Celebrating Cinema

As longtime admirers of Mia Hansen-Løve's body of work here on the podcast, producer Elliot hosts a very candid and revealing conversation with the French director. In her latest film Un Beau Matin, Mia describes it as her most auto-biographical film to date. Mia shares how she is able to explore such existential questions from such an intimate portrait. Find out what moves Mia to make films and w...

Directors Sarah Blok & Lisa Konno join to discuss their short trilogy of non-traditional immigrant story of fathers. With an exhibition at this year's Dutch Design Week and the release of their book, which you can buy here , we explore how this hybrid form of fashion-stylised documentaries can offer a more intimate portrayal of their subjects. Candidly, Lisa & Sarah share the inspiration b...

Joined by the programmers of Imagine Film Festival, the largest celebration for fantastic film in the Netherlands, showcasing the best in fantasy, horror and science fiction. Lauren & Stan along with Tom & Hugo reminisce their first turn down spooky lane. Along this nostalgic path of agreeable scarring, they question what really is a horror in today’s film landscape. With our partners Mubi...

If a loved-one decided they had enough of life and wanted it to come to an end, how would you respond? Director, Floor van der Meulen joins Elliot to explore her fictional feature debut Pink Moon that asks this very question of its audience. In this candid discussion, Floor and Elliot unpack the roots of desire for a self-determined death, is it a reflection of a disconnected and lonely society? W...

Are we witnessing the end of American mainstream cinema? Diving deep into this topic, Hugo invites filmmaker, film critic and video essay connoisseur Scout Tafoya. In collaboration with Tucker Johnson, Scout explores this very question with a compelling 10-part video-essay series through the lens of Ridley & Tony Scott as the forefathers of the American blockbuster. Why has Hollywood become so...

Find out how a particular holiday experience led director Christian Tafdrup to write his latest film Speak No Evil (2022). Out now here in The Netherlands, this suspenseful dark comedy about a holiday encounter between a Dutch & Danish family comes with a chilling twist. Speaking with Elliot, Christian shares how his playful approach to horror genre conventions helps create a truly visceral ex...

Here to discuss the mesmerising nature of volcanoes captured through the lens of Katia & Maurice Krafft, director Sara Dosa joins us for a candid talk about her latest documentary Fire of Love (2022). From a treasure trove of 200 hours worth of archival footage, Sara shares why she crafted a love story not only between two French volcanologists but also their life's work - volcanoes. Find out...

Here to discuss her latest film Splendid Isolation (2022) and the poetry of cinema, Urszula Antoniak candidly shares why this is a film to be experienced. A 73-minute allegory that invites us all to reflect on our collective confrontation with death in recent years. Find out why Urszula sees this as an uplifting story of our own mortality.

With Joanna Hogg's sequel to her highly autobiographical film The Souvenir (2019), we take a look at one of its stars - Tilda Swinton. There has always been a certain indefinable quality to her iconic acting, refusing to ever be type-casted to a particular role. Tilda has continued to evolve with her incredible range of performances, becoming the muse for many auteurs. What makes her otherworldly,...

Listen to Uberto Pasolini's journey to becoming a filmmaker. After leaving the banking industry early on to pursue a career in film, it was only a matter of time before Uberto would transition from producer to director. With his latest film Nowhere Special (2020), a tender portrait of an intimate father and son relationship, we hear how Uberto develops true stories into touching cinematic moments...

Recorded live from the French airport Nice, Hugo & Tom recap their rollercoaster experience of Cannes Film Festival. This dispatch finally arrives from the delayed luggage carousel packed with hot takes and films to look out for, as well as stories of Tom's lavish escapades. From Tom's maiden voyage to Hugo being a seasoned attendee, does the spectacle of Cannes live up to its grand illusion?&...

With David Cronenberg's latest film Crimes of the Future (2022) out now in cinemas, we delve deep into the Cronenberg universe, exploring this polarising figure and his portrayal of everything grotesque, sexual and visceral. Are we afraid to be physically moved by cinema or do we enjoy the perversions we are shown? Find out if we can stomach (literally) all things Cronenberg.

Once proclaimed the most beautiful boy in the world by Italian director Luchino Visconti, former teen star Björn Andrésen has forever been marked by this and what followed after starring as Tadzio in Visconti's Death in Venice (1971). Speaking with Elliot, Björn candidly shares what it was like to revisit these experiences during the filming of the newly released documentary The Most Beautiful Boy...

A teenage girl discovers an egg that starts to hatch...  Finnish director Hanna Bergholm joins Hugo to discuss her gripping feature debut Hatching (2022), which made its world premiere at Sundance Film Festival 2022. This body-horror, coming-of-age drama certainly packs a punch. From 70s horror films to working with the best animatronic designer out there, find out Hanna's journey to creating...

"Open the pod bay doors, HAL." It's about time we celebrated one of the greatest films in cinema - Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Kubrick’s dazzling, Academy Award-winning achievement is a compelling drama of man vs. machine, a stunning meld of music and motion, but what's the deal? Why is this film a timeless classic? Here to try make sense of it all, we discuss what this film me...

Back for season 2 and here to grace you with a two hour special all about writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson! Licorice Pizza (2021) has finally hit screens, so it's only right we take a look back at his career. PTA certainly has an obsession with co-dependent relationships, creating sympathy for unruly characters, and a true connoisseur of fuck boys but does it always pay off?

With Paul Schrader's must-read book Transcendental Style In Film - suggested by director Viktor van der Valk - as a stepping stone for the last Celebrating Cinema podcast of 2021, our hosts discuss the different varieties of transcendental filmmaking and the way it impacts us as viewers. They talk about their film club pick, Robert Bresson's Au Hasard Balthazar (1966), and mention essential filmma...

With both the festive season upon us and new restrictions imposed on cinemas, the mack is back and we're here to discuss our cinema comforts! We discuss our chicken-soup films that we watch religiously, as well as try to determine the common themes tying our movie choices that can reveal what we find comforting about our picks.

It’s about time we absolve ourselves of the guilt we feel when enjoying our personal favourites! Writer Basje Boer joins us again to discuss why we should be liberated from the stigma of loving overtly shlocky action films, non-sensical comedies, and schmaltzy teen dramas and romcoms. We question what exactly we are suppose to feel guilty of and how this can limit your own unique love of cinema. -...

With the release of their feature debut Gagarine (2020) in cinemas here in The Netherlands, we spoke with directors Fanny Liatard & Jérémy Trouilh to discuss the duality of Paris captured on screen. We explore how their magic-realist drama bridges the tensions between the romanticised dreamlike city and its neglected suburbs, united by a universal ability to dream and the importance of utopian...

To “celebrate” the release of Clint Eastwood’s latest film Cry Macho and maybe his final swan song, Hugo & Tom get together to discuss their very different relationships to this Hollywood 'icon'. On the surface this may appear to be a review of one man's career in film, but perhaps it reveals something about our own attitude to cinema. Is this the Clint Eastwood spin-off show Hugo has always w...

In conjunction with the upcoming Camera Japan Festival at LAB111, a celebration of upcoming and contemporary Japanese films, we explore our own personal relationship to what Japanese cinema offers. The wealth of Japanese films are too rich to ever justly cover in a single episode, so instead we are joined by programmer and researcher of Japanese cinema Julian Ross, to explore an overlooked genre o...

It's the big bang of both our 10th episode and the origins of the summer blockbuster, although this episode is not quite like the high-end production of your usual Hollywood films! With Hugo at Venice film festival, Kiriko & Tom attempt to determine the definition of a (summer) blockbuster, is it more than just a "box-office hit"? In conjunction with the upcoming Suspicious Minds program , a r...

Before our Celebrating Cinema podcast takes a summer hiatus, we had the chance to check in with our film critic Hugo, for a special episode on Cannes Film Festival! Hugo, part of a jury in Cannes and chatting to us from the French Riviera, joins LAB111 programmer Tom, who wrestles with his fomo, as Hugo considers this the greatest edition of the renowned festival. With his love for lists Tom runs...

A director is much like a chef, and it is no surprise that directors often use cooking analogies when describing their own process. However, what is perhaps unclear is how a tomato actually symbolises the very essence of cinema, and why eating a blood sausage or a strawberry risotto could correlate to watching a Quentin Tarantino or Sofia Coppola film. Joining us in this celebration of food and ci...