Seventh Row Podcast (Seventh Row)

We discuss Benedict Cumberbatch at his best, worst, & poshest, from The Power of the Dog to The Courier to The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and regular guest Caitlin Merriman. 

Show notes:

• The Power of the Dog is streaming on Netflix
• The Courier is available on VOD and streaming on Prime
• The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is streaming on Prime
• Stuart: A Life Backward (David Attwood, 2007) is streaming on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the US

Related Episodes

• Bonus 22: Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (Member's Only)
• Bonus 20: Belfast and the self-mythologising of Kenneth Branagh (Member's Only)
• Bonus 19: Who is the poshest actor in Britain? (Member's Only)
• Ep. 111: TIFF 2021, part 2 (Member's Only)
• Ep. 28: 1917 and Jarhead — Sam Mendes’ war films (Member's Only)
• 21st Folio, Episode 1: Hamlet at the Barbican with Benedict Cumberbatch

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

In the second episode of our Creative Nonfiction Film podcast season, Sophie Fiennes discusses The Four Quartets and how she approaches documenting live performance on screen. In The Four Quartets, she captures the stage play of the same name, directed by and starring her brother, actor Ralph Fiennes. For the production, Ralph Fiennes adapted the T.S. Eliot poem for the stage — which was never originally intended to be performed that way — and then toured this production around the UK in 2021.

Sophie Fiennes’s film of The Four Quartets is neither live capture nor a full adaptation of the play. Instead, Fiennes remarkably documents the theatre production on screen, maintaining all the original lighting and blocking. Her choices of framing and camera movement really puts us in the black box theatre with Ralph Fiennes. Unlike most recorded theatre, where there is a constant sense of information loss, Sophie Fiennes gives us a sense of the theatrical space so we get a better sense of what we’re missing when we’re missing it. It’s built into Sophie Fiennes’s direction.

Sophie Fiennes discusses Ralph Fiennes’s production, the challenges of documenting the play on screen, and how working with Declan Donnellan of Cheek by Jowl just before she shot The Four Quartets changed how she thinks about acting and theatre.

Click here to read the episode show notes.

The show notes also include excerpts from Sophie Fiennes's director's script.

You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes.

Useful links

• Read T.S. Eliot’s The Four Quartets
• Listen to Cheek by Jowl’s Not True But Useful podcast episode on thresholds and space
• Read our interview with Sophie Fiennes on Grace Jones: Bloodlight and Bami

More on creative nonfiction

Download a FREE excerpt from Subjective Realities here.

Get your copy of the ebook Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film here.

Get your copy of the ebook In their own words: Documentary Masters vol. 1

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only.

We also regularly record members only episodes.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

As a member, you will also be supporting what we do, and helping us cover the (expensive) costs of hosting, running a website, podcast equipment, and more. This helps to ensure we can continue producing the podcast.

Related Episodes on creative nonfiction

• Ep. 99: Creative Nonfiction with Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen
• Sundance 2023 Ep. 7: Best of the fest + documentaries Fantastic Machine, Is There Anybody Out There, and more
• Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative Nonfiction

Members Only Episodes

• Ep. 67: Frederick Wiseman’s Ex Libris and City Hall  (Members only)
• Ep. 95: No Ordinary Man and John Ware Reclaimed: Reclaiming history in documentary (Members only)

Credits

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Email us at contact seventh row com.

This episode was edited, produced, and recorded by Alex Heeney.

On today's episode of the podcast, we discuss Japanese filmmaker Naomi Kawase who has been programmed at the Cannes Film Festival more than almost any other director this century, and why she's one of the best and most under-appreciated filmmakers.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and special guest Milly Gribben.

Get the box set of books about women directors — Kelly Reichardt, Céline Sciamma, and Lynne Ramsay — who have screened films in the Cannes Competition.

Sign up for updates on the podcast and other news about women directors at Cannes this year. 

On this episode:

• Intro (0:00)
• Who is Naomi Kawase? (11:45)
• Our introductions to Naomi Kawase (15:57)
• The themes in Naomi Kawase’s films (26:00)
• Sound and sense of place in Kawase’s films (47:15)
• Why are men so mad at Naomi Kawase? (51:48)
• Why Cannes hasn’t always been the best launchpad for Naomi Kawase (1:04:50)
• Closing thoughts (1:07:47)

Show notes:

• View the history of women directors at Cannes
• Watch Naomi Kawase’s TED Talk on her approach to cinema
• Read Lindsay Pugh’s review of Sweet Bean on her website Woman in Revolt
• Read Lindsay's interview with Sweet Bean actress Kirin Kiki
• Read Alex's profile interview with Agnieszka Holland
• Read Orla's interview with Ammonite director Francis Lee

Related episodes:

• Women at Cannes Ep. 1: A podcast on the history of women directors at Cannes
• Women at Cannes Ep. 2: Kelly Reichardt at Cannes 2022
• Women at Cannes Ep. 3: Céline Sciamma at Cannes
• Ep. 80: The Babadook and Prevenge: Motherhood in horror (Members' Only)
• Bonus 16: Watching Lena Dunham’s Girls in 2021 (Members' Only)
• : Water Lilies and Jennifer’s Body: Girlhood and compulsory heterosexuality (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

On This Episode:

• Intro (1:05)
• Why did Andrew Haigh do this series? (16:42)
• Andrew Haigh on upending expectations in his work (28:11)
• Who is the real evil? Drax, Cavendish, and Baxter (35:01)
• What does it mean to be civilized (45:12)
• Sumner and Drax as mirrors (51:51)
• The episodic structure (1:00:03)
• The Inuit characters (1:20:01)
• The lack of promotion for the series (1:27:27)
• Conclusion (1:32:55)

Show Notes:

• Visit our Directors We Love page on Andrew Haigh, collecting all of our articles and podcasts about his film and television work
• Check out MovieJawn magazine for Fiona's article on The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, starring a young Tom Courtenay
• Purchase our ebook on Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete
• Purchase our ebook on Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir

Related episodes

• Ep. 110: Brief encounters: Weekend and End of the Century
• Ep. 94: Looking
• Ep. 91: AIDS on screen, featuring It’s a Sin
• Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2
• Ep. 53: Boys State and First Stripes
• Ep. 32: Sorry We Missed You and Peterloo
• Ep. 7: Andrew Haigh’s Lean on Pete

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

In this episode of the TIFF 2024 season, Alex discusses two films starring Ralph Fiennes: Uberto Pasolini's The Return and Edward Berger's Conclave. In them, Fiennes respectively plays Odysseus at the end of his journey and a cardinal in charge of the process for selecting a new pope.

The episode is spoiler-free.

About the TIFF 2024 season:

In the TIFF 2024 season, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney will discuss some of the best under-the-radar gems at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival through themed episodes.

This is for you if:

• You're attending TIFF and looking for recommendations;
• You're looking ahead to your local film festival for must-see titles; and/or
• You're interested in how filmmakers from around the world explore similar topics/genres, even if you're not sure if you'll ever see the films.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Check out all of our TIFF 2024 coverage here: https://seventh-row.com/tif24

----

Interested in attending a film festival?

Get my five essential tips for the film adventurer seeking a fantastic festival experience.

These tips are tailored to TIFF but will work for any other film festival.

Sign up here: http://email.seventh-row.com/tiff24

In this episode, we discuss Luca Guadagnino’s new film Challengers (2024), which stars Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Seventh Row favourite Josh O’Connor as competitive tennis players and romantic rivals. 

Film critic and Katherine Hepburn obsessive Andrew Kendall joins host Alex Heeney for the episode. We are both Josh O’Connor super-fans and liked the film. But we had a lot of issues with it. We discuss why we can’t stop thinking about it and where it disappoints. 

Get your copy of Alex’s book on Luca Guadagnino’s Call Me by Your Name.

Get your copy of Alex’s book on Francis Lee’s film God’s Own Country, which stars Josh O’Connor in his breakout role.

Get both books with our 35% discounted bundle here.

For detailed show notes,  click here. There is also an AI-generated transcript available on our website.

Subscribe to our FREE newsletter for updates on all Seventh Row content + streaming recommendations. 

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Andrew Kendall on Twitter. Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

On this episode:

0:00 Intro to Challengers and why we’re talking about the film (Josh O’Connor and Luca Guadagnino)

6:04 Why can’t we stop thinking about the film even though we had issues with it? What’s all the fuss about?

13:40 Tennis serves as an extended metaphor and a structure of the film and informs the film’s grammar

26:15 Missing scenes and character development

56:49 The film fails to recognize momentous occasions and how this relates to the way the film was shot

1:00:00 How Luca Guadagnino’s direction rescues weaknesses in the script and performances

1:20:00 Will Challengers still matter by the end of the year or years from now?

1:23:00 Where you can find us, related episodes, coming soon on the podcast

Show Notes

• Purchase a copy of Alex’s ebook Call Me by Your Name: A Special Issue

• Purchase a copy of Alex’s ebook God’s Own Country: A Special Issue

• Read Andrew’s review of Challengers for Stabroek News

• Read Seventh Row’s Special Issue on A Bigger Splash

Read Alex’s piece on Josh O’Connor’s performances in Emma. and Hope Gap

Related Episodes:

Get the Spotify Playlist of FREE related episodes.

• Ep. 110: Weekend and End of the Century 

• Ep. 115: Revisiting The English Patient 25 Years Later with Andrew Kendall

• Ep. 33: Comparing Emma Adaptations, including Emma. starring Josh O’Connor (Members Only)

• Ep. 28: 1917 and Jarhead: Sam Mendes’ war films (Members Only)

• Ep. 66 Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country and Ammonite 

• Ep. 71: The Crown Season 4 

• Ep. 4: Suspiria and Luca Guadagnino’s violent bodies (Members Only)

• Ep. 94: Looking HBO with Andrew Kendall (Members Only)

More episodes featuring Andrew Kendall

• Ep. 115: Revisiting The English Patient 25 Years Later (Members Only)

• Ep. 82: Quo Vadis, Aida and Our Lady of the Nile: Genocide on Film (Members Only)

• Ep. 108: The Deep Blue Sea(s) Redux

Discover all episodes featuring Andrew Kendall.

Coming Soon: Abortion on Film Season

In this six-episode season, we discuss how socially progressive depictions of abortion on film have changed and developed since the 1950s. The season will start airing publicly in late May, but you can listen to the entire season today as a member!

Find out more about the Abortion on Film season

Become a member to listen to the entire season today! We will begin airing the show to the public in the coming weeks.

The 2024 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) kicks off on Thursday, September 5, and Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney will cover it with a series of podcast episodes.

In this episode, Alex introduces the podcast season and explains why this season is for you and whether or not you're attending TIFF this year.

I'll explain what to expect from this podcast season and why TIFF and our coverage are relevant to you if you're interested in exploring world cinema. 

About the TIFF 2024 season:

In the TIFF 2024 season, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney will discuss some of the best under-the-radar gems at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival through themed episodes.

This is for you if:

• You're attending TIFF and look for recommendations;
• You're looking ahead to your local film festival for must-see titles; and/or
• You're interested in how filmmakers from around the world are exploring similar topics/genres, even if you're not sure if you'll ever see the films.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Click here for a link to all of our TIFF 2024 coverage.

----

Interested in attending a film festival?

Get my five essential tips for the film adventurer seeking a fantastic festival experience.

These tips are tailored to TIFF but will work for any other film festival.

This summer, Seventh Row is hosting The 2021 Creative Nonfiction Workshop: a series of masterclasses, screenings, and discussions about boundary-pushing nonfiction filmmaking.

But what do we mean when we say "Creative Nonfiction"? We discuss on this bonus episode.

Pre-registration for the workshop closes on Wednesday June 23 at midnight ET, so make sure you sign up by then if you're interested in attending. The only way to purchase tickets is to pre-register.

To pre-register and find out more about the workshop, visit lockdownfilmschool.com/nonfiction

• Other recent Shakespeare episodes (1:48)
• Background on Vinall's career (3:55)
• What Vinall loves about Shakespeare (8:28)
• Contemporary acting style in Shakespeare (15:50)
• Performing Shakespeare in different venues (28:28)
• Rosalind in As You Like It (33:07)
• Working with directors (37:47)
• Seeing other performances of Shakespeare as an actor (46:52)
• Acting in a live recording (51:14)
• Vinall's next projects (55:32)
• Conclusion (57:38)

Show notes:

• Follow Olivia Vinall on Instagram (@olivia_vinall)
• Read Alex's career profile interview with of Olivia
• Read Alex's review of Sam Mendes' production of King Lear, starring Vinall
• Vinall's performance in Othello is available through National Theatre at Home
• Olivia Vinall has narrated 13 audiobooks, including Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd. They are available through itunes and Audible.

Related episodes:

• Bonus 24: Kenneth Branagh’s Much Ado About Nothing (Member's Only)
• Bonus 22: Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth (Member's Only)
• Bonus 17: Saoirse Ronan and James McArdle in The Tragedy of Macbeth at the Almeida Theatre (Member's Only)
• 21st Folio, ep. 6: Maxine Peake talks Hamlet

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

After a six-month hiatus, the Seventh Row podcast is back and revamped. We won't be publishing weekly, but we will regularly release episodes every time there's a film or topic we really, really care about.

Here's a preview of what's coming in November and December — many of which are members only episodes.

We also announce our next podcast season due out in 2023. We've been hard at work researching and preparing for this since May (hence the hiatus).

To become a member for exclusive access to all of our episodes, including all of our in-between season episodes, go to http://seventh-row.com/join

Show notes:

• Read Alex’s 2015 review of Justin Kurzel’s Macbeth
• Listen to the 21st Folio episode discussing Kurzel’s Macbeth
• Sign up for updates on the first book to ever be published on the films of Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier

Related episodes:

• Bonus 17: Saoirse Ronan and James McArdle in The Tragedy of Macbeth at the Almeida Theatre
• Ep. 108: The Deep Blue Sea(s)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Tickets for The Seventh Circle: A Symposium on Gender, Sexuality, and Disability in Horror Cinema, have reopened for one week only! Get your ticket before Sunday at midnight. Purchase at http://seventh-row.com/seventh-circle

50% discount code: SeventhCircleDec21 (expires Friday Dec 10th at midnight EST).

In this episode of the TIFF 2024 season, Alex discusses two new films from masters of British social realism: Andrea Arnold's Bird and Mike Leigh's Hard Truths.

Bird had its world premiere at Cannes in May; Hard Truths had its world premiere at TIFF.

Alex finds similarities in subject matter and storytelling approach between the films, including the very strong performances from some Seventh Row favourites, and discusses what each of them is individually doing that's worth noting. 

Alex wrote the book on Mike Leigh's Peterloo and his process, so her discussion of Hard Truths places it within Leigh's oeuvre and discusses how his signature process helped make this film an impressive achievement.

On this episode

0:00 Intro to the episode

3:34 Andrea Arnold's Bird

16:32 Mike Leigh's Hard Truths

38:14 Closing remarks, more from TIFF to find and look forward to

More Andrea Arnold

• An essay on landscape and limbo in Fish Tank by Gillie Collins
• A review of American Honey by Elena Lazic
• An interview with editor Joe Bini by Orla Smith on editing Lynne Ramsay's You Were Never Really Here and how that differs from working with Andrea Arnold

More Mike Leigh

• Read our ebook on Mike Leigh's Peterloo: mikeleighbook.com
• Listen to Ep. 32: Sorry We Missed You and Peterloo (Members Only)
• Listen to Ep. 119: Mike Leigh's Naked (FREE)
• Listen to us discuss Vera Drake and its place in the history of abortion movies in our Abortion on Film season.

About the TIFF 2024 season:

In the TIFF 2024 season, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney will discuss some of the best under-the-radar gems at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival through themed episodes.

This is for you if:

• You're attending TIFF and looking for recommendations;
• You're looking ahead to your local film festival for must-see titles; and/or
• You're interested in how filmmakers from around the world explore similar topics/genres, even if you're not sure if you'll ever see the films.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Check out all of our TIFF 2024 coverage here: https://seventh-row.com/tif24

----

Interested in attending a film festival?

Get my five essential tips for the film adventurer seeking a fantastic festival experience.

These tips are tailored to TIFF but will work for any other film festival.

Sign up here: http://email.seventh-row.com/tiff24

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/11/03/ep-64-lockdown-film-school-with-alice-winocour/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Show notes:

**To sign up for the Reel Ruminators (Free Trial), visit https://email.seventh-row.com/trial.**

In this episode, Alex Heeney discusses the new independent British film The Old Man and the Land, which was just released in the U.K. The film is told almost entirely as a series of voicemails from a farmer's two adult children (played by Rory Kinnear and Emily Beecham). 

On screen, we only ever see the farmer (their father) tending to the land, doing his chores and daily activities. We never see the people whose voices we hear. The film raises interesting questions about how the film differs (or not) from a radio play in how it tells the story. What does the disconnect between sound and image in cinema offer for the story?

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

In the second episode of the Sundance 2023 podcast season, we discuss Sundance's Spotlight Program, its only feature film program dedicated to films that premiered at other festivals. We discuss the program's history of picking great films and giving them the spotlight they needed (but didn't get at other festivals). 

We discuss four of the five films programmed in the Spotlight section: Other People's Children, Joyland, L'Immensità, and The Eight Mountains. Since we already talked about Other People's Children in depth on a previous episode, we only discuss it briefly here. Additionally, we go deep on The Eight Mountains, which Alex loved, and briefly discuss the other two films in the program that we've seen which we weren't too keen on.

We've actually written books featuring several of the films that screened in Spotlight, including You Were Never Really Here, Girlhood, and The Worst Person in the World. And several of the films previously programmed in the last decade have made our list of the best films of the 2010s.

Click here to read the episode show notes.

You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes. 

About the Sundance 2023 season

This is the second episode of our new podcast season on the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we'll be covering this year's festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival's history. This is Seventh Row's second podcast season (the first was on Women at Cannes in 2022).

Sundance 2023 Bingo

Because the festival loves to program films by slot and quota, we are also introducing our annual Sundance Bingo Card, which you can download here. Play along during the festival (or look at past festival editions and the films you've caught which screened there). You can find this year's bingo card in the show notes on our website.

In each expisode we'll track our progress on the Bingo card, individuall and as a Seventh Row team.

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only.

We also regularly record members only episodes.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney @bwestcineaste Twitter and Instagram; and Orla Smith @orlamango on Twitter and @orla_p_smith on Instagram.

Show Notes

Links to articles/books on films that previously screened in Spotlight

• Read our list of Seventh Row's 50 Favourite Films of the 2010s, which also includes many films that screened in Sundance's Spotlight Program, including Oslo, August 31st (#1), Their Finest, Raw, and You Were Never Really Here.
• Get our ebook on Lynne Ramsay's most recent Spotlight film: You Were Never Really Here: A Special Issue
• Get our ebook on the Céline Sciamma, Portraits of resistance: The cinema of Céline Sciamma, which includes an interview with Sciamma on Girlhood conducted in Park City at Sundance in 2015 when the film screened in Spotlight.
• Read Orla Smith's interview with writer-director Haifaa Al-Mansour on The Perfect Candidate, which previously screened in Spotlight in 2020.
• Read Alex Heeney's interview with writer-director Rebecca Miller on Maggie’s Plan, which previously screened in Spotlight in 2016.
• Read Alex Heeney's interview with director Lone Scherfig on Their Finest, which previously screened in Spotlight in 2017.
• Download the Sundance 2023 bingo card to follow along at home.

Related episodes to E2: Sundance 2023 Spotlight program

Discover all of our past podcast episodes on films that screened at Sundance.

To listen to all of these related episodes, become a member.

• Ep. 116: Virtual film festivals: Taking stock of their past, present, and future (Members Only). Sundance is one of the only festivals in 2023 still offering a virtual component. On this episode, we talked about the advent of virtual film festivals and what we'd like to see in the future.
• Ep. 129: Highlights of 2022 Fall Film Festivals (Members Only). We discuss the best films that screened on the festival circuit in fall 2022. This includes a free in-depth discussion of Other People's Children.

Episodes on Films featured in the Spotlight section

• Ep. 112: Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World (Free). As the world experts on the films of Joachim Trier (our book on his work will be out later this year), we published an episode on his twice Oscar-nominated film The Worst Person in the World (2021), which screened in Spotlight in 2022.
• Ep. 73: Explorations of rape culture in Promising Young Woman and The Assistant (Members Only). Although The Assistant premiered at Telluride in 2020, it only really started generating buzz after its 2021 screening in the Spotlight Program at Sundance. In this episode, we discuss its depiction of rape culture alongside a bigger Sundance hit (which was also much less nuanced), Promising Young Woman.
• Ep. 107: Another Round and Oslo, August 31st: Are men OK? Masculinity, mental health, & addiction(Members Only). Joachim Trier first came to Sundance in 2012 with Oslo, August 31st (which premiered at Cannes in 2011), our #1 film of the 2010s. We talk about how the film addresses masculinity, mental health, & addiction and how this compares with the more recent film, a decade later, Another Round.

Episodes on genre films featured in the Sundance Spotlight program

• Ep. 17: The Nightingale (Members Only): Having launched her career in the World Dramatic Competition at Sundance, Jennifer Kent once again returned to the festival with her second feature, The Nightingale, which premiered at Venice to an underwhelming response. We thought the film was rich and excellent in many ways (if flawed), and went deep on it on the podcast.
• Ep. 112: Raw and Thelma and modern female monsters (Members Only): After receiving rave reviews (and press about vomiting walkouts) at Cannes and TIFF, Julia Ducournau (who later won the Palme d'Or for Titane) screened her first feature, Raw at Sundance in the Spotlight program. We talk about the film in comparison with Joachim Trier's Thelma.
• Ep. 38 Australian Westerns: The True History of the Kelly Gang, Sweet Country, and The Dressmaker (Members Only): Warwick Thornton's fantastic feature Sweet Country previously screened in the Sundance Spotlight program after premiering (and winning an award) at Venice and TIFF. In this episode, we discuss how Thornton decolonizes the Australian Western, as well as how this compares to Australian Westerns about settler characters (made by settlers).

**To sign up for the Reel Ruminators (Free Trial), visit https://email.seventh-row.com/trial.**

In this episode of the TIFF 2024 season, Alex is joined by Toronto-based film critic Angelo Muredda to discuss one of our most anticipated titles of the festival: Luca Guadagnino's Queer. 

The film adapts the Williams S. Burroughs novel of the same name. Daniel Craig stars as William Lee, Burroughs' alter-ego, a lonely man in post-war Mexico City, desperately chasing after younger men. When he meets Eugene Allerton (Drew Starkey), he's instantly smitten, but Allerton plays hot and cold with him. After a tentative on-again-off-again courtship, Lee persuades Allerton to go to South America with him in search of hallucinogenic drugs that will help with telepathy.

In Queer, Guadagnino has reteamed with several Challengers collaborators: screenwriter Justin Kuritzkes, costume designer Jonathan Anderson, cinematographer Sayombhu Mukdeeprom, and editor Marco Costa. 

The episode is spoiler-free.

About the TIFF 2024 season:

The TIFF 2024 season will give you a preview of some of the best under-the-radar gems and some of the buzziest titles at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival through themed episodes.

This is for you if:

• You're attending TIFF and looking for recommendations;
• You're looking ahead to your local film festival for must-see titles; and/or
• You're interested in how filmmakers from around the world explore similar topics/genres, even if you're not sure if you'll ever see the films.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Check out all of our TIFF 2024 coverage here: https://seventh-row.com/tiff24

• Our ebook Tour of memories: The creative process behind Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir provides the trademark Seventh Row 360-degree view of Hogg’s filmmaking process on The Souvenir. Read interviews with all of Hogg’s key behind the lens collaborators, several of whom have been working with her since her first film, Unrelated.
• Read Alex's 2016 essay on Tom Hiddleston and the hollow charm thwarting the promise of a great actor

• Bonus Episode 12: "Josh O'Connor Implying Sleekness and Speed" (Member's Only)
• Ep. 71: The Crown Season Four (Member's Only)
• Ep. 61: Toxic male privilege in The Riot Club and What Richard Did (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

To commemorate the passing of Terence Davies, we are re-releasing our discussion of his film The Deep Blue Sea. It was originally published on September 8, 2021.

This week we are re-releasing our The Deep Blue Sea podcast in celebration of Terence Davies' new film, Benediction, and in memorial to Helen McRory, who passed away in April. This episode discusses two versions of Terence Ratigan's 1952 play, The Deep Blue Sea. Davies' 2011 film version is a moving portrayal of memory and Carrie Cracknell's National Theatre Live production from 2016 features strong characterization. We discuss adaptation choices, acting brilliance, how the two directors adapt the play to fit their interests, and more. This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and special guest Andrew Kendall. Show Notes

• Sign up for our daily TIFF 21 newsletter (September 9-19). Discover the best new films to premiere at the festival, from buzzed-about titles like The Worst Person in the World and The Power of the Dog to under-the-radar gems nobody else is talking about.
• Read Alex on how Davies’ adaptation is a memory film with an unreliable narrator.
• The Deep Blue Sea was 13th on our best of the decade list. See the other choices here.
• Read Alex on the Tom Hiddleston and the hollow charm thwarting the promise of a great actor.
• Visit our Special Issue on a A Quiet Passion page for more on Terence Davies.
• Read Alex's interview with Lone Scherfig, which includes a discussion about Helen McRory in Their Finest.
• Become a Film Adventurer Member to listen to more great episodes from our archive.

Cannes 2022 kicks off on May 17, so let’s celebrate the wonderful work by women who have been at Cannes this year and in the past.

Join us for a podcast season starting May 11 on women directors in the Cannes Competition, and get the Box Set of books on women directors at Cannes.

Happy New Year! If you want 2025 to be the year you watch good movies, the secret to success is a curated watchlist. It's the best way to make sure that reaching for what's easy will be synonymous with reaching for films you actually want to see — including films that might have felt like aspirational achievements you'll never reach.

In this episode, Alex shares three reasons you need a curated watchlist for 2025.

***Want help to sit down and make those tough decisions about what you're going to watch this year? Join the Curate Your 2025 Watchlist Workshop on January 12. Sign up here: http://seventh-row.com/watchlist

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Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

Announcement: Our new membership, Reel Ruminators: A Movie-of-the-Month Discussion Club is now open for new members in August! Doors close on August 9 at 11:59 p.m. EST. Once doors close, we won't be opening them again until October.

Find out more and reserve your spot by clicking here.

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Alex Heeney interviews South African director and co-writer Oliver Schmitz about the 4K restoration of his landmark 1988 film, Mapantsula. Mapantsula was the first movie about the realities of apartheid that was actually made by South Africans in South Africa. 

In the press notes for, director Oliver Schmitz writes, “Mapantsula is not just a film, it is an act of defiance. It is guerilla filmmaking and a cameo of some of the best talent from South AFRICA in the 1980’s — and by that, I mean Black talent, that had been held back, had no voice, and could not speak freely. Mapantsula was a taste of freedom at a time of the worst repression in South Africa. It was a loud andclear expletive at the Apartheid Government. It was a film that should not have been made, and yet, it was.”

The film is now in theatres in the US and available to stream on BFI Player in the UK.

>> Subscribe to our FREE newsletter for updates on the best new under-the-radar films and streaming theatre productions <<

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

For detailed show notes, visit the Seventh Row website. There is also an AI-generated transcript available.

Frederick Wiseman's long career exploring the functions of American institutions continues with his recent City Hall. On this episode, we contrast it with Ex Libris, considering how Wiseman's films differ when looking at systems which function well and systems which are not working.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and special guest Michael Snydel

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/11/24/ep-67-frederick-wisemans-ex-libris-city-hall/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

***Join the Seventh Row newsletter to stay updated and find out about more great under-the-radar character dramas: http://email.seventh-row.com

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2024 has been a landmark year for Luca Guadagnino, with the release of his tennis drama Challengers and his adaptation of William S. Burroughs' Queer. As these films garner attention, Alex Heeney takes this opportunity to revisit Guadagnino's 2017 masterpiece Call Me by Your Name, a film she deems his best work to date.

In this episode, Alex explores connections between Call Me by Your Name and Guadagnino's latest films, noting how the opening credits of Queer serve as a direct homage to those of Call Me by Your Name.

She delves into why she loves Call Me by Your Name, from how it works as a 'romance of stuff,' its attention to tactile details, its flirtatious editing style, and its ability to evoke a world beyond the frame.

Purchase our ebook on Luca Guadagnino's Call Me by Your Name

Related Episodes:

• TIFF 2024 Ep. 7 Luca Guadagnino's Queer
• Ep. 137 Luca Guadagnino's Challengers
• Ep. 23 Find Me and adapting Andre Aciman for the screen

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

On today’s episode, Alex recommends the Cillian Murphy Irish drama Small Things Like These, directed by Tim Mielants. Based on the novella by Claire Keegan, the film addresses a dark chapter of Irish history from a side angle: the story of a man who realizes he can no longer be silently complicit in the abuse of unwed mothers by the Catholic Church. 

Want to discover and watch more under-the-radar films with my expert guidance and a community of movie lovers?

Join the waitlist for Reel Ruminators so you'll be the first to know when doors open for November: http://seventh-row.com/reelruminators. Coming soon: Indigenous Noirvember.

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

• Coming of age in their 30s episodes (1:42)
• Run Woman Run (5:16)
• How the film depicts trauma (13:43)
• Asivak Koostachin as the spirit of Tom Longboat (19:00)
• The anti-romcom (24:02)
• Land depiction (34:37)
• Health and "tough love" (37:06)
• Why Run Woman Run should have been longer (1:00:13)
• What settler critics often miss (1:15:34)
• Conclusion (1:18:16)

Show Notes

• Read Alex's review of Run Woman Run
• Read Orla's interview with Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy director Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
• Read Laura Anne Harris' interview with The Road Forward director Marie Clements
• Read Alex's interview with Monkey Beach director Loretta Todd
• Read Alex's interview with Blood Quantum director Jeff Barnaby
• Read our list of the best Canadian films of 2021, including Night Raiders, Bootlegger, Red Snow, and Kímmapiiyipitssini
• Pre-order Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions, the first book to ever be published on Joachim Trier.
• Stay tuned for Orla's interview with director Zoe Leigh Hopkins

Related episodes

• Ep. 89: Spinster and The Forty-Year-Old Version: Coming of age at forty
• Ep. 63: Indigenous YA, part 2
• Ep. 62: Indigenous YA, part 1
• Ep. 54: I Used to Go Here and Unexpected: Kris Rey’s thirtysomethings

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

On this episode, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney talks about several highlights of the 2023 Berlinale from the festival's sidebars.

• 0:00 Intro to the Berlinale & the episode
• 4:12 Here (Belgium, dir. Bas Devos)
• 12:20 The Teacher’s Lounge (Germany, dir. İlker Çatak)
• 16:59 The Quiet Migration / Stille Liv (Denmark, dir. Malene Choi)
• 23:17 Intro to the Generation sidebar 
• 25:30 Delegation (Israel/Poland/Germany, dir. Asaf Savan)
• 30:15 Le Paradis / The Lost Boys (Belgium/France, dir. Zeno Gratan)
• 37:20 Wrap up

First, Alex discusses the best film of the festival she saw, Here (dir. Bas Devos), which screened in the Encounters section where it won the top prize. Next, Alex discusses two films from the Panorama sidebar (the not quite prestigious enough for competition sidebar): award winner The Teachers' Lounge and the low key Danish film The Quiet Migration. Finally, Alex discusses two films from the Generation sidebar, a sidebar of Young Adult films for Young Adults: Delegation and Le Paradis. Finally, 

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only.

We also regularly record members only episodes.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

As a member, you will also be supporting what we do, and helping us cover the (expensive) costs of hosting, running a website, podcast equipment, and more. This helps to ensure we can continue producing the podcast.

Show Notes

• Read our interview with the director and star of Ninjababy, a Berlinale 2021 Generation program highlight
• Listen to our podcast on Ninjababy
• Read our interview with the director of Brother's Keeper, a Berlinale 2021 Panorama film which, like The Teachers' Lounge, is also about systemic injustices in the educational system.
• Read our review of Magnus von Horn's The Here After, which would make a great double feature with the 2023 film Le Paradis (The Lost Boys).
• Listen to our podcast on My Small Land, which screened in the Generation sidebar at Berlinale 2022. Like this year's The Quiet Migration, My Small Land also tackled the story of a young immigrant in a country where they grew up not looking like the majority of the population.
• Read and listen to all of our Berlinale coverage from this year and past years.

Related episodes mentioned on this episode

• Ep. 83: Berlinale 2021 Part 1: The sidebars
• Ep. 84: Berlinale 2021 Part 2: The Competition
• Ep. 125: Berlinale 2022
• Ep. 101 Magnus von Horn’s films: The Here After and Sweat

How to listen to episodes marked "MEMBERS ONLY"

Click here to become a member, and access our entire podcast archive, as well as new Members Only episodes.

When you purchase your membership, you wil be given a personal podcast feed link, which you can then open in your favourite podcatcher. After that, the Premium Seventh Row Podcast (MEMBERS ONLY), will update in your podcatcher with new episodes just like every free podcast you listen to.

All of our podcasts that are more than six months old are only available to members. We also regularly release members only bonus episodes. Many of the episodes listed here are now only available to members (Members Only).

Speakers on the episode

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney

You can find Alex on Twitter @bwestcineaste, Instagram @bwestcineaste, and Letterboxd @bwestcineaste.

In this episode of the TIFF 2024 season, Alex discusses the four Palestinian films at this year's festival.

These films are:

• No Other Land (Yuval Abraham, Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Rachel Szor) - Norway/Palestine
• To a Land Unknown (Mehdi Fleifel) - Germany, France, United Kingdom, Greece, Netherlands, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia
• Happy Holidays (Scandar Copti) - Germany, France, Italy, Palestine, Qatar
• From Ground Zero (22 directors), France, Jordan, Palestine, Qatar

About the TIFF 2024 season:

In the TIFF 2024 season, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney will discuss some of the best under-the-radar gems at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival through themed episodes.

This is for you if:

• You're attending TIFF and look for recommendations;
• You're looking ahead to your local film festival for must-see titles; and/or
• You're interested in how filmmakers from around the world are exploring similar topics/genres, even if you're not sure if you'll ever see the films.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Check out all of our TIFF 2024 coverage here: https://seventh-row.com/tiff24

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Interested in attending a film festival?

Get my five essential tips for the film adventurer seeking a fantastic festival experience.

These tips are tailored to TIFF but will work for any other film festival.

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Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

In the third episode of our Creative Nonfiction Film podcast season, Philippe Falardeau discusses Lac-Mégantic: This is Not An Accident is a four-part documentary series about the catastrophic 2013 trainwreck in Lac-Mégantic, its inevitability, the aftermath, and the government failure to change safety requirements to avoid another "accident" in future. Lac-Mégantic had its world premiere at the HotDocs Film Festival where all four episodes were screened back-to-back.

The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster was the fourth-deadliest rail accident in Canadian history (47 people died) and the deadliest involving a non-passenger train. The documentary Lac-Mégantic not only chronicles the disaster and its devastating effects on the town Lac-Mégantic, but also how blame was handled and how similar disasters continue to happen.

The series reclaims the history of the Lac-Mégantic rail disaster by showing how systemic problems lead to a disaster that has been blamed on individuals. The series also reveals how appropriate safety measures have not been taken in the intervening years to prevent a similar disaster from happening (and other, smaller disasters have indeed continued to happen).

At the beginning of the episode, Alex Heeney introduces the series Lac-Mégantic, and why she thinks it's worthy of discussion. Next, we play your Alex's interview with Falardeau about the film. Finally, we wrap up with how the film fits into the framework for creative nonfiction that we at Seventh Row created in our ebook Subjective realities, and offer some suggestions for what to watch and listen to next.

 Click here to read the episode show notes.

You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes.

Useful links

• Watch our masterclass with Philippe Falardeau and Mina Shum
• Read our interview with Philippe Falardeau on My Internship in Canada

More on creative nonfiction

Download a FREE excerpt from Subjective Realities here.

Get your copy of the ebook Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film here.

Get your copy of the ebook In their own words: Documentary Masters vol. 1

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only.

We also regularly record members only episodes.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

As a member, you will also be supporting what we do, and helping us cover the (expensive) costs of hosting, running a website, podcast equipment, and more. This helps to ensure we can continue producing the podcast.

Related Episodes

Members Only Episodes

• Bonus Episode 25: This is Going to Hurt and physician mental health
• Ep. 41: In the Loop and My Internship in Canada: Political satires
• Ep. 67: Frederick Wiseman’s Ex Libris and City Hall 
• Ep. 95: No Ordinary Man and John Ware Reclaimed: Reclaiming history in documentary (Members only)

Free Episodes

• Ep. 99: Creative Nonfiction with Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen
• Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative Nonfiction

Credits

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Email us at contact seventh row com.

This episode was edited, produced, and recorded by Alex Heeney.

**To join the waitlist for Reel Ruminators: A Movie-of-the-Month Discussion Club, visit http://seventh-row.com/reelruminators **

Legendary theatre director Marianne Elliott (Angels in America at the National Theatre, gender-swapped Company, War Horse) joins Alex on the podcast to discuss her feature film debut, The Salt Path. The film is based on the best-selling memoir about a working-class British couple who lose their home and embark on a long hike along the coast to heal themselves. It had its world premiere at TIFF.

Elliott sat down with Alex via Zoom before the film's premiere to discuss the challenges and excitement of making the move from theatre to film and why she wanted to tell this particular story about a woman in her 50s and her husband.

The Salt Path was a sales title at the festival and does not yet have a North American distributor.

The episode is spoiler-free.

Related Episodes:

• 98. Marianne Elliott's Angels in America (Members Only)
• 42. Dominic Cooke's On Chesil Beach  (Members Only)
• Bonus 17. Saoirse Ronan and James McArdle in The Tragedy of Macbeth (Members Only)
• Creative Nonfiction #2: Sophie Fiennes on Four Quartets and documenting theatre on film
• Creative Nonfiction #4: Sam Green on 32 Sounds and inspirations from theatre

About the TIFF 2024 season:

The TIFF 2024 season previews under-the-radar gems and buzzy titles at the festival with spoiler-free episodes that will help you prioritize what to watch for in the coming months.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Check out all of our TIFF 2024 coverage here: https://seventh-row.com/tiff24

On today's episode, we look back at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival: both its many institutional failings when it comes to encouraging and promoting diversity and bunch of great films by women that we watched from the programme.

This episode of the podcast features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith

Get the box set of books about women directors — Kelly Reichardt, Céline Sciamma, and Lynne Ramsay — who have screened films in the Cannes Competition.

Sign up for updates on the podcast and other news about women directors at Cannes this year. 

On this episode:

• Intro (0:00)
• How Kelly Reichardt’s Showing Up fared at Cannes 2022 (2:40)
• The Cannes Film Festival’s backwards approach to diversity (11:10)
• The award winners (18:17)
• What we thought of Cannes films we saw (27:12)
• Closing thoughts (1:00:25)

Show notes

• View the history of women directors at Cannes
• Read Alex's review of Corsage (Marie Kreutzer)
• Read Alex's review of Under the Fig Trees (Erige Sehiri)
• Read Alex's review of Everybody Loves Jeanne (Céline Devaux)
• Read Alex's review of Plan 75 (Chie Hayakawa)
• Read Alex's review of Falcon Lake (Charlotte Lebon)
• Read Orla's review of Aloners (Hong Seong-eun) from TIFF 2021

Related episodes

• Women at Cannes Ep. 1: A podcast on the history of women directors at Cannes
• Women at Cannes Ep. 2: Kelly Reichardt at Cannes 2022
• Women at Cannes Ep. 3: Céline Sciamma at Cannes
• Women at Cannes Ep. 4: Naomi Kawase at Cannes
• Ep. 126: Run Woman Run: An Indigenous coming of age after 30 film
• Ep. 122: Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World
• Ep. 121: Ninjababy & Obvious Child: Unwanted pregnancies in romantic comedies
• Ep. 119: Mike Leigh’s Naked
• Ep. 118: The Souvenir Part I and II
• Ep. 43: Normal People and On Chesil Beach (Members Only)
• Bonus 23: Sundance 2022: Fiction films (Members Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

We discuss the two features of Swedish filmmaker Magnus von Horn: his latest, Sweat, and his first feature from 2015, The Here After, with particular focus on how empathy is so crucial to his work.

The episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh.

On this Episode:

• Why we paired these films (7:45)
• The Here After (12:42)
• Sweat (39:17)
• Comparisons (1:15:59)
• Preview for next week (1:28:36)

Episode Notes

• Read Orla's interview with von Horn about Sweat
• Read Alex's 2015 review of The Here After

Related Episodes

• Ep. 97: The Films and TV of Desiree Akhavan
• Ep. 93: The Films of Agnieszka Holland
• Ep. 85: The Films of Naomi Kawase, featuring True Mothers
• Ep. 66: Francis Lee’s God’s Own Country and Ammonite (Member's Only)
• Ep. 45: The films of Anne Émond, from Nuit #1 to Nelly (Member's Only)

This is an excerpt of a members only episode. To listen to the full episode, become a member at http://seventh-row.com/join

Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith discuss the highlights of the fall film festival circuit, the new and troubling dominance of Netflix (and other streamers') films, and exciting (or not-so-exciting) first features. We discuss favourites like The Eternal Daughter, Saint Omer, Other People's Children — many of which will get a full-length episode of their own in the coming months. We also discuss some of the biggest disappointments. Orla shares her experience at the London Film Festival. Alex shares her experience attending the Toronto International Film Festival.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow. Follow Alex Heeney @bwestcineaste and Orla Smith @orlamango on Twitter. 

On this episode excerpt:

• 00:00-5:24 - Intro to the episode and the festivals we've covered
• 5:24-18:55 Rebecca Zlotowski's Other People's Children and a new film grammar for women as multitaskers in Other People's Children, Mia Hansen-Løve's One Fine Morning, and Joanna Hogg's The Eternal Daughter 
• FREE EXCERPT ENDS HERE

Become a member to listen to the rest o the discussion, which includes:

• 18:55-20:55 How many films we saw, and some of the downsides
• 20:55-25:45 Orla's favourites including Laura Poitras's All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, Lucien Castaing-Taylor and  Verena Paravel's De Humani Corporis Fabrica, Jamie Dack's Palm Trees and Power Lines
• 25:45-31:14 Alex favourites including Alice Winocour's Paris Memories and Darlene Naponse's Stellar
• 31:14-50:34 The dominance of Netflix and streamers, Matthew Warchus's Matilda, Causeway
• 50:34-56:50 The festival circuit: great festival films from earlier this year that disappeared (My Small Land, Lullaby, 32 Sounds), screened only at local festivals (Nelly and Nadine, Framing Agnes) and films that keep coming back. We also discuss the London Film Festival's problematic approach to programming and why we love the Berlinale's programming.
• 56:50-1:00:24 The lack of live cinema experiences at festivals (like 32 Sounds) in a year when we are being forced to return to cinemas for festivals.
• 1:00:24-1:05:50 Directors' first features, Charlotte Wells's Aftersun, the rise of Paul Mescal, Georgia Oakley's Blue Jean
• 1:05:50-1:16:15 Depressing trends in British cinema and the British film industry and how that relates to the country's funding practices. We also draw comparisons to the Canadian film industry. Why is it so hard to get a second feature made? And why do first features have to conform so much to industry standards? We discuss Francis Lee's films, Hope Dickson Leach's film, and several Canadian filmmakers.
• 1:16:15-1:25:29 Thinking about National Cinema at film festivals, especially Canadian cinema and British cinema
• 1:25:29-1:31:36 Plan 75, Palm Trees and Power Lines, and other great under-seen first features that keep screening everywhere
• 1:31:36 Sign offs and related episodes

Related episodes

• Women at Cannes Season: Listen to our five-episode 2022 season on the history of Women directors at the Cannes Film Festival. We highlight some of the best films by women and women filmmakers to screen at the festival. We also discuss the festival's ongoing poor track record of programming films directed by women.
• Ep. 125: Berlinale 2022: On this omnibus episode, we discuss the highlights of the Berlin Film Festival screening in the festival's under-discussed and under-appreciated (but excellently programmed) sidebars.
• Ep. 109: TIFF 2021 Part 1: In last year's counterpart to this episode, we discussed the highlights of the 2021 Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), including Terence Davies's Benediction and Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World
• Ep. 111: TIFF 2021 Part 2: Continuing our discussion on the fall film festivals in 2021, with a focus on TIFF, we discussed Power of the Dog, Ali & Ava, and more highlights from TIFF.
• Ep. 49: Split screen storytelling in Lungs and Conversations with Other Women: Listen to our episode on Matilda director Matthew Warchus's fantastic live-recorded theatre production of Lungs, (Members only)
• Ep 60: Old Vic In Camera Productions: Three Kings and Faith Healer: Listen to our podcast on Matthew Warchus's two follow-up live-broadcasted productions of Three Kings and Faith Healer (Members only)

Show Notes

• Read all of our TIFF 2022 coverage
• Read all of our film festival coverage from this fall here
• Read Alex Heeney's review of Matilda: The Musical on stage
• Read Alex Heeney's review of Stellar
• Read Alex Heeney's review of Eo
• Read our review of Matilda director Matthew Warchus's Pride
• Read Alex Heeney's review of Palm Trees and Power Lines
• Read Alex Heeney's interview with Sam Green on his live documentary 32 Sounds
• Read Alex Heeney on Canadian immigration stories at TIFF 2022.

***Join the Seventh Row newsletter to stay updated on myfrenchfilmfestival and other unique opportunities to watch under-the-radar films: http://email.seventh-row.com

Legendary British filmmaker Mike Leigh has a new film out in cinemas called Hard Truths, which is one of the best films of the year.

What makes Mike Leigh's films so good and so uniquely Mike Leigh Films is inextricable from the process he uses to make them. But there are quite a few common myths and misconceptions about his process, including that his films are improvised and, confusingly, that his films are rehearsed.

In this episode, Alex debunks these myths using research for her 2018 book Peterloo in Process: A Mike Leigh Collaboration. The book dives deeper into Leigh's process through interviews with him and his collaborators on the film, both behind and in front of the camera. 

You can purchase a copy of Peterloo in Process at http://mikeleighbook.com

Related Episodes

TIFF 2024 #4: British social realism: Mike Leigh's Hard Truths and Andrea Arnold's Bird

Ep. 119 Mike Leigh's Naked

Ep. 32 Sorry We Missed You and Peterloo

Ep. 11 Mike Leigh's Peterloo

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Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

** Doors are now open for Reel Ruminators: Explorer, an annual membership which curates 12 incredible films you may have missed.

** Find out more here: http://seventh-row.com/explorer

** Or purchase your membership now: http://reelruminators.com/payment 

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Last week on the podcast, Alex recommended the Cillian Murphy Irish drama Small Things Like These, directed by Tim Mielants. 

A listener raised that the film had terrible distribution, so in this episode, Alex looks at why it's so hard to see Small Things Like These. She compares the film's distribution to other Cillian Murphy independent films, other films in this year's Berlinale Competition (where Small Things premiered), and other niche films starring even bigger stars. 

Unfortunately, while the distribution for Small Things Like These is frustratingly bad, it's actually pretty good for a film of its ilk.

Related Episodes:

146. Tim Mielants' Small Things Like These

Creative Nonfiction #2: Sophie Fiennes on Four Quartets

Ep. 38 Australian Westerns and The True History of the Kelly Gang (Members Only)

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

Emerald Fennell's new film, Saltburn, comes out today, so we're re-releasing our 2021 episode about two very different depictions of rape culture from 2020: Fennell's revenge thriller Promising Young Woman and Kitty Green's The Assistant, a portrait of a young woman working in a misogynistic office environment. This is a landmark episode of the podcast, which kickstarted a series of episodes on rape culture on film.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and special guest Lindsay Pugh.

Want to support the podcast? Become a member today, and access our entire archive of 150+ episodes. It helps us pay our expenses to keep the podcast going and continue to improve the podcast.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2021/01/06/ep-73-explorations-of-rape-culture-in-promising-young-woman-and-the-assistant/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Related episodes:

• Ep. 86 (Members Only): Una & Slalom: Depictions of childhood sexual assault 
• Ep. 92 (Members Only): Sugar Daddy and An Easy Girl: Commidfying women
• Ep. 132 (Free): Sarah Polley's Women Talking

Coming Soon: Abortion on Film Season

In this six-episode season, we discuss how socially progressive depictions of abortion on film have changed and developed since the 1950s. We’re putting the finishing touches on the season now, and hoping to have it out in about a month’s time. 

Members get early access to the Abortion on Film season! Once the season starts, we’ll be releasing new episodes every two weeks, but members will get the first three episodes immediately, and early access to the remaining episodes. Become a member.

Alex Heeney interviews co-directors Alex Thompson and Kelly O’Sullivan whose new film Ghostlight was a hit at Sundance. Ghostlight is the story of middle-aged construction worker Dan (Ian Keiser) who discovers that theatre and Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet are excellent outlets for working through his complicated feelings of grief, guilt, and anger.

>> Subscribe to our FREE newsletter for updates on the best new under-the-radar films and streaming theatre productions <<

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

For detailed show notes, visit the Seventh Row website. There is also an AI-generated transcript available.

Show Notes

• Read Lindsay Pugh's interview with Alex Thompson and Kelly O'Sullivan on Saint Frances
• Listen to our podcast on abortion on film featuring Saint Frances
• Listen to the 21st Folio Shakespeare Podcast

Related Episodes - Shakespeare on film

• Bonus Episode 24: Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (excerpt)
• Bonus Episode 22: Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (excerpt)
• Ep. 124: Olivia Vinall on performing Shakespeare
• Bonus Episode 17: Saoirse Ronan and James McArdle in The Tragedy of Macbeth at the Almeida Theatre (excerpt)

Get the Spotify playlist of these episodes.

The full bonus episodes are only available to Seventh Row Members. Join here to listen.

In honour of Justine Triet's historic Palme d'Or win, we are republishing our in-depth discussion of her two most recent films for free.

This episode was originally released on September 8, 2020 as episode 56.

This week on the podcast we look at two of Justine Triet's feature films, In Bed With Victoria (2016) and Sibyl (2019). Both films are non-judgemental character studies of career women in their thirties who are falling apart in various ways. We discuss how Triet's blending of multiple genres emphasizes the multiple facets of a character's life, and more. 

In Bed With Victoria (2016) had its world premiere in the Critics' Week section at Cannes. Sibyl (2019) had its world premiere in the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Justine Triet is now the third woman director to receive the Palme d'Or, and the second woman director to not share the prize with a man.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Editor at Large Mary Angela Rowe, and special guest Lindsay Pugh.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/09/08/ep-56-justine-triets-women-on-the-verge-in-bed-with-victoria-and-sibyl/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

• Read Alex's review of I'm Your Man
• Register for The Seventh Circle, a symposium on gender, sexuality, and disability in horror cinema.
• Sign up for updates on the first book to ever be published on the films of Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier

Related Episodes:

• Ep. 110: Brief encounters: Weekend and End of the Century
• Ep. 92: Commodifying Women: Sugar Daddy and An Easy Girl
• Ep. 89: Coming of Age at Forty: Spinster and The Forty-Year-Old Version
• Ep. 73: Explorations of rape culture in Promising Young Woman and The Assistant (Member's Only)
• Ep. 61: Toxic male privilege in The Riot Club and What Richard Did (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Announcement: Our new membership, Reel Ruminators: A Movie-of-the-Month Discussion Club is now open for new members in July! Doors close on July 4 at 11:59 p.m.

Find out more and reserve your spot by clicking here.

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Alex Heeney interviews legendary Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland about her Venice Jury Prize-Winning film, Green Border. Holland discusses why she wanted to make the film, how it's in conversation with her other work, and why she chose to shoot it in black and white.

Green Border is about the ongoing migrant crisis at the Polish-Belarusian border and the horrors happening there. Holland tells the story from multiple perspectives, including a family of refugees, a group of activists helping migrants, and the border guards, to give a picture of the complex and harrowing situation.

>> Subscribe to our FREE newsletter for updates on the best new under-the-radar films and streaming theatre productions <<

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

For detailed show notes, visit the Seventh Row website. There is also an AI-generated transcript available.

Show Notes

• Read Alex's interview with Agnieszka Holland on Spoor and her filmmaking approach

Related Episodes

• Ep. 55 The Secret Garden - Comparing Adaptations
• Ep. 93 The films of Agnieszka Holland (Europa Europa, Washington Square, Charlatan)
• Ep. 104 A Masterclass with Agnieszka Holland on Directing

Our previous Agnieszka Holland episodes are only available to Seventh Row Members. Join here to listen.

Now that the Oscars are over, the best movies of the year are heading to cinemas in the next 3-4 months. 

In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney is joined by C.J. Prince of Acquired Cinema to discuss four must-see films coming to cinemas this spring.

This episode is an addendum to our two-part series on how the Oscars affect the international films you hear about in episode 160 and 161.

Listen to episode 160: https://seventh-row.com/2025/02/14/ep-160-how-the-oscars-affect-the-international-films-you-hear-about/

Listen to episode 161: https://seventh-row.com/2025/02/21/ep-161-beyond-the-oscars-world-cinema/

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*** If you're interested in joining Seventh Row's movie-of-the-month membership:

DM the word 'explorer' to:

@SeventhRow on Instagram or 
@SeventhRow.bsky.social on BluSky

Or send an email with subject line 'Explorer' to contact@seventh-row.com.

----

Stay updated on the US distribution status of festival films at C.J. Prince's Acquired Cinema: http://acquiredcinema.substack.om

This weekend, you can catch a recording of the Donmar Warehouse production of Macbeth starring David Tennant and Cush Jumbo, directed by Max Webster.

In this episode of the podcast, Alex discusses why this production is a must-see and why you should make time for it now and for recorded Shakespeare more generally.

1. The best time to watch Shakespeare is when it's fresh.
2. You learn something new from every Shakespeare production you see.
3. Watching a bunch of productions of a Shakespeare play is one of the best ways to learn about directing.
4. Watching a bunch of productions of a Shakespeare play is one of the best ways to learn about editing.
5. Recorded theatre can be pretty ephemeral, so watch it while you can. 

***Want to stay updated on future opportunities to see this Macbeth or other great recorded theatre production? Subscribe to the Globetrotting Watchlist: http://seventh-row.com/globetrotting

Related Episodes

Bonus Ep. 17 Saoirse Ronan and James McArdle in The Tragedy of Macbeth

Bonus Ep. 22: Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth 

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Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

***Want help to sit down and make those tough decisions about what you're going to watch this year? Join the Curate Your 2025 Watchlist Workshop on January 12. Sign up here: http://seventh-row.com/watchlist

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In this episode, Alex discusses what makes a truly remarkable year of movies, beyond just watching as many films as possible. Alex shares her insights on ensuring your year is filled with memorable and diverse movies that challenge and delight. Drawing from her journey of discovery through film festivals and indie films, she introduces three key ingredients for a fulfilling cinematic year.

First, Alex discusses the importance of variety and diversity in your film choices. Whether it's films from different continents and genres, filmmakers from underrepresented groups, films from different eras, and beyond, variety is the spice of a rewarding movie year.

Secondly, she highlights the need to include 'sure things' in your watchlist—films by directors or actors you love—to balance staying in your comfort zone while still discovering new films.

Lastly, Alex emphasizes the value of planned risks. Taking chances on lesser-known films can lead to surprising and enriching experiences, expanding your cinematic horizons.

Finally, Alex also introduces the Curate Your 2025 Watchlist Workshop, designed to help you create a personalized and diverse movie watchlist for the upcoming year. Sign up to ensure your movie year is both adventurous and satisfying.

Related Episodes

152. Three reasons you need a curated watchlist for 2025

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

• You can listen to our first 15 bonus episodes by becoming a Seventh Row member
• Read Alex's 2017 review of Paterson
• Read Alex's 2016 review of City of Tiny Lights

Related Episodes

• Ep. 97: The Films and TV of Desiree Akhavan
• Ep. 94: Looking
• Ep. 73: Explorations of rape culture in Promising Young Woman and The Assistant (Member's Only)
• Ep. 54: Kris Rey’s thirtysomethings: I Used to Go Here and Unexpected (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Over the course of one month, we challenge you to watch one Joachim Trier feature film per week, in chronological order, to catch up to The Worst Person in the World.

Click here for more details.

On the occasion of the release of Steve McQueen's Blitz, we're bringing back our 2020 episode on his five BBC films about the Windrush Generation, Small Axe.

With Blitz, McQueen returns to telling stories of Black British history.

This episode was originally published on December 30, 2020.

We discuss each film (or episode?) of McQueen's series and how they work together to form a cohesive whole.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and special guests Andrew Kendall and Debbie Zhou.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/12/29/ep-72-small-axe/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Kelly Reichardt has directed two films set in the 19th century American West, Meek's Cutoff and First Cow. To explore how she differs from the traditional Western genre, we compare her films with Oregon-set Bend of the River (1952) and cow film Red River (1948). Join Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Associate Editor Brett Pardy as along the way we also look at modern Westerns, the surprisingly long career of Stephen Meek, and somehow manage to link the genre to a site favourite who has never directed a Western.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/04/14/ep-37:-subverting-the-western-featuring-meek's-cutoff<-em>/

• The English Patient and its reviled Oscar legacy (7:10)
• The state of modern literary adaptations (15:50)
• Why we like the film (21:40)
• Almásy and Katherine/Ralph Fiennes and Kristen Scott Thomas (24:53)
• Hana and Kip/Juliette Binoche and Naveen Andrews (53:51)
• The English Patient as a war movie (1:04:22)
• Stand out scenes (1:14:20)
• Adaptation (1:23:29)
• Caravaggio/Willem Dafoe and alternate castings (1:27:12)
• Minghella's other work (1:47:05)
• Conclusion (1:57:37)
• Joachim Trier announcement (1:57:52)
• Podcast format change (2:00:59)

Show notes

• Sign up for updates on the first book to ever be published on the films of Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier

Related episodes

• Ep. 108: The Deep Blue Sea(s) Redux
• Ep. 107: Are men OK? Masculinity, mental health, & addiction in Another Round and Oslo, August 31st Redux
• Ep. 100: Films for the future
• Ep. 76: Abderrahmane Sissako’s Bamako and Timbuktu (Member's Only)
• Ep. 29: Films about finite romance (Member's Only)
• Ep. 28: 1917 and Jarhead — Sam Mendes’ war films

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Kelly Reichardt's newest film First Cow is her second feature, after Wendy and Lucy (2008), to explore the effects of capitalism through character's relationship with an animal. In this episode, we discuss the connections between the two films (and animals). This episode of the podcast features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and Roads to Nowhere contributor Angelo Muredda.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/08/11/ep-52:-first-cow-&-wendy-and-lucy/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

On this episode:

• Related episodes (1:10)
• Joachim Trier challenge (2:14)
• What we had screeners for (5:22)
• Berlin's films for young audiences (11:21)
• Alis (Clare Weiskopf & Nicolás van Hemelryck) (14:31)
• Comedy Queen (Sanna Lenken) (16:44)
• Lullaby (Alauda Ruiz de Azúa) (20:56)
• My Small Land (Emma Kawawada) (28:21)
• Until Tomorrow (Ali Asgari) and Millie Lies Low (Michelle Savill) 34:16
• Stay Awake (Jamie Sisly) 46:00
• Coma (Bertrand Bonello) (47:50)
• We Might as Well Be Dead (Natalia Sinelnikova) 50:26
• Creative nonfiction: Nelly & Nadine (Magnus Gertten) and Mutzenbacher (Ruth Beckermann) (52:50)
• Conclusion (1:01:55)

Show notes and related episodes:

• Read Alex's interview with Little Wing director Selma Vilhunen
• Take our Joachim Trier challenge, in preparation for our forthcoming ebook on Trier’s work, Existential detours: Joachim Trier’s cinema of indecisions and revisions
• Ep. 121: Ninjababy & Obvious Child: Unwanted pregnancies in romantic comedies
• Ep. 84: Berlinale 2021, Part 2: The Competition (Member's Only)
• Ep. 83: Berlinale 2021, Part 1: The Sidebars (Member's Only)

In the first episode of our Creative Nonfiction Film podcast season, Alex Heeney previews what to expect in this five-episode season and discusses what is creative nonfiction film.

Click here to read the episode show notes.

You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes.

Get the tote bag with the Céline Sciamma quote "Cinema is the only art form ever where you share somebody else's lonelines"

More on creative nonfiction

Download a FREE excerpt from Subjective Realities here.

Get your copy of the ebook Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film here.

Get your copy of the ebook In their own words: Documentary Masters vol. 1

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only.

We also regularly record members only episodes.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

As a member, you will also be supporting what we do, and helping us cover the (expensive) costs of hosting, running a website, podcast equipment, and more. This helps to ensure we can continue producing the podcast.

Related Episodes on creative nonfiction

• Ep. 99: Creative Nonfiction with Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen
• Sundance 2023 Ep. 7: Best of the fest + documentaries Fantastic Machine, Is There Anybody Out There, and more
• Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative Nonfiction

Members Only Episodes

• Ep. 67: Frederick Wiseman’s Ex Libris and City Hall  (Members only)
• Ep. 95: No Ordinary Man and John Ware Reclaimed: Reclaiming history in documentary (Members only)

Credits

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Email us at contact seventh row com.

This episode was edited, produced, and recorded by Alex Heeney.

This is the first episode of our new podcast season on the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we'll be covering this year's festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival's history. This is Seventh Row's second podcast season (the first was on Women at Cannes in 2022).

In this episode, we discuss the films we're looking forward to at the 2023 Sundance Film Festivals based on directors we love, actors we love, and films we're hearing buzz about. We talk about the festival's importance in the film year, why we're pleased the festival has continued to offer a virtual option when other festivals are all returning to in-person only, and more.

Because the festival loves to program films by slot and quota, we are also introducing our annual Sundance Bingo Card, which you can download here. Play along during the festival (or look at past festival editions and the films you've caught which screened there). You can find last year's bingo card here.

Click here to read the episode show notes.

• 00:00 Introduction
• 05:31 The accessibility of a virtual Sundance
• 11:13 The films we’re looking forward to at the festival

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only.

We also regularly record members only episodes.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney @bwestcineaste Twitter and Instagram; and Orla Smith @orlamango on Twitter and @orla_p_smith on Instagram.

Show Notes

Links to articles/books related to the 2023 selections

• Watch Lockdown Film School with Lily Gladstone. Gladstone has a new film, Fancy Dance, at Sundance 2023, and we're excited to see it.
• Read an excerpt from our interview with Lily Gladstone from the ebook Roads to nowhere: Kelly Reichardt's broken American Dreams. Gladstone talks about learning different languages, which is particularly relevant to Fancy Dance in which she speaks Cherokee.
• Read Orla Smith's analysis of Thomasin McKenzie's performance in Leave No Trace, which appears in our ebook Leave No Trace: A Special Issue. Leave No Trace premiered at Sundance, and McKenzie returns to Sundance this year as the lead of William Oldroyd's Eileen.
• Read an excerpt of Alex Heeney's interview with Matthieu Rytz on Anote's Ark, which premiered at Sundance in 2018. The full interview appears in the ebook The 2019 Canadian Cinema Yearbook, which is available to purchase here. Rytz returns to Sundance this year with the documentary Deep Rising, which we're looking forward to.
• Read Alex Heeney's interview with Sebastian Silva on Magic Magic from 2015. He returns to Sundance 2023 with the film Rotting in the Sun.
• Get our ebook God's Own Country: A Special Issue, about Francis Lee's film which premiered at Sundance in 2017 and marked the debut of a major filmmaker.
• Read our interview with Eliza Hittman on Beach Rats, which starred Harris Dickinson in his breakout role. In 2021, we named Dickinson as one of the fifty screen stars of tomorrow. Dickinson appears in Scrapper at Sundance 2023.

Discover past Sundance coverage related to this year's selections

• Read our past reviews of Sundance films starring Ben Whishaw: Lilting and Surge.
• Whishaw returns to Sundance this year with two films: Passages and Bad Behaviour.
• Read Orla Smith's review of Fresh from Sundance 2022, which was one of the better Midnight films we've seen at Sundance. On the episode, Orla talks about not being impressed with the Midnight films that tend to screen at Sundance.
• Discover all of our past podcast episodes on films that screened at Sundance.
• Download the Sundance 2023 Bingo Card here.

Related episodes to the Sundance 2023 preview

All of our podcasts that are more than six months old are only available to members. We also regularly release members only bonus episodes. Many of the episodes listed here are now only available to members (Members Only).

To listen to all of these related episodes, become a member.

• Ep. 116: Virtual film festivals: Taking stock of their past, present, and future (Members Only): Sundance is one of the only festivals in 2023 to continue to offer a virtual component. On this episode from 2021, we talked about the advent of virtual film festivals, why we like them, why they may struggle, and what we'd like to see in the future.
• Ep. 94: HBO's Looking (Members Only): Raúl Castillo first impressed us in Andrew Haigh's TV series Looking. He's finally starting to get more traction as a film actor, almost a decade later, and he stars in Cassandro at Sundance 2023. In this episode, we talk about why Looking was one of the best shows of the 21st century, and why Castillo is such a great actor.

Sundance Film Festival episodes

• Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative nonfiction (Free): At the end of Sundance 2022, we reflect on the creative nonfiction films at the festival.
• Bonus Episode 23: Sundance 2022: Fiction Films (Members Only): At the end of Sundance 2022, we reflect on the highs, lows, discoveries, and disappointments among the fiction films at the festival, from Sharp Stick to Living.
• Ep. 78: Sundance 2021 part 1 (Members only): At the end of Sundance 2021, we reflect on the highs and lows of the festival with guests Andrew Kendall and Lena Wilson.
• Ep. 79: Sundance 2021 part 2 (Members Only): At the end of Sundance 2021, we continue our discussion of the best and worst of the festival.

Ben Whishaw episodes

• Bonus Episode 25: This is Going to Hurt and physician mental health (Members Only): We discuss how Ben Whishaw gave the performance of 2022 as the lead in the miniseries This is Going to Hurt, the best TV series of 2022. Whishaw returns to Sundance 2023 with two films.
• Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2: We swoon over Ben Whishaw's performance in the Paddington films and in Lilting, which premiered at Sundance almost a decade ago. Ben Whishaw returns to Sundance 2023 with two films.

On this episode, we look back on Season Four of The Crown and compare it to other key episodes from past seasons.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and special guests Caitlin Merriman and Fiona Underhill.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/12/22/ep-71-the-crown-season-four/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

On this episode, we talk about Sciamma's greatness and how the industry was slow to catch up with it. We also fall into a long conversation about the wider pattern in the film industry of recognising female writer-directors for their writing rather than their directing, and why these fields are seen as so gendered.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh

Get the box set of books about women directors — Kelly Reichardt, Céline Sciamma, and Lynne Ramsay — who have screened films in the Cannes Competition.

Sign up for updates on the podcast and other news about women directors at Cannes this year. 

On this episode:

• Who is Céline Sciamma? (4:51)
• How Sciamma’s films have been misunderstood throughout her career (13:52)
• How Portrait of a Lady on Fire differs from Sciamma’s earlier films (19:1)
• Sciamma’s precision (32:06)
• How the film industry sees women as directors versus screenwriters (35:54)
• How has Portrait impacted Sciamma’s career going forward? (53:55)

Show notes

• View the history of women directors at Cannes
• Read Lindsay’s review of Portraits of resistance at Woman in Revolt
• Read Alex's interview with Sciamma's regular editor, Julien Lacheray
• Read Alex's in-depth conversation with the women behind Mouthpiece - Patricia Rozema, Amy Nostbakken, and Norah Sadava
• Read Alex's interview with director Andrew Haigh on the 10th anniversary of Weekend

Related episodes

• Women at Cannes Ep. 1: A podcast on the history of women directors at Cannes
• Women at Cannes Ep. 2: Kelly Reichardt at Cannes 2022
• Ep. 128: Petite Maman and Céline Sciamma’s temporary utopias
• Ep. 96: Water Lilies and Jennifer’s Body: Girlhood and compulsory heterosexuality (Member's Only)

We're celebrating the legacy of Aboriginal Australian actor David Gulpilil. Gulpilil died on November 29th 2021, at age 68, leaving behind him a career of rich performances, despite the many ways the industry underserved him for decades. On this episode, we particularly focus on Charlie's Country, as a film that was so personal to Gulpilil, and which features probably his best performance.

We also survey Gulpilil's legacy, both his vital contributions to film, and also how his troubling domestic abuse conviction complicates that legacy. We discuss the issues that arise when representation of marginalised groups is so slim that we start to view the few successful figures as heroes rather than flawed humans.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Associate Editor Brett Pardy.

On this episode

• Related episodes (4:55)
• Remembering David Gulpilil and My Name is Gulpilil (10:08)
• Walkabout, Crocodile Dundee, and The Right Stuff (15:13)
• Rabbit-Proof Fence and The Tracker (21:17)
• Charlie's Country (27:01)
• Gulpilil's domestic abuse conviction (36:14)
• Charlie's Country, systemic issues, and a settler audience (46:59)
• Gulpilil's performance (1:16:01)
• Another Country (1:25:13)
• The evolution of Gulpilil's collaboration with Rolf de Heer (1:28:36)
• Conclusion (1:37:16)

Show notes:

• Charlie's Country was 13 on our list of 50 favourite films of the 2010s. See our other choices here.
• David Gulpilil's performance in Charlie's Country was one of our picks for the 50 best performances of the 2010s. See our other choices here.
• Read the Tandanya National Aboriginal Cultural Institute and Yolŋu Community & kin's statement on the use of David Gulpilil's name
• Read Brett's interview with Edge of the Knife co-director Gwaai Edenshaw, which includes a discussion about the challenges of making a "pre-contact" film
• Read Nancy E. Wright's article about Models of Collaboration in the Making of Ten Canoes (2006) in Screening the Past
• Read Alex's interview with Sweet Country director Warwick Thornton

Related episodes

• Ep. 39: Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls and Blood Quantum (Member's Only)
• Ep. 38: Australian westerns and True History of the Kelly Gang (Member's Only)
• Ep. 17.5: Performances in Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale (Member's Only)
• Ep. 17: Jennifer Kent’s The Nightingale (Member's Only)

In the sixth episode (and third dispatch) of the Sundance 2023 podcast season, we discuss highlights like Ira Sachs's film Passages, Nicole Holofcener's film You Hurt My Feelings, Sebastián Silva's Rotting in the Sun, and Angus MacLachlan's A Little Prayer, as well as other buzzed-about films at the festival.

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:10 Brief thoughts on Fremont, Infinity Pool, Bad Behaviour, Rye Lane, Drift, A Thousand and One
• 39:20 You Hurt My Feelings by Nicole Holofcener
• 52:04 Rotting in the Sun by Sebastián Silva
• 1:04:22 Passages by Ira Sachs
• 1:21:55 A Little Prayer by Angus MacLachlan
• 1:33:30 Fair Play, Cat Person, and the legacy of Promising Young Woman
• 1:54:49 Sundance bingo

Click here to read the episode show notes.

You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes.

In this episode, we discuss four of our favourite films of Sundance 2023, each in the Premieres section: Nicole Holofcener's dreamed, You Hurt My Feelings, Sebastián Silva's black comedy Rotting in the Sun, Ira Sachs' relationship drama Passages, and Angus MacLachlan's quietly insightful family drama. We also talk briefly about the disappointing films that have forged themselves in the image of Promising Young Woman: Fair Play and Cat Person. Orla discusses one of her most hated films of the festival, Infinity Pool, and Alex defends Alice Englert's troubled feature debut Bad Behaviour. Alex also adds her thoughts on Fremont, which Orla first discussed in episode 3 (Alex agrees it's excellent).

Finally, we both discuss some minor highlights of the festival. We were underwhelmed by British rom-com Rye Lane, though think it's a good depiction of the city. Alex liked Anthony Chen's (Ilo Ilo and Wet Season) English-language debut Drift, starring Cynthia Erivo and Alia Shawkat, despite its problematic script, because the direction and performances were so good (Honor Swinton-Byrne also shows up!). Orla also weighs in on the US Grand Jury Prize Winner One Thousand Nights.

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only.

We also regularly record members only episodes.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney @bwestcineaste on Twitter and Instagram; and Orla Smith @orlamango on Twitter and @orla_p_smith on Instagram.

Show Notes

• Read Indiewire’s article on the making of Rotting in the Sun, which we quote from in this episode.
• Read our interview with Sebastián Silva on his film Magic Magic
• Treat yourself by following Franz Rogowski on Instagram.
• Read our profile of Geraldine Viswanathan, who was wasted by Cat Person.
• Read Kristen Roupenian’s original Cat Person short story, published by The New Yorker.
• Listen to episode three of our Sundance 2023 podcast season, in which we discuss Slow, which features a far better example of asexual representation than Cat Person.
• Read our interview with Ana Katz, the director of The Dog Who Wouldn’t Be Quiet, which was our favourite film of Sundance 2021.
• Download the Sundance 2023 bingo card to follow along at home.
• Listen to our last podcast season, which tackles the history of women at the Cannes film festival, and read our comprehensive list of all the women filmmakers who have been programmed by Cannes.

Related episodes

All of our podcasts that are more than six months old are only available to members. We also regularly release members only bonus episodes. Many of the episodes listed here are now only available to members (Members Only). Click here to become a member, and access our entire podcast archive, as well as new Members Only episodes.

Episodes related to the Franz Rogowski in the film Passages

• Ep. 5: Christian Petzold’s Transit (MEMBERS ONLY): Franz Rogowski, who stars in the film Passages, is one of the best actors working today. Head back to one of our earliest episodes where we discuss his amazing (best of the decade) performance in one of the best films of the decade.
• Ep. 119: Mike Leigh’s Naked (FREE — soon becoming MEMBERS ONLY): There are very few good cinematic depictions of narcissists. Ira Sachs's Passages is the latest entry into the canon, and the narcissist at its centre, played by Franz Rogowski, reminded us of Johnny (David Thewlis) from Mike Leigh's Naked, if much less sympathetic (and yet less abusive).

Episodes about Ben Whishaw, co-star of Passages

• Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2 (MEMBERS ONLY): Ben Whishaw was at Sundance this year with two new movies: Alice Englert's film Bad Behaviour (as a cult leader) and Ira Sachs's film Passages (as a man married to Franz Rogowski who cheats on him with a woman). We celebrated Whishaw's work in both Paddington films, and his prowess as an actor more generally, in this discussion that concludes Paddington is the ultimate symbol of British colonialism.
• Bonus ep. 25: This is Going to Hurt (MEMBERS ONLY): Ben Whishaw is one of the very best working actors today. With two films at Sundance coming out later this year (hopefully!), now is a great time to visit his tour de force career best work as the lead of This is Going To Hurt, a show about physician mental health in the NHS. His performance is both comic and dramatic and absolutely heartbreaking. It's also so incredibly detailed. Nobody else could do it like him.

Related episodes to the films A Little Prayer, Rotting in the Sun, and You Hurt My Feelings.

• Ep. 40: Remembering dead mothers in Stories We Tell, Louder Than Bombs, and Mouthpiece (MEMBERS ONLY): A Little Prayer is a film very much about the family as an ecosystem and a unit of people trying their best under difficult circumstances and often screwing. That's also what Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs (2015) is about, and we discuss it in depth in this episode. Louder Than Bombs is also about what happens to a family when a major secret has been kept and comes out, wreaking some havoc, just as in the film You Hurt My Feelings.
• Ep. 94: HBO’s Looking (MEMBERS ONLY): It's not often that we get media that is unabashedly gay, depicting gay spaces and the gay community in a way that might make heterosexuals uncomfortable. HBO's Looking was pioneer for this on TV, including the way it depicted gay sex and intimacy. Sebastián Silva's Rotting in the Sunalso pushes the envelope, though in a much more confronting (and depressing) way.

Related episodes to Cat Person and Fair Play

• Ep. 73: Explorations of rape culture in Promising Young Woman and The Assistant (MEMBERS ONLY): Fair Play and Cat Person at Sundance this year feel like poor attempts to ride the Promising Young Woman hype. Revisit our original bashing of Promising Young Woman for context about why we think its approach to addressing sexual assault is really problematic. We compare it to The Assistant which was way better and also screened at Sundance that year, a much subtler and smarter approach to the topic.
• Bonus ep. 16: Watching Lena Dunham’s Girls in 2021 (MEMBERS ONLY): Lena Dunham was a pioneer of uncomfortable sex scenes involving women in the their 20s, and films like Promising Young Woman, Cat Person, and Fair Play have picked up the baton (if not reached Dunham's heights). In this episode, we discussed what it was like to watch Girls in 2021 (for the first time for Orla).

In honour of Justine Triet's historic Palme d'Or win, we are republishing our in-depth discussion of her two most recent films for free. This episode was originally released on September 8, 2020 as episode 56.

This week on the podcast we look at Justine Triet's two films, In Bed With Victoria and Sibyl. Both films are non-judgemental character studies of career women in their thirties who are falling apart in various ways. We discuss how Triet's blending of multiple genres emphasizes the multiple facets of a character's life, and more.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Editor at Large Mary Angela Rowe, and special guest Lindsay Pugh.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/09/08/ep-56-justine-triets-women-on-the-verge-in-bed-with-victoria-and-sibyl/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

In our first dispatch on the world premieres at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival, we delve into the under-discussed and oft-ignored World Dramatic Competition. We go deep on our favourite World Dramatic Competition title so far: Slow (dir. Marija Kavtaradze), Scrapper (dir. Charlotte Regan), and When It Melts (dir. Veerle Baetens). Finally, we turn to two early US highlights: Erica Tremblay's Fance Dance and Luke Lorentzen's documentary A Still Small Voice. 

Click here to read the episode show notes.

You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes. 

• 00:00 Introduction
• 09:10 Films from the Sundance World Dramatic Competition so far: Slow, Heroic, Scrapper, When It Melts, Mamacruz, Girl
• 53:23 Fancy Dance starring Lily Gladstone
• 1:18:35 A Still Small Voice
• 1:24:22 Sundance bingo

More about the films discussed in the episode

Erica Tremblay's Fancy Dance is in the US Dramatic Competition and about an Indigenous woman (Lily Gladstone) searching for her sister who recently went missing (MMIWG) while suddenly finding herself the sole guardian for her 12-year-old niece. The documentary A Still Small Voice(dir. Luke Lorentzen) in the US Documentary Competition is about the toll on a hospital chaplain of constantly extending empathy to others.

Slow is a Lithuanian film about a dancer navigating a new relationship with her asexual partner. The film Scrapper is about a working class twelve-year-old girl in Dagenham who recently lost her mother and reconnects with her estranged father (an excellent Harris Dickinson). When It Melts is about a traumatic childhood event in a twelve-year-old girl's life that has devastating consequences for her as an adult. We also discuss Heroic (dir. David Zonana, Workforce) and Mamacruz (dir. Patricia Ortega), which also screened in the World Dramatic Competition.

In past years, we've found some of our favourite films at Sundance in this section, including The Dog Who Wouldn't Be Quiet (2021), Charter (2020), The Souvenir (2020), God's Own Country (2017), Mammal (2016), Sand Storm (2016), and Homesick (2015). Unfortunately, these films also have the tendency to disappear so we wanted to throw a spotlight on the competition this year (as we do every year!), to draw attention to films you'll want to watch out for at local film festivals, which may be your only opportunity to watch them, or could get buried on VOD in the future. And hopefully, we can help get these films noticed and distributed!

About the Sundance 2023 season

This is the third episode of our new podcast season on the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Sundance 2023 runs from January 19-28, and we'll be covering this year's festival in a new podcast season about the films this year and how the programming fits into the festival's history. This is Seventh Row's second podcast season (the first was on Women at Cannes in 2022).

Sundance 2023 Bingo

Because the festival loves to program films by slot and quota, we are also introducing our annual Sundance Bingo Card, which you can download here. Play along during the festival (or look at past festival editions and the films you've caught which screened there). You can find this year's bingo card in the show notes on our website.

In each expisode we'll track our progress on the Bingo card, individuall and as a Seventh Row team.

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only.

We also regularly record members only episodes.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

How to follow our Sundance 2023 coverage

Subscribe to our newsletter for updates on the 2023 Sundance podcast season and coverage on the website.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow; Alex Heeney @bwestcineaste on Twitter and Instagram; and Orla Smith @orlamango on Twitter and @orla_p_smith on Instagram.

Show Notes on E3 of the Sundance 2023 podcast season: Fancy Dance, Slow, Scrapper, A Still Small Voice and more

Links to articles/books related to the 2023 selections

• Get our book on creative nonfiction film, Subjective Realities, featuring interviews with Tabitha Jackson, Penny Lane, Robert Greene, Kirsten Johnson, Joe Bini, Pacho Velez, and more.
• Read our coverage of Hala and Crystal Swan, which were both shot by cinematographer Carolina Costa (who did Fancy Dance).
• Listen to our Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen interview (which also exists in Subjective Realities) in podcast form where they discuss the genre "creative nonfiction" and how why Lane coined it to describe her films.
• Read about why we named Harris Dickinson and Lily Gladstone as two of the fifty screen stars of tomorrow in 2021. Dickinson stars in the World Dramatic Competition film Scrapper at Sundance 2023. Gladstone stars in the US Dramatic Competition film Fancy Dance.
• Watch Lockdown Film School with Lily Gladstone. Gladstone has a new film, Fancy Dance, at Sundance 2023, and we’re excited to see it.
• Read an excerpt from our interview with Lily Gladstone which touches on her love of linguistics from the ebook Roads to nowhere: Kelly Reichardt’s broken American Dreams. Gladstone talks about learning different languages, which is particularly relevant to Fancy Dance in which she speaks Cherokee.
• Read our interview with writer-director Sonia Boileau on her Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) drama Rustic Oracle. Fancy Dance, one of our festival favourites thus far, also addresses MMIWG.
• Read Orla's Quick Thoughts review on last year's Girl Picture, in which one third of the central trio of characters questions whether she's asexual. This was the highlight of the 2022 World Dramatic Competition. This year's Slowalso features an asexual character.
• Download the Sundance 2023 bingo card to follow along at home.

Related episodes to E3

Discover all of our past podcast episodes on films that screened at Sundance.

To listen to all of these related episodes, become a member.

• Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative nonfiction (FREE): In this episode, we talk about Sundance's history of programming creative nonfiction films and how this has changed in the last decade. We'll be on the lookout for exciting new creative nonfiction films at the festival this year. Our early favourite is A Still Small Voice.
• Bonus Episode 23: Sundance 2022: Fiction Films (Members Only): At the end of Sundance 2022, we reflect on the highs, lows, discoveries, and disappointments among the fiction films at the festival, including Girl Picture, the best film in the 2022 World Dramatic Competition.
• Ep. 63: Indigenous YA, part 2 (Members Only): In this episode, we discuss a fantastic films about MMIWG that precedes Fancy Dance, Rustic Oracle, a film made in Canada. Rustic Oracle would make for a great double feature with Fancy Dance.
• Ep. 53: First Stripes and Boys State (Members Only): We go deep on the fantastic documentary First Stripes, which follows new recruits through basic training in the Canadian military.

As authors of the ebook Portraits of resistance: The cinema of Céline Sciamma, the first book to be written about the French director, we had to talk about her new film, Petite Maman, on the podcast.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh.

On this episode:

• Why we love Céline Sciamma and Portraits of resistance (1:45)
• Related episodes (2:49)
• Petite Mamam summary (5:07)
• Lindsay's history with Céline Sciamma's films (6:37)
• Céline Sciamma's precise attention to detail (9:02)
• Why we like this film - a non-saccharine view of childhood (11:03)
• Petite Maman's relationship to Sciamma's prior films (19:59)
• Absences and goodbyes (26:26)
• Time in the film (31:00)
• The house's space (35:38)
• The fantasy element (39:29)
• How Sciamma portrays and directs children (45:15)
• Temporary utopias (47:00)
• What would kids think of the film? (59:47)
• Empathy in the film (1:01:30)
• Conclusion (1:04:02)

Show notes:

• Read Alex's full review of Petite Maman from Berlinale 2021
• As we discuss in the episode, Petite Maman builds upon the themes we discussed in Portraits of resistance: The cinema of Céline Sciamma, the first ever book about French filmmaker Céline Sciamma, her process, her body of work. Portraits of resistance contains interviews with the cast and crew, as well as essays on the film and Céline Sciamma’s career. You can purchase the book for $26.99 Canadian or become a Seventh Row member for $39.99 Canadian per year and choose Portraits of resistance as the free ebook you receive for joining.

Related episodes:

• Ep. 96: Water Lilies and Jennifer’s Body: Girlhood and compulsory heterosexuality (Member's Only)
• Ep. 90: Jeanne Dielman and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna: A Chantal Akerman mother’s day (Member's Only)
• Ep. 84: Berlinale 2021, Part 2: The Competition (Member's Only)
• Ep. 30: Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Find out what we know so far about Kelly Reichardt’s new film, Showing Up.

On this episode:

• About our Kelly Reichardt ebook, Roads to Nowhere (4:22)
• Who is Kelly Reichardt? (5:52)
• Why 2022 is The Year of Kelly Reichardt (9:02)
• Kelly Reichardt’s history with Cannes and other festivals (10:36)
• Why we love Kelly Reichardt (28:42)
• Reichardt’s explorations of capitalist systems (37:15)
• The finances of a Kelly Reichardt film (41:46)
• Kelly Reichardt is a comedic filmmaker! (59:14)
• Showing Up and Reichardt’s collaborators (53:41)

Related episodes:

• Women at Cannes Ep. 1: A podcast on the history of women directors at Cannes
• Ep. 90: Jeanne Dielman and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna: A Chantal Akerman mother’s day (Members' Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

The worldwide online French film festival, myfrenchfilmfestival, is happening now until February 17, 2025, and it's a can't-miss event. Alex has been attending since 2017.

In this episode, Alex discusses three reasons why you should make time for myfrenchfilmfestival and recommends three films to watch: A Real Job, No Love Lost, and Through the Night.

***Join the Seventh Row newsletter to stay updated on myfrenchfilmfestival and other unique opportunities to watch under-the-radar films: http://email.seventh-row.com

Related Episodes

148. How I almost missed the best film of the 2010s

135. Promising Young Woman + The Assistant: Rape culture on film in 2020

132. Sarah Polley's Women Talking

86. Depictions of childhood sexual assault: Una and Slalom

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Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

In this episode of the TIFF 2024 season, Alex discusses three films about bicultural daughters and their absent fathers.

Fittingly, the films are about identity, the role of the father-daughter relationship, and what it may mean for both father and daughter for that relationship to be severed. 

To discuss the films' differing cultural contexts, I quote from interviews with the filmmakers, who share many similar insights despite their disparate backgrounds.

All three films are world premieres at TIFF and are still seeking North American/UK distributors.

The films are:

• Egil Pederson’s My Father’s Daughter (Sápmi) - first feature
• Koya Kamura’s Winter in Sokcho (France) - first feature
• Guillaume Senez’s A Missing Part  (Belgium/France)
  

About the TIFF 2024 season:

In the TIFF 2024 season, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney will discuss some of the best under-the-radar gems at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival through themed episodes.

This is for you if:

• You're attending TIFF and looking for recommendations;
• You're looking ahead to your local film festival for must-see titles; and/or
• You're interested in how filmmakers from around the world explore similar topics/genres, even if you're not sure if you'll ever see the films.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Check out all of our TIFF 2024 coverage here: https://seventh-row.com/tif24

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Interested in attending a film festival?

Get my five essential tips for the film adventurer seeking a fantastic festival experience.

These tips are tailored to TIFF but will work for any other film festival.

Sign up here: http://email.seventh-row.com/tiff24

***Join the Seventh Row newsletter to stay updated and find out about more great under-the-radar character dramas: http://email.seventh-row.com

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Woman in Revolt Editor-in-Chief joins Alex to discuss Halina Reijn's Babygirl, a movie we liked but didn't love but we think is worth digging into. 

Nicole Kidman stars as Romy, a high-powered CEO married to a theatre director, played by Antonio Banderas, but unsatisfied with her sexual relationship in her marriage. When a new intern at her company, played by Harris Dickinson, clocks her desire for submission, they begin a pas-de-deux that turns into a sexual power-exchange relationship. 

On the episode, we discuss the film's best scenes, why Harris Dickinson steals the film, whether the film is as racy as it thinks it is, some of its missteps, and compare it to other recent films it's in conversation with (from Fifty Shades of Grey to Elle). 

Related Episodes also featuring Lindsay Pugh

Promising Young Woman + The Assistant: Rape culture on film in 2020 (Redux)

101. Magnus von Horn's films The Here After and Sweat

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

We loved Francis Lee's debut film God's Own Country, so much so that we wrote about a book about it. In this episode we discussed God’s Own Country and Ammonite, two films that are somewhat the antithesis of each other, to uncover how they explore class, sex, intimacy, and labour.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and special guest Lena Wilson.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/11/17/ep-66-francis-lees-gods-own-country-ammonite/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

***Join the Seventh Row newsletter to stay updated and find out about more great under-the-radar character dramas: http://email.seventh-row.com

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One of Alex's deep cuts of 2024 is Limbo, an Australian film by Indigenous writer-director-cinematographer Ivan Sen. It's one of her top 3 films of the year.

Fewer than 4000 people have logged it on Letterboxd and only 54 critics reviewed it on Rotten Tomatoes (mostly positive!). Even though it had its world premiere in Competition at the Berlinale and is by one of the most important filmmakers working today and certainly one of the most important in Australia.

She realized that the reason she's one of the few critics recommending Limbo is partly because she's one of the few people who saw it! And that's because she had a pre-existing interest in Indigenous films from Australia, which goes back years and has taken a long, circuitous path.

So on today's episode, Alex talks about how she got interested in Indigenous films from Australia, why Limbo is one of the best films of 2024, and why you don't have to have her dedication to the topic to find something to love about the film.

Related Episodes:

Ep. 131 Remembering Jeff Barnaby

Ep. 120 Remembering David Gulpilil

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

Alex Heeney & Orla Smith discuss the highlight of Sundance 2022: creative nonfiction. We discuss active listening, reframing history, and a risk taking volcanologist couple.

On this episode:

• Related episodes (1:26)
• Sundance overview (4:22)
• 32 Sounds (Sam Green) (8:59)
• Reframing history: Framing Agnes (Chase Joynt), The Janes (Tia Lessin), & Tantura (Alon Schwarz) (29:27)
• I Didn't See You There (Reid Davenport) (44:10)
• Fire of Love (Sara Dosa) (47:34)
• All That Breathes (Shaunak Sen) & Mija (Isabel Castro) (52:51)
• Conclusion (57:31)

Show notes:

• Read our selections of the 10 best films of Sundance 2022
• Read Orla's interview with Director Chase Joynt and co-writer Morgan M Page about Framing Agnes
• Read Orla's review of Reid Davenport's I Didn't See You There
• Read Orla's review of Isabel Castro's Mija
• Read Orla's review of Shaunak Sen's All That Breathes
• For more on creative nonfiction, purchase our ebook Subjective realities: The art of creative nonfiction film. Subjective realities is a six part ebook composed of interviews and essays. Discover the myriad forms of nonfiction filmmaking, from animation to archival and beyond, and find out what funding structures exist to make them possible.

Related episodes

• Ep. 105: Subjective realities: The art of creative nonfiction film
• Ep. 95: No Ordinary Man and John Ware Reclaimed: Reclaiming history in documentary (Member's Only)
• Ep. 78: Sundance 2021, part 1 (Member's Only)
• Ep. 79: Sundance 2021, part 2 (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Toronto film critic Nathalie Atkinson joins Alex Heeney to discuss their latest obsession -- Amazon Prime's swashbuckling fantasy series, My Lady Jane -- and why we can't stop thinking about it. From husbands that are sometimes horses, to intimacy coordination by Ita O'Brien (Normal People), to an incredible cast (Edward Bluemel!), the show is a whole lot of fun with impressive craft behind it.

The limited series reimagines the story of Lady Jane Grey, the Tudor Queen who, at age 16, was queen for nine days. The show asks, what could have happened if Lady Jane lasted a little bit longer, had a whole lot of gumption, and also, uh…what if a bunch of people, named Ethians, could also transform into animals? The show is part romance, part adventure, part YA coming-of-ager, with an incredible supporting cast.

>> Subscribe to our FREE newsletter for updates on the best new under-the-radar films and streaming theatre productions <<

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

Follow Nathalie Atkinson on Instagram

For detailed show notes, visit the Seventh Row website. There is also an AI-generated transcript available.

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Announcement: Our new membership, Reel Ruminators: A Movie-of-the-Month Discussion Club is now open for new members in August! Doors close on August 9 at 11:59 p.m. EST. Once doors close, we won't be opening them again until October.

Find out more and reserve your spot by clicking here.

Lindsay Pugh joins hosts Alex Heeney and Orla Smith for a discussion of two rom-coms about unwanted pregnancies, Ninjababy and Obvious Child.

On this episode:

• Joachim Trier ebook (1:23)
• Related episodes (2:55)
• Why we are talking about these films (7:30)
• Obvious Child (11:40)
• The rom-com landscape of 2014 (16:59)
• Obvious Child's depiction of women's bodies (18:02)
• How has Obvious Child aged? (26:55)
• Ninjababy (36:53)
• The men of Ninjababy (54:08)
• The caveats of Ninjababy (1:07:49)
• Conclusion (1:17:11)

Show notes

• Read Alex's 2014 review of Obvious Child
• Read Lindsay's interview with Saint Frances director Alex Thompson and writer-star Kelly O’Sullivan
• Read Orla's interview with Ninjababy writer-director Yngvild Sve Flikke and actress Kristine Kujath Thorp
• See our 50 favourite films of the 2010s.
• Sign up for updates on the first book to ever be published on the films of Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Trier

Related episodes:

• Ep. 36: Abortion on screen and Never Rarely Sometimes Always
• Ep. 54: Kris Rey’s thirtysomethings: I Used to Go Here and Unexpected

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Today, we're celebrating pioneering American woman director Joan Micklin Silver by looking at her biggest flop, the excellent Chilly Scenes of Winter (1979), and her biggest hit, Crossing Delancey (1988). Although both films are over 35 years old, they mostly still read as very modern.

Woman in Revolt Editor-in-Chief Lindsay Pugh joins Alex Heeney to discuss why we love Joan Micklin Silver, why her films have aged so well (and the few things that haven't), and what makes her such a great filmmaker both as a visual stylist and a modern storyteller. 

*** Want to discover more recent restorations of films by and about diverse groups? Subscribe to the Globetrotting Watchlist: http://seventh-row.com/globetrotting

*** Wondering who will be the next Joan Micklin Silver? Alex programs some of the contenders in Reel Ruminators. Join the waitlist for Reel Ruminators: A Movie-of-the-Month Enrichment Experience https://email.seventh-row.com/reelruminators

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Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

We discuss the ups and downs of Sundance 2022, and chat about some of the festival's fiction films, including Sharp Stick and Living.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith.

Become a Seventh Row member and get access to the full episode, as well as all other podcast episodes older than six months.

Show notes:

• Read our selections of the 10 best films of Sundance 2022
• Read the source of the "blocking is everything" quote: Alex's 2018 interview with Andrew Haigh
• See Alex's Sundance Bingo Card
• Read Orla's review of Fresh
• Read an excerpt of Lindsay Pugh's interview with The Worst Person in the World star Renate Reinsve
• Sign up to be the first to pre-order Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions, the first book to ever be published on Joachim Trier, and receive the full interview with Reinsve

Related episodes:

• Ep. 122: Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World
• Bonus Episode 22: Joel Coen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth
• Bonus Episode 16: Watching Lena Dunham’s Girls in 2021
• Ep. 106: Christine and Kate Plays Christine: Reviving Christine Chubbuck
• Ep. 78: Sundance 2021, part 1 (Member's Only)
• Ep. 79: Sundance 2021, part 2 (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Another Round is available on VOD, and streaming on Crave in Canada and Hulu in the US

Show Notes

• This episode is part of our week long celebration of Oslo, August 31st's 10th anniversary.
• Oslo, August 31st was our best film of the decade. Check out our other 49 selections here.
• Read Alex's essay "There is a world elsewhere: exile in Joachim Trier’s Oslo, August 31st and Louder Than Bombs"
• Read our special issue on Louder Than Bombs, which includes a review and interviews with director Joachim Trier and cinematographer Jakob Ihre.
• Read our in-depth guide to director Joachim Trier
• We will be writing an ebook on Joachim Trier, to celebrate the release of his new film, The Worst Person in the World. It will be released early next year. Sign up here for updates

Related Episode

• Ep. 40: Dead Mothers: Stories We Tell, Louder Than Bombs, & Mouthpiece (Member’s Only)

In this episode, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith discuss the Japanese hidden gem My Small Land, the first feature film from Emma Kawawada. We fell in love with the film at the Berlinale earlier this year, and are excited that it's finally getting a Canadian release this week.

My Small Land, is the story of a Kurdish teenage girl, Sarya (Lina Arashi) who is an immigrant in Japan. She grew up just outside of Tokyo and has no memories of her home, which was colonised Kurdish territory in Turkey. Sarya ends up in an impossible situation when her family loses their work visas, and travel permission, and she suddenly becomes responsible for her younger siblings with no way to earn money legally. My Small Land follows in the tradition of social realism, and the style of filmmaking owes much to Kore-eda's small scale character dramas.

My Small Land will be screening at TIFF in Toronto from November 9 to 16 and in Charlottetown PEI until November 8. The film has also screened at VIFF in Vancouver and the Montreal Cinematheque. Watch for it on VOD soon if it's not coming to your city.

This is an excerpt of a members only episode. To listen to the full episode, become a member at http://seventh-row.com/join

One of the best movies of 2022, Jerzy Skolimowski's visually and aurally inventive Eo, is now in cinemas for a limited time. The film is about injustice in the animal world seen through the eyes of a donkey. It's a great big screen experience (for sound and image) so we're going deep on the film this week. Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith are joined by Associate Editor Dr. Brett "Empathy" Pardy. 

About the excerpt

In this excerpt, we discuss whether Eo is presented as an "exceptional" animal/donkey in the film. Many films about animals depict them as exceptional, like Air Bud the golden retriever who can play basketball or Okja the superpig. In many ways, Skolimowski's film bucks convention here by making Eo a fairly normal donkey whose experiences (and the way he's depicted) render him a subject of interest rather than because he's a particularly special donkey. 

We ask, why do we care about animals on screen (in general) and why do we care about Eo? Does a home exist for a donkey like Eo?

Become a member to listen to the rest of the discussion, which includes:

In the full episode, we go even deeper on how the film creates empathy for a donkey and give a donkey the appearance of a full emotional inner-life. We also compare Eo to other recent films about (or featuring) animals — including White God, Lean on Pete, Cow, and Gunda — to help us understand how empathy is usually extended toward on-screen animals. Finally, we discuss how some of the best politically conscious films being made today, with youthful exuberance, are coming from directors over 70.

01:51 Why are we talking about Eo?
09:18 Placing Eo within the canon of donkey stories
13:53 Exceptional donkeys (this section is the only one available free)
32:00 Anthropomorphising animals 
46:56 An older generation of political filmmakers

Show Notes

• Become a member for access to all of our upcoming episodes
• Listen to our previous podcast season on Women at Cannes
• Read Alex Heeney's review of Eo
• Get your copy of our ebook on Lean on Pete, a film about an unexceptional horse
• Read Alex Heeney's White God interview with the film's director and animal trainer
• Get your copy of our ebook Road to nowhere: Kelly Reichardt's broken American dreams. It features an interview with the First Cow and Lean on Pete animal trainer.
• Watch the 2009 Sam Mendes Charlie Rose interview referenced in the episode. He discusses the differences between directing film and theatre

Related episodes

• Ep. 11: Mike Leigh's Peterloo (Free) - on the film and what we learned about Leigh's process and the film from writing the book Peterloo in process: A Mike Leigh collaboration
• Ep. 32: Sorry We Missed You and Peterloo (Members only) - we discuss creating empathy for characters navigating an unjust world
• Ep 93: The films of Agnieszka Holland (Members Only) - we discuss Europa Europa, Washington Square, and Charlatan and how Holland depicts life under totalitarian states (which has similarities what Eo experiences as a lower class donkey)
• Ep. 104: Agnieszka Holland on directing (Members Only) - an in-depth interview with the director about bucking convention from early on in her career, and how she continues to do so now
• Ep. 7: Andrew Haigh's Lean on Pete (Free) - we discuss the film and its depiction of an unexceptional horse, as well as insights gleaned from our ebook on the film (Lean on Pete: A Special Issue), including how it was made

Where to find us

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram @SeventhRow.

Follow Alex Heeney @bwestcineaste, Orla Smith @orlamango, and Dr. Brett Pardy @DrAntiqueiPod on Twitter. 

• Why this episode and the origins of creative nonfiction (1:17)
• Intro with Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen (4:18)
• Why creative nonfiction (7:03)
• Inspirations (17:03)
• Documentary vs creative nonfiction as a label (20:49)
• Editing and pre-screening (26:01)
• Animation in documentary (33:02)
• Audience questions (41:31)

Show notes:

• Read Orla's article "What is creative nonfiction?"
• Read Alex's review of Penny Lane’s Nuts!.
• Watch Watching the Pain of Others, Chloé Galibert-Laîné’s excellent and artful video essay on Penny Lane’s films, focusing on the emotional impact that Lane’s The Pain of Others had on her and the way the film’s editing creates and shapes audience empathy.
• View the other Lockdown Film School sessions

Related episode

• Ep. 95: Reclaiming history in documentary: No Ordinary Man and John Ware Reclaimed
• Ep. 46: Mina Shum and Philippe Falardeau
• Ep. 12: Hail Satan? featuring director Penny Lane

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

On this episode

• Fiona Underhill, The Souvenir superfan (1:08)
• Tour of Memories (4:14)
• Related episodes (8:38)
• Synopses (15:19)
• How does Part II change how we see Part I (23:14)
• Julie's arc as an artist and a character (33:44)
• The ensemble (53:10)
• Where does Joanna Hogg go next? (1:03:04)
• The costumes (1:05:22)
• Julie's parents (1:14:30)
• Honor Swinton Byrne (1:20:22)
• The sound design (1:24:06)
• Hogg's other films (1:25:38)
• Conclusion (1:37:10)

Show notes:

• Our ebook Tour of memories: The creative process behind Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir provides the trademark Seventh Row 360-degree view of Hogg’s filmmaking process on The Souvenir. Read interviews with all of Hogg’s key behind the lens collaborators, several of whom have been working with her since her first film, Unrelated.
• Purchase our ebook Portraits of resistance: The cinema of Céline Sciamma
• Watch our Lockdown Film School session with The Souvenir production designer Stéphane Collonge (and Suzie Davies)
• Watch our Lockdown Film School session with The Souvenir costume designer Grace Snell (and April Napier)
• Read Fiona's review of The Souvenir Part II on Jumpcut Online
• Read Fiona's interview with Joanna Hogg on Jumpcut Online

Related episodes

• Ep. 114: Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come and Bergman Island
• Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2 (Member's Only)
• Ep. 44: Shirley and portraits of female artists (Member's Only)
• Ep. 14: The Souvenir and the films of Joanna Hogg

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

We celebrate Mother's Day with an episode on the queen of on-screen mothers, Chantal Akerman, and her films Jeanne Dielman, 23, quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles and Les Rendez-vous d'Anna.

On this episode:

• Chantal Akerman's legacy (4:20)
• Jeanne Dielman (17:52)
• What to make of Jeanne Dielman's ending (34:31)
• Les Rendez-vous d'Anna (41:03)
• Mothers in the two films (55:25)
• Jewish identity in Akerman's films (1:00:52)
• Akerman's aesthetic (1:09:24)
• Conclusion (1:13:36)

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh.

Episode Notes:

• Read Alex's review of Chantal Akerman's 2015 film, No Home Movie
• Preview or purchase our ebook Tour of memories: The creative process behind Joanna Hogg's The Souvenir
• Preview or purchase our ebook Road to nowhere: Kelly Reichardt's broken American dreams.
• Preview or purchase our ebook Peterloo in process: A Mike Leigh collaboration
• Listen to our episode featuring Promising Young Woman (content warning: discussion of sexual violence)
• Listen to our episode featuring Spinster
• Read our newest feature, our editors picks for the fifty most exciting emerging actors working today

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

***Join the Seventh Row newsletter to stay updated and find out about more great under-the-radar character dramas: http://email.seventh-row.com

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What separates a good character drama from a great character drama is a film that actually places the character in a very particular context — a place, a culture, a group of people — so we understand what constraints and opportunities they're responding to.

In this episode, Alex talks about how Magnus von Horn's The Girl with the Needle exemplifies this definition of a great character drama. In fact, it's one of the best movies of 2024. It's a film that's as about the complex characters at its centre as the world that produced them and pushed them to behave in the way they do.

Then, Alex talks to director von Horn about how we crafted the world around the characters.

Set in Copenhagen during/after WWI, The Girl with the Needle follows Karoline in her quest for upward mobility when she finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy desperate for a solution. Enter Dagmar, who provides an enticing solution and becomes her new employer. But is Dagmar's promise as simple and sweet as it sounds?

Related Episodes:

Ep 101. Magnus von Horn's The Here After and Sweat

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram.

** Doors are now open for Reel Ruminators: Explorer, an annual membership which curates 12 incredible films you may have missed.

** Find out more here: http://seventh-row.com/explorer

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In 2011, I came very, very close to never seeing the movie that would be my favourite film of the 2010s. 

So that got me thinking...

What makes us willing to take a chance on a film that might surprise us?

In this episode, I tell you about my near miss, why I think I still would have missed the movie later if I hadn't seen it when I did, and what I learned about what we can all do to avoid missing our next favourite film.

Related Episodes:

Ep. 107. Another Round and Oslo, August 31st: Are men OK? Masculinity, mental health & addiction

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Bluesky and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Bluesky, Twitter and Instagram. 

**Are you interested in discovering extraordinary under-the-radar movies and discussing them with a community of film lovers?**

**Sign up for the Reel Ruminators (Free Trial), by visiting https://email.seventh-row.com/trial. The discussion will happen on October 13 at 12 p.m. EST. **

Toronto-based film critic Angelo Muredda joins Alex Heeney to discuss one of the biggest directorial swings at TIFF: Joshua Oppenheimer's The End. Starring Tilda Swinton, George MacKay, and Michael Shannon, the film is a musical about a rich family surviving in isolation in a salt mine bunker after the climate apocalypse.

We discuss how the film works as a post-apocalyptic story and a musical, and how what we found interesting about the film may not be what Oppenheimer felt was most central.

The End will be released in North America on December 6, 2024.

The episode avoids major spoilers.

About the TIFF 2024 season:

The TIFF 2024 season previews under-the-radar gems and buzzy titles at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival.

This is for you if:

• You're attending TIFF and looking for recommendations;
• You're looking ahead to your local film festival for must-see titles; and/or
• You're interested in how filmmakers from around the world explore similar topics/genres, even if you're not sure if you'll ever see the films.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Check out all of our TIFF 2024 coverage here: https://seventh-row.com/tiff24

In the fifth and final episode of our Creative Nonfiction Film podcast season, Alex Heeney talks to Penny Lane about her experimentations with documentary form in Confessions of a Good Samaritan. The film is a trip inside Penny’s brain as she goes through the stressful process of anonymously donating her kidney and investigates why kidney donations are necessary. Lane weaves almost all of the techniques from her previous films (and a few more!) into Confessions of a Good Samaritan, offering a thoughtful, educational, and funny look at the complicated feelings that come with doing good in the world at some personal expense.

Click here to read the episode show notes.

You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes.

Useful links

• Visit the Creative Nonfiction Podcast homepage
• Discover all of our resources on the films of Joachim Trier
• Pre-order Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions

More on creative nonfiction

Download a FREE excerpt from Subjective Realities here.

Get your copy of the ebook Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film here.

Get your copy of the ebook In their own words: Documentary Masters vol. 1

Listen to the podcast on the ebook Subjective realities: The art of creative nonfiction film

Become a Member

Members receive early access to all new episodes of our season.

Members can also access the entire podcast archive of 150+ episodes. Our recent episodes from our seasons and regular episodes from the last six months are free to all for a limited time.

To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from past Sundance Film Festivals and past Sundance films, become a member.

As a member, you will also be supporting what we do, and helping us cover the (expensive) costs of hosting, running a website, podcast equipment, and more. This helps to ensure we can continue producing the podcast.

Related Episodes

Members Only Episodes

• Ep. 12: Penny Lane on Hail Satan? (Members' Exclusive): Penny Lane discusses her 2019 film Hail Satan
• Ep. 40: Dead Mothers (Members' Exclusive): We discuss Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs, a film that expertly gets inside the head of its thoughtful characters. We also compare it to Mouthpiece and Stories We Tell.
• Ep. 122: Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World (Free): Joachim Trier's breakout hit is also a film that is very good at getting us inside the protagonist's mind amidst an existential crisis.

Free Episodes

• Ep. 105: Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film: We discuss the making of the ebook Subjective Realities and what you can expect from the book
• Ep. 99: Creative Nonfiction with Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen
• Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative Nonfiction

Credits

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Email us at contact seventh row com.

This episode was edited, produced, and recorded by Alex Heeney.

Show notes and related episodes:

• Follow airborne transmission expert Dr. Linsey Marr on Twitter
• Read Per Morten Mjølkeråen's interview with Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn director Radu Jude
• Read Brett's review of 76 Days from TIFF 2020
• Read Alex's review of Both Sides of the Blade
• Read Orla's interview with Searchers director Pacho Velez
• Read Alex's review of Young Plato
• Read Orla's review of Mija
• Read Orla's review of The Mission
• Bonus 27: Empathy on film
• Bonus 25: This is Going to Hurt and physician mental health
• Bonus 23: Sundance 2022: Fiction films
• Ep. 125: Berlinale 2022
• Ep. 116: Virtual film festivals: Taking stock of their past, present, and future
• Ep. 84: Berlinale 2021, Part 2: The Competition

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

I've just launched a Reel Ruminators: A Movie-of-the-Month discussion Club, a new membership for movie lovers to watch amazing movies and meet other film lovers to discuss them.

In this trailer, I will tell you more about Reel Ruminators and help you figure out whether it's a good fit for you.

Doors are currently open to join, and doors close Thursday, July 4 at 11:59 p.m. EST for July’s Reel Ruminators.

Click here to find out more and join Reel Ruminators

Associate Editor Brett Pardy recently defended his PhD about film and empathy. We discuss his research, what inspired him to get into the topic, and how Seventh Row ties in.

This episode also features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith.

On this episode:

• Brett's Doctoral Dissertation (0:45)
• Related episodes (4:48)
• Brett's origin story for getting into this study (9:36)
• Cultural perceptions of films as just entertainment (18:24)
• What does empathy through film look like? (29:03)
• Having conversations about films (34:36)
• Expanding people's film horizons (43:31)
• How Seventh Row relates to this (48:36)
• Conclusion (1:02:18)

Show notes:

• Read Brett's interview with Stupid Young Heart director Selma Vilhunen and writer Kirsikka Saari
• Read Alex's interview with Meditation Park director Mina Shum
• Read Roger Ebert's speech about empathy and film.
• See the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They Top 1000 film list

Related episodes:

• Bonus 26: Benedict Cumberbatch’s best, worst, and poshest performances (Member's Only)
• Bonus 19: Who is the poshest actor in Britain? (Member's Only)
• Ep. 90: Jeanne Dielman and Les Rendez-vous d’Anna: A Chantal Akerman mother’s day (Member's Only)
• Ep. 86: Una & Slalom: Depictions of childhood sexual assault (Member's Only)
• Ep. 73: Promising Young Woman and The Assistant: Explorations of rape culture (Member's Only)
• Ep. 72: Steve McQueen’s Small Axe (Member's Only)
• Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2 (Member's Only)
• Ep. 68: Hillbilly Elegy and Down to the Bone: Mothers struggling with addiction (Member's Only)
• Ep. 46: A conversation between Mina Shum and Philippe Falardeau (Member's Only)
• Ep. 39: Jeff Barnaby’s Rhymes for Young Ghouls and Blood Quantum (Member's Only)

Toronto-based film critic Angelo Muredda joins Alex Heeney to discuss Brady Corbet's The Brutalist, a four-hour fictional biopic about a brutalist architect and Holocaust survivor adjusting to life in post-war America. The film is Directorial Choices: The Movie. It won the Best Director Prize at the Venice Film Festival, but we had a lot of issues with the direction and the film. Despite its shortcomings, it offers a lot of fodder for discussion.

The episode is spoiler-free.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2024/10/23/tiff-2024-brady-corbet-the-brutalist/

About the TIFF 2024 season:

The TIFF 2024 season previews under-the-radar gems and buzzy titles at the festival with spoiler-free episodes that will help you prioritize what to watch for in the coming months.

The season will be spoiler-free and designed to be listened to even if you haven't seen the films (or are worried you won't ever be able to). 

Check out all of our TIFF 2024 coverage here: https://seventh-row.com/tiff24

Contrary to popular belief, when Oscar season ends, good movie season begins. The 3-4 month window after the Oscars and before summer movie season is when 90% of the year's best movies get released.

Today on the podcast, we look back on the wide variety of excellent international movies that have directly followed the Oscars in this window in past years. We explain some of the attributes that define these films, which are diverse demographically (e.g., women, LGBTQ+, Indigenous), as well as in content and form.

We discover that it's a challenge to package these films into neat categories for listeners because what makes these films so interesting is that they don't fit neatly into pre-defined genres and categories. E.g., they're period pieces aren't conventional period pieces. They're quiet, contemplative films that may be ambitious but low-budget. 

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To join the Radical Adaptations movie group in which we will watch Fabian: Going to the Dogs an read the book on which it's based, sign up for an invitation at http://seventh-row.com/radicaladaptations

To join Reel Ruminators: A Movie-of-the-Month Enrichment Experience in March, get on the waitlist at http://email.seventh-row.com/reelruminators . 

--

Stay updated on the US distribution status of festival films at C.J. Prince's Acquired Cinema: http://acquiredcinema.substack.om

Jasmila Žbanic's Quo Vadis, Aida is one of the best films of the year. On this episode, we discuss it in context of Atiq Rahimi's Our Lady of the Nile, another film approaching the theme of genocide with tremendous empathy towards the human cost rather than being a spectacle of suffering.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and special guest Andrew Kendall.

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2021/03/10/ep-82-genocide-on-film-quo-vadis-aida-and-our-lady-of-the-nile/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

We're joined by Andrew Kendall to discuss the new German film Fabian: Going to the Dogs, directed by Dominik Graf, and how it portrays life in a totalitarian state.

This episode features  Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and special guest Andrew Kendall

On this episode:

• Related episodes (1:52)
• Fabian: Going to the Dogs synopsis (4:36)
• Connecting the past to the present (6:57)
• Adapting a 1932 novel with the knowledge of hindsight (15:01)
• The film's tone (33:40)
• Meret Becker as Frau Moll (47:03)
• How the film approaches the rise of Nazism (48:56)
• How this is like Tony Richardson's Tom Jones (54:07)
• Period costumes (58:48)
• Pietro Marcello's Martin Eden and masculinity (1:05:35)
• Conclusion (1:20:27)

Show notes:

• Read Alex's review of A Radiant Girl (Sandrine Kiberlain, 2021)
• Read an interview with Dominik Graf about making Fabian with Steve Erickson of The Film Stage
• Purchase our ebook Peterloo in Process: A Mike Leigh collaboration
• Purchase our ebook Roads to nowhere Kelly Reichardt’s broken American dreams
• Read Andrew's reviews at Stabroek News

Related episodes:

• Ep. 93: The films of Agnieszka Holland (Member's Only)
• Ep. 82: Quo Vadis, Aida and Our Lady of the Nile: Genocide on film (Member's Only)
• Ep. 5: Christian Petzold’s Transit (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

***Join the Seventh Row newsletter to stay updated and find out about more great under-the-radar character dramas: http://email.seventh-row.com

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Today on the podcast, Alex discusses the new Italian film from Maura Delpero, Vermiglio, set in a remote village in the Italian Alps at the end of WWII. It's Delpero's second feature, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Venice International Film Festival. It's in cinemas this week.

The film is the story of the local teacher's family and the power of both formal and informal knowledge and how it's passed down. When the film opens, the family is hiding a Sicilian soldier who has escape from the army – an open secret in the town. He falls in love with the teacher's eldest daughter, and the film follows their budding relationship — and all the familial relationships around them — over the course of a year, as the seasons change and the war ends.

Related Episodes:

• 139. Green Border: an interview with Agniezka Holland (It won the Special Jury Prize at Venice in 2023)
• 147. Why is it so hard to see the new Cillian Murphy movie? (On why it's hard to see independent/foreign films in cinemas).

Stay updated on Seventh Row

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter and Instagram. Read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Alex Heeney on Twitter and Instagram. 

In this episode we compare the new awards bait film Hillbilly Elegy to a more empathetic, politically conscious portrait of a mother struggling with addiction: Debra Granik's 2004 debut, Down to the Bone.

This episode features Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and special guest Lindsay Pugh

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2020/12/01/ep-68-hillbilly-elegy/

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

We discuss This is Going to Hurt, an early contender for best show of the year, the excellence of Ben Whishaw, why Ambika Mod is such an exciting newcomer, and how it brilliantly discusses the mental health of National Health Service workers.

This episode features  Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh

Content warning: This episode discusses suicide

Show notes and related episodes:

• Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2
• (Member's Only)
• Ep. 32: Sorry We Missed You and Peterloo (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

In this episode, we discuss why the film Women Talking didn't work on every level. This includes the didactic screenplay, the bland and placeless production design, the typecasting, and the poor direction of group scenes. We are joined by special guest Dr. Angelo Muredda, who has a PhD in CanLit.

To read the show notes and get the AI-generated transcript of the episode, click here.

At Seventh Row, we've been long-time fans of Sarah Polley. We have even published episodes on her films Take This Waltz and Stories We Tell. Women Talking is her first bad, if well-intentioned, film. But it's been getting enormous Oscar buzz since its Telluride premiere.

Angelo and Alex read the book by Miriam Toews, on which the film is based. We discuss the problems in the source text that get translated into the film — and how the film works (or doesn't) as a page-to-screen adaptation.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, as well as special guest Dr. Angelo Muredda.

About the film Women Talking

Based on a true story that happened in Bolivia, Women Talking is a fictional reimagining with an alternate ending. Almost every woman and girl in a small Mennonite community has been raped in their sleep by men or boys in the community. Traumatized and beaten down, a group of women volunteers from three families convene for a couple of days to discuss what the women should do. They must decide whether to stay and fight or to leave. The film then follows them through their discussions. The film Women Talking was adapted from the Miriam Toewes novel of the same name by Sarah Polley.

Timings

• 00:00 Introduction
• 04:40 Why are talking about Women Talking?
• 07:20 An overview of our problems with Women Talking
• 25:05 Adapting Miriam Toews’s novel
• 34:00 The lack of specificity in Women Talking’s depiction of a Mennonite community
• 36:50 The casting and performances in Women Talking
• 52:10 The film’s treatment of its trans and disabled characters
• 1:06:05 Sarah Polley’s direction and the film’s cinematography
• 1:19:55 How Women Talking fits into CanLit
• 1:24:00 Why is this film resonating?

Show Notes

• Read the 2019 New York Times article that Alex cites on the episode: in the piece, mennonites are interviewed about their thoughts on Miriam Toews’s novel, Women Talking.
• Read Alex's interview with the writer-director of Felix & Meira, a film about a Hasidic Jewish woman who decides to leave her community. On the episode, Alex compares Women Talking to films about Hasidic Jews.
• Read Alex's interview with the writer-director of Menashe, a film about Hasidic Jews made with actors who are part of the Hasidic Jewish community. On the episode, Alex compares the depiction of mennonites in Women Talking to the depiction of Hasidic Jewish characters in Menace
• Read Angelo’s recent review of Armageddon Time for Film Freak Central.

Related episodes

• Ep. 43: Take This Waltz and Paper Year: Canadian marriage stories (Members Only) - We go deep on Sarah Polley's second feature, Take This Waltz, a film about a marriage breaking up, and compare it to another female-directed Canadian film about a troubled marriage, Paper Year.
• Ep. 40: Stories We Tell, Louder Than Bombs, & Mouthpiece: Dead mothers (Members Only): We discuss Sarah Polley's third feature, the creative nonfiction film Stories We Tell alongside two of our favourite films that are also about dead mothers. All three films were on Seventh Row's 50 favourite films of the decade list.
• Ep. 73: Promising Young Woman and The Assistant: Explorations of rape culture (Members only): We discuss two films that explore rape culture, one that does it thoughtfully (The Assistant) and one that does it poorly (Promising Young Woman). In the current episode, we regularly compare Women Talking to Promising Young Woman and refer back to this discussion in Ep. 73

• Bonus 27: Empathy on film with Dr. Brett Pardy (FREE to everyone) - Dr. Pardy did his PhD research on how films can create empathy, and we discuss on Ep. 132 how Women Talking fails to create empathy.

Where to find us

Special Guest Angelo Muredda holds a PhD in disability studies on Canadian Literature and is a lecturer in the English department at Humber College. Angelo has also contributed to our ebook Portraits of resistance: The cinema of Céline Sciamma with an essay on the female gaze, and to our ebook Roads to nowhere: Kelly Reichardt's broken American dreams with an essay on Wendy and Lucy. You can find Angelo on Twitter and Instagram @amuredda.

Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.

Host Orla Smith is the Executive Editor of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @orlamango and on Instagram @orla_p_smith.

Become a Member

All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only. We also regularly record members only episodes. To get full access to the podcast, become a member at http://seventh-row.com/join

The entire Seventh Row editorial team is here to talk about site favourite Joachim Trier's new film, The Worst Person in the World.This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh, and Editor-at-Large Mary Angela Rowe. 

On this episode:

• Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions (2:21)
• Related episodes (4:15)
• The World Person in the World and our first reactions (5:39)
• Is Julie the worst person in the world?(19:31)
• The film's structure (27:23)
• The film's style (33:57)
• Julie's relationships (45:06)
• The time freeze scene (56:57)
• The mushroom scene (1:10:42)
• Intellectualizing and romanticizing (1:18:07)
• The retroactive Oslo Trilogy (1:33:38)
• Conclusion (1:49:20)

Show notes

• Read an excerpt of Lindsay's interview with Renate Reinsve from our upcoming email book Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions
• Sign up to be the first to pre-order Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions, the first book to ever be published on Joachim Trier. You will also receive exclusive excerpts from the book.
• Read Alex's review of The Worst Person in the World
• View our Directors We Love page on Joachim Trier, for extensive information on Trier and his key collaborators, and links to all of our coverage of his films

Related episodes

• Ep. 114: Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come and Bergman Island
• Ep. 112: Raw and Thelma: Modern female monsters
• Ep. 107: Another Round and Oslo, August 31st: Are men OK? Masculinity, mental health, & addiction Redux
• Ep. 54: Used to Go Here and Unexpected: Kris Rey’s thirtysomethings (Member's Only)
• Ep. 40: Stories We Tell, Louder Than Bombs, & Mouthpiece: Dead mothers (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Show notes and related episodes:

• Ep. 118: The Souvenir Part I and II
• Bonus 19: Who is the Poshest Actor in Britain? (Member's Only)
• Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2 (Member's Only)
• Ep. 22: The King attempts to adapt Shakespeare’s Henry V (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Director Uberto Pasolini and James Norton discuss avoiding sentimentality and collaborating on their film Nowhere Special (2020). 

Seventh Row Host Alex Heeney interviews them and offers her take on why this heartwarming and heartbreaking tearjerker is worth your time.

James Norton plays John, a 35-year-old window cleaner and single dad who is dying of an unspecified disease. To prepare for the future, he searches for adoptive parents to care for his three-year-old son Michael after he dies. The film is about the relationship between father and son and its mundanities, how we care for and protect our children, and how the pair learn to cope with their reality. It's tender and warm, and James Norton is great.

Nowhere Special is out in US cinemas today. It's streaming on BBC iPlayer on the UK. 

For detailed show notes, visit: https://seventh-row.com/2024/04/26/ep-136-nowhere-special-interview-james-norton-uberto-pasolini/

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On this episode:

• 0:00-10:49 Introduction to the film
• 10:49-29:22 Interview with James Norton and Uberto Pasolini
• 29:22-31:06 Related episodes, announcements

Related Episodes:

• Ep. 85: The films of Naomi Kawase, featuring True Mothers
• Bonus 19: Who is the poshest actor in Britain?

Coming Soon: Abortion on Film Season

In this six-episode season, we discuss how socially progressive depictions of abortion on film have changed and developed since the 1950s. We’re putting the finishing touches on the season now, and hoping to have it out in about a month’s time. 

Find out more about the Abortion on Film season

Become a member to listen to the entire season today! We will begin airing the show to the public in the coming weeks.

We're joined by Lindsay Pugh to continue our ongoing conversation around films about female artists, and how the way these stories are being told is changing, including The Souvenir, Mothering Sunday, Bergman Island, and more.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh

Show notes and related episodes:

• Ep. 44: Shirley and portraits of female artists (Member's Only)
• Ep. 122: Joachim Trier’s The Worst Person in the World
• Ep. 121: Ninjababy & Obvious Child: Unwanted pregnancies in romantic comedies
• Ep. 118: The Souvenir Part I and II
• Ep. 114: Mia Hansen-Løve’s Things to Come and Bergman Island (Member's Only)
• Ep. 92: Sugar Daddy and An Easy Girl: Commodifying women (Member's Only)
• Ep. 89: Spinster and The Forty-Year-Old Version: Coming of age at forty (Member's Only)
• Ep. 54: I Used to Go Here and Unexpected: Kris Rey’s thirtysomethings (Member's Only)
• Ep. 45: The films of Anne Émond, from Nuit #1 to Nelly (Member's Only)
• Ep. 30: Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Member's Only)
• Ep. 15: Vita & Virginia and the author biopic (Member's Only)
• Ep. 14: The Souvenir and the films of Joanna Hogg (Member's Only)

• Orla Smith and Support the Girls (3:35)
• Alex Heeney and Proxima (9:41)
• Caitlin Merriman and The Lady in the Van (15:21)
• Debbie Zhou and Lust, Caution (19:35)
• Lena Wilson and Teeth (24:28)
• Andrew Kendall and The English Patient (27:19)
• Emily Garside and Pride (32:23)
• Fiona Underhill and Empire of the Sun (36:39)
• Lindsay Pugh and Ishtar (41:00)
• Brett Pardy and The Farewell (45:57)

• Emily Garside (@EmiGarside), Writer, Researcher, and Theatre Maker. Visit her website.
• Alex Heeney (@bwestcineaste), Editor-in-Chief, Seventh Row.
• Andrew Kendall (@DepartedAviator), Film Critic, Stabroek News.
• Caitlin Merriman (@CaitlinSnark).
• Brett Pardy (@AntiqueiPod), Associate Editor, Seventh Row.
• Lindsay Pugh (@womaninrevolt), Contributing Editor, Seventh Row. Writer, Woman in Revolt.
• Orla Smith (@orlamango), Executive Editor, Seventh Row.
• Fiona Underhill (@FionaUnderhill), Editor-in-Chief, JumpCut Online.
• Lena Wilson (@lenalwilson), Culture Writer. Visit her website.
• Debbie Zhou (@debbie_zhou), Managing Editor, Rough Cut.

Episode Notes:

• Read Alex's interview with Proxima director Alice Winocour
• Read Alex's 2014 review of Pride
• Read Orla's interview with The Farewell director Lulu Wang

Related Episodes

• Ep. 51: Working Mothers: Proxima & Baby Boom
• Ep. 1: Leave No Trace

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.