On the pod this week, Michael speaks with Latvian filmmaker Gints Zilbalodis about his Oscar-winning feature, FLOW. This conversation was recorded during the London Film Festival in October 2024, partway through Zilbalodis's remarkable journey with the film: a low-budget, independent feature made by a small crew that became one of the most lauded films of the year, and eventually picked up the Oscar for Best Animated Feature against stiff competition from the animation world's biggest names.

Flow is in UK cinemas from 21st March, and Gints's first feature, AWAY, is returning to UK cinemas from 14th March.

On Saturday 15th March, we're hosting a special double bill of both films, plus two of Gints's early shorts, with a masterclass Q&A with the director himself, at Curzon Soho in London. Find out more about this 'Whole Loada Zilbalodis' retrospective here.

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It's the second part of our awards season chat about the Oscar-nominated animated films! Michael, Jake and Steph talk about Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, Flow and Memoir of a Snail.

Scroll back through our archive for interviews with Oscar nominees Chris Sanders (The Wild Robot), Nick Park & Merlin Crossingham (Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl) and Adam Elliot, and look forward to our interview with Gints Zilbalodis (Flow), coming to podcast your feeds in March.

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It's awards season! And we're jumping into the fray. In this first episode of a two-part awards miniseries, Michael and Jake talk about the two CG-animated offerings from Hollywood studios in contention for Best Animated Feature this year: Inside Out 2 and The Wild Robot.

Scroll back through our archive for interviews with Oscar nominees Chris Sanders (The Wild Robot), Nick Park & Merlin Crossingham (Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl) and Adam Elliot, and look forward to our interview with Gints Zilbalodis (Flow), coming to podcast your feeds in March.

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In this episode, Michael speaks with Australian stop-motion filmmaker Adam Elliot (Mary & Max, Harvie Krumpet) about his new, Oscar-nominated film Memoir of a Snail. In this wide-ranging conversation, Adam speaks about the enduring influence of David Lynch, how he crafts his distinctive films, his love of stories that mix the dark with the light and his memories of working with Philip Seymour Hoffman on Mary & Max.

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Director Naoko Yamada (A Silent Voice, Liz and the Blue Bird) joins us to talk about her new film, the delightful coming-of-age music drama The Colours Within.

If you would like to hear Ms Yamada's Japanese responses in full, the unedited interview starts from 32.30.

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It's not a Ghibliotheque miniseries until we've opened the mailbag! This week, Michael, Jake and Steph are opening some Park Life mail from listeners, to hear their thoughts on all things Vengeance Most Fowl, which Wallace and Gromit adventure deserves the top spot in the rankings, and more.

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Our journey through the films of Nick Park comes to a close with a conversation with the man himself! To mark the release of the new Wallace and Gromit adventure, Vengeance Most Fowl, Michael speaks with Nick Park and co-director Merlin Crossingham about directing as a pair, the importance of the human touch in animation, and how intimidating it is to animate Feathers McGraw.

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It's us... again! Michael, Jake and Steph gather round the Christmas tree to discuss Nick Park and Merlin Crossingham's latest Wallace and Gromit adventure, Vengeance Most Fowl.

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Ole, ole, ole, ole... it's time for Early Man! Jake's doing his best Peter Crouch robot dance in the recording studio, but will Steph and Michael feel just as celebratory?

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Back in 2020 we looked at a couple of documentaries about Studio Ghibli, including Kaku Arakawa's Never-Ending Man. Now, after the release of Arakawa's latest documentary Hayao Miyazaki and the Heron, made during the production and release of Miyazaki's most recent film, Michael and Jake take a look at this latest look into the interior world of Ghibli.

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@MichaelJLeader – Michael

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