INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE: Oscar Inside & Indie Cinema Discussions

David Wain joins us to talk about his new comedy, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass — a Sundance 2026 Official Selection starring Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm, and John Slattery, from Sony Pictures Classics. The premise is deliberately, gloriously absurd: a Midwestern bride-to-be discovers her fiancé has used his "celebrity pass" to cheat — and sets off for Los Angeles to even the score with her o...

Documentary filmmaking, indie films, and arthouse movies take center stage in this special Fourth of July episode of Inside the Arthouse — a film podcast dedicated to independent film, indie cinema, and the voices that define American storytelling. While much of the industry turns to reboots, sequels, franchises, and superheroes, we're turning to a different kind of American story — films driven b...

Carla Simón’s new film ROMERÍA follows Marina, a young woman who travels to Galicia in search of the truth about the parents she never really knew. What begins as a practical errand becomes something harder to name — an excavation of memory, silence, and the stories families carry across generations. In this conversation, Simón reflects on the autobiographical roots of the film, the challenge of t...

From the directors of Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song comes a new portrait of a man who was somehow at the center of everything — and never quite in the frame. Peter Asher was one half of Peter & Gordon, swept into the British Invasion on songs written by Paul McCartney. He signed and produced James Taylor at Apple Records. He spent the next three decades guiding Linda Ronstadt, Carol...

Who was she? In this episode of Inside the Arthouse, we sit down with groundbreaking Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour for a conversation about UNIDENTIFIED, a gripping mystery thriller set in modern Saudi Arabia. The film follows Noelle Al Saffan, a recently divorced woman rebuilding her life through a clerical job at a police station. When the body of an unidentified teenage girl is discovered i...

INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE | THE CURRENTS — Director Milagros Mumenthaler What happens when a woman survives an inexplicable impulse — and tells no one? In this episode, Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge sit down with Argentinian-Swiss filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler to discuss her haunting new psychological drama THE CURRENTS, distributed by Kino Lorber and an Official Selection of TIFF 2025. THE CURRENTS...

For our 100th episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we return to the belief that started it all: movies matter most when they are shared. Over the course of 100 episodes, this show has become a gathering place for filmmakers, actors, programmers, distributors, theater owners, advocates, and film lovers who believe in the power of cinema on the big screen, in community, and in the places where stories st...

In Time and Water, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sara Dosa turns Iceland’s disappearing glaciers, a family’s archive, and one man’s fading memory into a cinematic letter to the future. Dosa, the director of Fire of Love, joins Inside the Arthouse to discuss her new documentary from National Geographic Documentary Films. The film follows Icelandic writer and poet Andri Snær Magnason as he gathers photo...

CAN ARTISTS AFFORD SILENCE? — BERNSTEIN'S WALL With Director Douglas Tirola In this episode of Inside the Arthouse, we explore Bernstein's Wall with director Douglas Tirola, the powerful documentary examining the life, legacy, and contradictions of Leonard Bernstein. Going beyond Bernstein's extraordinary musical career, the film reveals the personal and political tensions that shaped one of the m...

What does it take to build power—and the people who wield it? In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, filmmaker Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper, Carlos) joins hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge to discuss his latest film, The Wizard of the Kremlin — starring Paul Dano and Jude Law as Vladimir Putin. We explore: – Political power and influence on screen – Storytelling and the shaping of public...

What does it mean to remake a film no one can see? The 1922 silent horror A Blind Bargain, starring Lon Chaney, is one of cinema’s great lost works—destroyed, surviving only in fragments and memory. And yet, over a century later, director Paul Bunnell set out to bring it back. In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, Bunnell discusses the strange challenge of rebuilding a film from absence—reimagin...

A haunting Māori Gothic ghost story — director Taratoa Stappard breaks down Mārama and the history, identity, and trauma behind the film. What is Mārama—and why does it feel unlike anything else in cinema right now? In this episode of Inside the Arthouse, hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge sit down with New Zealand filmmaker Taratoa Stappard to explore his haunting new film — a self-described “...

Legendary journalist Amy Goodman joins us to discuss media consolidation, independent journalism, and the new documentary Steal This Story, Please! As corporate ownership reshapes the news landscape, the fight for a free and independent press has never been more urgent. In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we’re joined by Goodman alongside Oscar-nominated filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal to...

François Ozon on Adapting Camus' The Stranger | Inside the Arthouse What does it mean to feel nothing — and why does that still resonate decades after Albert Camus first put it on the page? In this episode of Inside the Arthouse, we sit down with acclaimed French filmmaker François Ozon to discuss his bold new adaptation of Camus' The Stranger (L'Étranger) — one of the most widely read and persist...

Matthew Shear — writer, director, and star of Fantasy Life — joins us to talk about the deeply personal story behind his debut feature. In this conversation, Shear reflects on how his own experiences with anxiety and depression shaped the film, and why he wanted to portray mental health in a way that feels lived-in rather than sensationalized. Instead of leaning into extremes, Fantasy Life finds s...

Christian Petzold is widely regarded as one of the most important filmmakers in contemporary world cinema. In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we explore his latest film, MIROIRS NO. 3. From his early work to his international breakthrough with Barbara (2012), Petzold has built a remarkable body of films including Phoenix, Transit, Undine, and Afire. His collaborations with Nina Hoss and Paula...

A conversation with the Oscar-shortlisted director on history, myth, and the making of PALESTINE 36 What happens when history challenges the story we’ve been told? In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we sit down with acclaimed filmmaker Annemarie Jacir to discuss her new film PALESTINE 36, a powerful historical drama that revisits the years leading up to the creation of the State of Israel and...

SHTTL director Ady Walter and actors Moshe Lobel and Saul Rubinek discuss the film’s powerful portrait of Jewish life in a shtetl just before the Nazi invasion of Eastern Europe. What was life like in a Jewish shtetl just before the world changed forever? In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we explore SHTTL, director Ady Walter’s striking film about life in a Jewish village on the eve of World...

CHARLIEBIRD: Tribeca Best Narrative Feature Winner | Libby Ewing Interview Action. It’s the word we most often associate with movies — big spectacle, big movement, big moments. But some of the most powerful films move in a different way. Not through explosions or chase scenes, but through emotional tension, interior conflict, and the quiet shifts that change a life. CHARLIEBIRD, winner of the Foun...

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA at Lincoln CenterWhat does a nation’s cinema look like in a single moment? Each year, RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA gathers a new constellation of films — stories shaped by the tensions, desires, politics, and imaginations moving through France right now. For more than three decades, the series has offered American audiences an early glimpse of that evolving landsca...

MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN BAFTA Winner for Best Documentary and Academy Award® Nominee for Best Documentary Feature What do you do when your government goes to war — and you believe it’s wrong? In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we explore the extraordinary story behind MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN, the BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary that offers a rare inside look at life in Putin’s...

COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT with director Ryan White Oscar-nominated documentary Come See Me in the Good Light follows celebrated poet Andrea Gibson after a cancer diagnosis reshapes their life — revealing how comedy, love, and poetry become powerful acts of resilience. In this INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE Oscar Spotlight episode, director Ryan White joins us for an in-depth conversation about the making...

Oscar-nominated director Geeta Gandbhir joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE to discuss her powerful new documentary, THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR. In this in-depth conversation, Gandbhir explores the real-life story behind the film, the moral complexities at its center, and the responsibility of documentary storytelling in today’s cultural landscape. Inside the Making of THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR- Oscar Nominee Best Doc...

The phrase “observational documentary” immediately evokes cinéma vérité pioneers like Frederick Wiseman and the Maysles Brothers — filmmakers who defined patient, fly-on-the-wall nonfiction storytelling. With their Academy Award–nominated documentary **CUTTING THROUGH ROCKS**, directors Sarah Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni carry that tradition into urgent contemporary territory. It’s a rare Oscar rec...

Oscar Nominated Documentary: THE ALABAMA SOLUTION As part of our ongoing series featuring interviews with this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Feature, we speak with directors Andrew Jarecki (CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS) and Charlotte Kaufman about their Oscar-nominated film, THE ALABAMA SOLUTION. Premiering to critical acclaim at Sundance and now a 2026 Academy Award nominee, the f...