The Cinematologists Podcast

The Beast (w/writer-director Bertrand Bonello)

To coincide with the release of his latest film The Beast (starring Léa Seydoux and George Mackay), writer/director Bertrand Bonello came on the podcast to talk about AI and technology, acting, connection, memory, music and perplexing cinema.
It was an honour for Neil to talk filmmaking and cinema - taking in Eyes Wide Shut, David Lynch and Sunrise - for the podcast, as Neil and Dario are big admirers of Bonello’s work and it’s a privilege to have one of the world’s most interesting contemporary filmmakers on the show.
Highlights from the Episode:
Perplexing Cinema: Bonello discusses his preference for films that engage viewers in active thought, asking questions rather than providing answers.
Casting Insights: Learn about the challenges and triumphs of casting George McKay and the enigmatic Lea Seydoux, whose performances bring profound depth to the film.
AI and Memory: The film’s exploration of AI delves into the subjective nature of human memory and emotion, highlighting the inherent limitations of technology in capturing the human experience.
Music as Narrative: Bonello’s meticulous selection of music is more than an illustration—it’s a narrative tool that enhances character and story.
Cinematic Time: Discover how Bonello plays with time in his films, creating a fluid and immersive experience for the audience.
The Beast is released by Vertigo Releasing on Friday May 31st in UK cinemas and marks the filmmaker’s boldest and most cinematically adventurous film to date. It’s one of the films of 2024 and The Cinematologists is proud to have welcomed Bertrand on the show to promote the film’s release.
Huge thanks to the publicist Chris Lawrance for making this conversation happen.
—
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
—
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Big Wednesday (w/filmmaker Mark Jenkin)

The latest episode was the brainchild of longtime Cinematologist Mark Jenkin (Bait/Enys Men) who wanted to screen one of his favourite films, John Milius's Big Wednesday (1978) at his local cinema, the gorgeous Newlyn Filmhouse, in South West Cornwall. 
Over a languorous chat before the screening, and over some wonderful chips, Neil and Mark talk about the film and its director, surfing and Mark's upbringing in North Cornwall, the podcast, film programming, filmmaking and all sorts. During the conversation, the lovely staff from the Filmhouse pop in and out making sure the hosts are ok.
After this the episode moves into the screen, where Neil and Mark intro the film and are joined afterwards by a large portion of the sell-out crowd to reflect on the screening and the many complex and moving elements of the film, before Neil and Mark say goodnight on the steps of the cinema as staff close it for the day.
Thank you to Mark for choosing the film and being so generous with his time, thoughts and energy at the event. Thanks to Kingsley for manning the roving mic and thanks to Alastair and staff at the Filmhouse for their support, hospitality, and chips. 
—
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
—
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Recent 2024 Releases (w/Dario!)

On a recent visit to London, Neil and Dario sat down to catch up about Dario's break from this season's shows, the present and future of the podcast and some recent film releases they've both seen and enjoyed. 
They discuss two films they saw together across a relaxing shared weekend; Ilker Çatak's The Teachers' Lounge and Wim Wenders' Perfect Days. They also discuss Felipe Gálvez Haberle's The Settlers, which they have both seen, but separately. 
Conversation covers the context of the films they watched together, waxing lyrical about The Garden Cinema in Covent Garden, where they watched The Teachers' Lounge, as well as the invitation to think and converse provided by watching Perfect Days at home.
Elsewhere Dario talks about the experience of being up close and personal seeing Brian Cox in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night, and Neil discusses seeing Dev Patel's Monkey Man (2024) and Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Evil Does Not Exist (2023) which leads the pair into a discussion about the Japanese filmamker, a contemporary favourite of both Neil and Dario's.
Oh, and very importantly, there were buns! Yep! Included in the episode is commentary and tasting of Dario's partner Bea's generous baking of cinnamon buns for your erstwhile hosts. (There are also in places some uneditable rogue coughs courtesy of two ageing podcast hosts. Apologies).
---
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
---
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.
 

Sometimes I Think About Dying (w/director Rachel Lambert)

To coincide with the UK cinema release, Neil talks to director Rachel Lambert about Sometimes I Think About Dying, her third feature film.
The conversation covers making a feature that had a successful life as a short film, the artistic and thematic legacies of COVID, the importance of location and place, the all-too-human desire to be seen and the terror that comes with that, the importance of Buster Keaton and the genius of Punch Drunk Love, among many other things in a deep and far-reaching conversation.
Elsewhere, Neil talks about how much he misses Dario and recent encounters with cinema that represent the Pacific Northwest on screen. 
To view the short film that is part of the conversation and the legacy of the film, you can see it here - https://vimeo.com/366086858
For tickets to the live episode taping at Newlyn Filmhouse on Monday 15th April, for a film selected and introduced by Mark Jenkin, click here - https://newlynfilmhouse.com/NewlynFilmhouse.dll/WhatsOn?f=1002162
—
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we’ll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
—
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.
 

Professor Alison Peirse (Doing Women's Global Horror Film History)

The new episode of the podcast sees Alison Peirse, now Professor of Film Studies at University of Leeds, return to the show to update us on her work in videographic scholarship and Global Women's Horror Film studies. The episode follows the recent release of a stunning special issue of the vital MAI: Feminism and Visual Culture Journal, edited by Alison, featuring a trove of video essays looking at the role of women in Global Horror filmmaking, which serves as an output of a larger-funded project. 
The conversation covers some of the essays in detail, but more depth is paid to the process of making creative academic practice work that is inclusive, radical and disruptive, to feminist anti-patriarchal practices, the wonder of Sara Ahmed and the intricacies of being a newly minted Prof!
Talk also covers Alison's much-missed newsletter The Losers' Club (which she promises will be back soon) and the feminist practice collective space Ways of Doing.
Thanks to Alison for coming back to the show and for such an engaging and enlightening conversation.
----
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
----
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Pouring Water on Troubled Oil (w/director Nariman Massoumi)

For the latest episode of the podcast Neil talks to filmmaker and academic Dr Nariman Massoumi about his wonderful short documentary Pouring Water on Troubled Oil (2023). 
MUBI: In 1951, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company set out to produce a publicity film promoting its activities in Iran. They hired the poet Dylan Thomas. This poetic film follows Thomas’s journey capturing his encounter with the country and its people as a political upheaval for oil nationalization unfolds.
The film is not available to view yet, having been criminally overlooked by UK film festivals, but it will be at some point [and we will let you know when]. That didn't stop Neil talking to Naz about the film because in form, content and theme it has much to offer contemporary cinematic and cultural conversations. Their chat ranges across subjects and themes including documentary practice, archive work, sound design, proto-cinema and the poetic, colonialism and decolonisation and practice research in the academy.
You can hear the Cinema16 conversation between Dylan Thomas, Maya Deren and others, from 1953, that Naz mentions here.
For more information on Naz, visit here.
Elsewhere in the episode, Neil recommends the music film Getting it Back: The Story of Cymande (Mackenzie-Smith, 2023), more information on that here.
He also slyly mentions his forthcoming book, which you can pre-order here, or anywhere you get books.
----
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
----
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Your Fat Friend (w/ director Jeanie Finlay)

In the first episode of season 19 Neil takes the reins solo, with Dario on sabbatical, for a conversation with one of the UK’s leading filmmakers Jeanie Finlay, ahead of her popular and powerful new documentary Your Fat Friend, released in UK cinemas on Feb 9, 2024.
Jeanie returns to the podcast having recorded a live conversation about her career to date and previous release, Seahorse (2019), at the film festival Neil co-directed in Luton, Filmstock. This conversation is wide-ranging. It covers her craft and cinematic process, her evolution and growth as a filmmaker, her commitment to creating more visibility for key emerging filmmaking roles around mental health and wellbeing, Fatness, the Internet, bias, being tender to yourself, embodiment and ethics. There is also moment where talk turns to her great friend Tom Butchart, the owner and star of Sound It Out [the shop and the film].
Your Fat Friend tells the story of Aubrey Gordon following her emergence as a writer on medium [here’s a link to her first post as YrFatFriend, which Jeanie mentions in the conversation), through publishing her first book and becoming a hugely successful podcaster. It provides a profound, moving and challenging insight into a life lived online in a body that society takes umbrage with, showcasing Aubrey’s courage to keep having a vital conversation about Fatness in the face of vitriolic hate and violence and the real cultural change she is at the vanguard of as a result. Like all of Jeanie’s films, this is a film about those who are looked at but not seen and, like Seahorse, is a film about coming into being in a fuller way than was previously imagined by an incredible human being.
For more information on the film and where to see it. Visit https://www.yrfatfriendfilm.com/
----
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it), and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
----
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.

Our Cinematic 2023

In this final episode of 2023 (and season 18), we (Neil and Dario) ruminate on a year spent thinking cinematically and engaging with cinema in the unique way that has become the hallmark of The Cinematologists; thoughtful, personal, searching for meaning and meaningful experiences across the movie spectrum.
We both share brief discussions of two films that stuck with us from different points of the year, Neil talking about Mark Jenkin’s short A Dog Called Discord and Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor’s The Future Tense, while Dario ponders Patricio Guzman’s My Imaginary Country and Samsara, directed by Lois Patiño.
Then, we spend more time discussing three films each at greater length in what could be seen as their top 3 films of the year, if we were so inclined to frame them that way (and we go to great pains in the episode to make sure that they don’t come across as ‘ranked’). Dario shares his thoughts on and fondness for Laura Poitras’s All The Beauty and the Bloodshed, Celine Song’s Past Lives and Todd Haynes’s May December. While Neil decides to go deep on Cyril Schäublin’s Unrest (which he shamefully claims is set in the 1920s when it’s clearly late 19th Century!), Felix van Groeningen and Charlotte Vandermeersch’s The Eight Mountains and Aki Kaurismäki’s Fallen Leaves.
———
Thank you to all our guests this season and to our listeners, we thank you for your continued support of The Cinematologists, and hope you join us for season 19, which commences in February 2024.
———
You can listen to The Cinematologists for free, wherever you listen to podcasts: click here to follow.
We also produce an extensive monthly newsletter and bonus/extended content that is available on our Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/cinematologists. You can become a member for only £2.
We really appreciate any reviews you might write (please send us what you have written and we'll mention it) and sharing on Social Media is the lifeblood of the podcast so please do that if you enjoy the show.
_____
Music Credits:
‘Theme from The Cinematologists’
Written and produced by Gwenno Saunders. Mixed by Rhys Edwards. Drums, bass & guitar by Rhys Edwards. All synths by Gwenno Saunders. Published by Downtown Music Publishing.