film's depiction of the connection between humans and land and its the philosophical connotations, the director's previous work, the issues around censorship and independent cinema in China.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
We are joined by writer/director/actress Nana Mensah. Mensah's first feature film, the award-winning Queen Of Glory, will be screening at the Garden Cinema on 26 November.
The film follows the trials and tribulations of Sarah Obeng, the brilliant child of Ghanaian immigrants, who is quitting her Ivy League PhD program to follow her married lover to Ohio. When her mother dies suddenly, she bequeaths her daughter a Christian bookstore in the Pelham Parkway section of the Bronx where Sarah was raised.
We were also joined by Lily Parrott, co-director of the Migration Film Festival. We chatted about Nana's forays into filmmaking, her start as an actress, and its selection as part of the festival.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
This week, we welcomed a group of screenwriting and film students from City Lit to watch The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum, directed by Margarethe von Trotta and Volker Schlondorff and based on the book by Heinrich Boll.
Blum a young woman living in West Germany in the 70s finds her life falling into ruins after she falls prey to a vicious smear campaign by the police and a ruthless journalist, testing the limits of her sanity.
The film is an open critique of media manipulation and demonisation, and the misuse of state power - a critique which finds many echoes in the instances of collusion between the state, the police and the tabloids today. Our students share their thoughts about the film and its legacy.
We discuss the ways in which the debate over the role of ex-Nazis in authority in the 70s was shut down, how American and British films of the time dealt with similar subject matter and THAT awful cardigan.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
"Over 12 half-hour episodes, we're seeing a man have a nervous breakdown".
This week, we talk to journalist Darren Richman about some of his favourite genres and filmmakers.
We discuss the pessimism of Film Noir and the optimism of Mike Leigh, the nature of comedy from Faulty Towers to the Coen Brothers and debate whether or not there is such a thing as "dark comedy" and the depiction of love and compassion in Hollywood films.
You can follow Darren on Twitter @darrenrichman.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
This week, we speak to Angela Allen who has worked on the film sets of some of Hollywood's most celebrated films, including The Third Man, The African Queen and The Dirty Dozen, for nearly six decades, overseeing continuity, supervising scripts and advising directors.
Angela shares with anecdotes and personal stories from her time on and off the set. This podcast episode is slightly longer than usual, so we've included a discussion breakdown:
2.04 How to know if a film will be good.
2.45 Angela on the editing process and working with Carol Reed (The Third Man)
7.30 The current fashion for "overcoverage" and working with John Huston
10.25 Zefirelli vs Huston and filming Elizabeth Taylor
13.58 The auteur theory from France
15.47 Different directors, same scripts
18.25 "We'd have sixteen pages on the fact that Jennifer Jones's toilet paper had to be pink", meeting David O'Selznick
21.10 Working with Korda and Spiegel, "the most intelligent producer but a bit of a crook, too"
26.40 Working with Orson Wells and stories from The Third Man
35.36 Arthur Miller & Marilyn Monroe (The Misfits)
39.55 "Paula Strasberg made her as impossible as she was"
43.23 "Do you feel sorry for [Marilyn]? No I don't"
44.32 Angela on writing a book
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
We discuss the pleasure and power of the cinema experience and which films are better on the silver screen with MUBI's podcast host, journalist Rico Cagliano.
We talk to Rico about the MUBI podcast seasons, cinemas he's researched and visited and share anecdotes about films that should be watched on a big screen, such as Lawrence Of Arabia and Wings Of Desire.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
Our weekly update with news about upcoming events and listings as well as interviews with Jose Arroyo, George Crosthwait and Hotsy Totsy
We talk about the films of Almodovar, his depiction of the Spanish civil war, Spanish cinema and Penelope Cruz with Film Professor José Arroyo, who has written extensively about the Spanish director and has interviewed him a number of times.
We invited him to mark our upcoming Penelope Cruz season, to talk more generally about the actress, Almodovar and Spanish cinema.
We discuss glamour, camp and appeal of Almodovar's filmography and Jose's own interest in the filmmaker, his working relationship with Penelope Cruz, her versatility and comparisons with Sofia Loren, depicting the Spanish Civil War and the post-Franco Spanish film industry.
We also touch on other films from our season, such as Jamon Jamon and discuss the merits of a season of contemporary Spanish "new wave" directors.
We chat about the journalist's father and fiance's campaign to secure his release from Belmarsh prison and its depiction in feature documentary Ithaka with director Ben Lawrence.
Speaking to us from his home in Australia, the filmmaker tells us more about his latest film, which follows the pair as they campaign to secure Assange's release. The film was made over 2 years and covers his extradition hearing, which helped garner media attention and widespread support for the journalist.
Ben explains how the project came about and we discuss its reception and what it means for journalists and whistleblowers everywhere.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
We chat about Marlene Dietrich, her close working relationship with Josef Von Sternberg, the changes in her persona that came with her shift to Hollywood, comparisons with Mae West and Greta Garbo, and the enduring power of stars with Dr Lucy Bolton.
Lucy is a Reader in Film Studies at Queen Mary University and her fields of research include film stardom and celebrity. She recently co-edited a collection entitled Lasting Stars: Images that Fade and Personas that Endure. We invited her on the podcast to take a deeper look at Marlene Dietrich’s career, persona and lasting influence, to mark a season dedicated to the actress.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
We discuss what makes a good documentary, the rise of true crime and streamers and indulgent filmmaking with producer and commissioner Dan Chambers.
Dan is a producer and commissioner, and is the co-founder and creative director of Blink Films. He was previously Director of Programmes at Channel 5 and has decades of experience in making, producing and commissioning factual content. He’s joined us to talk about the non-fiction format and documentaries in general.
We discuss the appeal of true crime and the rise of the streamers, the crafty storytelling of The Staircase, bias and polemic, new trends in content and funding, the merger of drama and documentary in films by directors such as Ken Loach, as well as the power of documentary over fiction when it comes to recounting certain feats, exemplified by the remarkable Hands On A Hard Body.
Dan shares his insights about the types of format and content that appeal to different markets, from the fashion for “revelations” in the US to the sometimes “quirky”, sometimes “indulgent” factual filmmaking in France, and gives his expert advice to aspiring documentary filmmakers.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
We chat to Tom Palmer and Tom Stourton, the scriptwriting team behind the feature film All My Friends Hate Me. The writers met as school and have been performing sketches and double acts since then. They created the hilarious "web film" High Renaissance Man and had previously collaborated with director Andrew Gaynord on such comedy hits as Stath Lets Flats.
We discuss the evolving nature of comedy, British influences such as Alan Partridge, their collaborative writing process, class-based satire, depicting social anxiety and paranoia, and the surprising twists in their debut feature. Spoiler alert!
You can watch Andrew Gaynord's short hit CGI Brows on YouTube.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
We chat to Colm Bairéad at the Curzon offices about his first fiction feature film, The Quiet Girl, which is based on the short story Foster by Claire Keegan. We discuss the understated and restrained qualities of the film, his reasons for choosing to adapt Keegan's novel, and the "growing confidence" of Irish language filmmaking. We also debate the ending of the film. Spoiler alert! Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
We chat about the work of directors, such as Jean Vigo and Marcel Carné, their aesthetic considerations and the stories they chose to tell, as well as the lasting legacy of that era with Professor Ginette Vincendeau.
Ginette is a Professor of Film Studies at King’s College London, and a regular contributor to Sight & Sound. Ginette has written extensively about French cinema and is currently co-editing a book on Paris in the cinema. She joins us to talk about the Golden Age of French film to mark a season dedicated to this period at the Garden Cinema.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.
We chat to Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic whose new film ‘Murina’ won the Camera d’Or at Cannes last year.
She discusses how the film tackles such emotional subjects as adolescence, cultural heritage, and family relationships in a patriarchal society. She’s interviewed by Michael Chambers, owner/manager of the cinema, and by Abla Kandalaft, a journalist and film programmer.
This podcast comes from the Garden Cinema, an independent cinema in Covent Garden in the heart of London.
Find us on the usual platforms. Send us your comments, feedback and suggestions via Twitter @thegardencinema or by contacting us at podcast@thegardencinema.co.uk.