Our second London Film Festival main episode is here, and it's a bumper edition. Dario is in Falmouth visiting Neil, so it's something of a nostalgic live taping from the place where The Cinematologists started. The first film on the agenda is Alex Ross Perry's Pavements, which is a meta-documentary on a mercurial 90s band, Pavement. Neil, with his…

In the first of our 2024 LFF double header on the main feed, Neil and Dario are joined by one of the two correspondents joining us for this year's coverage, Ben Goff. The focus of the episode are deep dives into key films for Neil, Dario and Ben from their early and pre-festival viewing, on the digital platform and at press and industry screenings …

In our second episode of the season, we discuss Neil's superb, recently published book Music Films: Documentaries, Concert Films and Other Cinematic Representations of Popular Music. We explore their significance, evolution, and the complexities surrounding their creation and reception, along with Neil's reflections on the challenges of writing for…

We are back for the 20th season of The Cinematologists Podcast and our 10th year. Neither of us when we started out could have envisaged that we would have done what we have with the Podcast, spoken to so many fascinating film people and cultivated such a loyal audience. Indeed, this season represents something of a renewal, as is discussed in the …

In the final episode of the latest season – Neil’s solo adventure – Neil talks to filmmaker, writer and comedian Scott Tanner Jones about collecting physical media. In an episode with a similar approach to the previous one with Kat Flint-Nicol, Neil brings to the podcast a conversation about themes and ideas that permeate his thinking around a part…

In the penultimate episode of the season, Neil sits down with friend and colleague Kat Flint-Nicol to think through British cinema. The aim was to focus on regionality, but the conversation is much-more wide ranging than that. It captures the complex intersectionality of place, class, genre, industry gatekeeping, and the relationship between indust…

As we enter the final weeks of the latest season, it is an honour to share this mini episode (a 45rpm single as opposed to 33.3rpm LP if you will) ahead of two final regular episodes before our summer break and the return of Dario for the autumn season. Neil was invited at short notice to chat to filmmaker Gary Hustwit about his revolutionary, gene…

Pat Kelman, born in Essex but raised in Cornwall, has been an actor, filmmaker, theatre-maker and programmer. Presently, he finds himself releasing independent and arthouse cinema that other distributors deem too niche or challenging via his inspirational 606 Distribution company, as well as programming a wild collection of formative films and belo…

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…

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 ab…

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.…

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…

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 A…

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 Thoma…

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 …

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 fi…

In this episode of the Cinematologists podcast, we reflect on the pervasive apathy often accompanying the endless influx of new releases and how to combat nagging sense of FOMO which, at times, feels like it can never be satiated. When both of us saw Napoleon and agreed there wasn't much we wanted to talk about, and neither did a raft of art-house …

In this special bonus, to tide you over before we are back with full, regular episodes in the run-up to year's end, Neil talks to filmmaker Toby Amies about his stunning music film In The Court of the Crimson King: King Crimson at 50. The conversation coincides with the film's release on streaming platforms following a critically lauded festival an…

Our own Prof. Neil Fox in his day job is director of Falmouth University's Sound/Cinema Lab, which is behind films such as Mark Jenkin's Enys Men (2022) and Chris Morris' A Year in a Field (2022) as well as Wilderness (2017), which Neil wrote and produced. Wilderness was also made with a student crew and was proof of concept for making a feature dr…

A special for cinephiles and podphiles this week as we welcome the superb critic and broadcaster Rico Gagliano. Rico's official title is the Head of Audio at Mubi but it's his creative direction and voice that is the driving force of The Mubi Podcast. Indeed, the notion of creative auteurism is just one of the many topics covered in the in-depth co…

No matter the status of cinema, films focused on Hollywood icons seem to always retain a healthy level of interest. A key question is: do they bring anything new to the understanding of a storied figure. Stephen Kijak the director of Rock Hudson: All that Heaven Allowed, released on UK streaming this week, embarks on a sweeping ambitious, and intim…

In the first of a special (our first ever) double header, Neil and Dario discuss new Irish comedy road movie Apocalypse Clown. As it debuts on Netflix following a short cinema run, Neil talks to 'friend of the pod', producer James Dean about his collaboration with the team behind the project, comedy music troupe Dead Cat Bounce, the project's gesta…

In this episode, Neil and Dario go deep on a couple of favourite titles each from this year's excellent London Film Festival. Neil eulogises Pat Collins' That They May Face The Rising Sun and Shujun Wei's Only The River Flows, while Dario waxes lyrical on Hirokazu Koreeda's Monster and Tran Anh Hung's The Taste of Things. Elsewhere they briefly dis…

We’re back for season 18 and we’re kicking off with an in-depth look at new feature documentary A Year in a Field, a quiet film by Christopher Morris that is currently on tour around UK cinemas, distributed by Anti-Worlds. Produced by Bosena (Enys Men) in partnership with Stone Club and Falmouth University’s Sound/Image Cinema Lab, the film tells t…

For our final episode of season 17, before we go on our summer hiatus, we lean into cinematic pleasure. Provoked by both of us admitting some recent struggles with the relentlessness of film culture, the seeming tyranny of "so much stuff" and the some of the less edifying aspects of film discourse, we think through the hierarchies that are often at…