A pioneering voice in Arab cinema, Annemarie Jacir has written, directed, and produced over sixteen films, with premieres at Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Locarno, Rotterdam, and Toronto. In 2007, she made history by shooting the first feature film by a Palestinian female director. All four of her feature films have been chosen as Palestine’s Oscar submissions.

Set in 1936 during the Arab Revolt in British-ruled Palestine, Palestine 36 chronicles the intertwined lives of farmers, revolutionaries, and business owners resisting colonial rule. It’s a stirring portrait of resilience, featuring a stellar cast including Hiam Abbass, Jeremy Irons, and Saleh Bakri.

In this episode, Annemarie shares the ten-year journey behind the making of Palestine 36, the challenges of filming on location under threat, and the vital role Palestinian cinema plays in preserving histories too often left untold.

Palestine 36 wil be released nationwide in Cinemas across the UK and Ireland on 31st October.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Philippa Gregory takes us behind the myths to reveal how Jane Boleyn became a scapegoat of Henry VIII’s tyranny and the historians who defended it. Drawing on the silences of the record and the resilience of women navigating a perilous court, Gregory explores how fiction can reveal the internal lives of historical characters who we think we know so well. In Boleyn Traitor, Jane emerges not as a schemer but as a survivor: navigating a world ruled by fear, spectacle and the whims of a king who bent the law to his will. What lessons does the Tudor court hold for our politics today? Gregory impresses on us the importance of opposing modern strong-men and resisting tyranny in our contemporary times.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Returning to the podcast following episodes around his prize-winning debut The Mountain Under the Sea and his acclaimed novella The Tusks of Extinction, Ray Nayler joins us to explore the rise in authoritarian systems of control and celebrate the power of human agency to drive meaningful social change. These are the themes of his new novel Where the Axe is Buried: a dystopian fable set in a near-future Russia where Artificial Intelligences, technocrats, and a Putinesque dictator come into an unforgettable conflict.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dr Kerry Burnight reveals a transformative new approach to aging—one that goes beyond lifespan and healthspan to embrace joyspan: the ability to experience joy from within. Dr Burnight reveals how joy differs from happiness, the damaging effects of internalised ageism, and the surprising abilities—such as judgment, emotional regulation, and humour—that often improve with age. Dr Burnight also shares the four essential practices necessary to expanding our joyspan as we age. With her guidance and practical tips, this is a playbook on how small, intentional habits can transform the experience of aging into one of vitality, purpose, and, most importantly, joy.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From our new technological era ushered in by AI, to the fall of democracies across the globe, the world today appears fraught with uncertainty, poised between repeating errors from the past and entering a new age of the unknown. What lies behind tribalistic claims of patriotism, and on what does democracy truly depend? How might technology shape the narrative to come, and what remains in our control? Bestselling author of Sapiens and Nexus, Yuval Noah Harari joins Ritula Shah to help us better comprehend the perils we face, and what remains within our power to change.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

How has loopholes around social media's censored word, 'kill', found its way into students' essays on Hamlet? What is the history of 'skibidi' and 'delulu' and how are these concepts shaping the way we think, write, and speak? Linguist and content creator Adam Aleksic turns a keen eye to explore how the internet has transformed our linguistic landscape, from the rise of 'YouTube accents' to the meaning of 'brain rot', from the ephemerality of memes to the enduring power of language to shape conceptions of belonging. How might these changes shape the languages of tomorrow? Adam reveals the breadth of today's internet lingo, and its deep roots in shaping identity and community, today and beyond.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From the Thames to the Tigris, the Ure to the Euphrates, rivers have flowed through the history of humanity, shaping our civilisations and sustaining our species. Robert Macfarlane and Elif Shafak illuminate the life-giving force of rivers, the stories they have inspired, and explore the crucial question of how humans can coexist with the natural world on which our survival depends.

From the Epic of Gilgamesh to the gods of old, from the ancient Euphrates to the Thames of today, from lost rivers buried deep beneath our feet to the revival of nature on our own doorsteps, Elif and Robert reveal the intricate tapestry woven from human and natural history, and the resilience of nature, memory, and storytelling. On the cusp of today's chaos, in a world balanced between hope and despair, Elif and Robert reveal how we can fight against apathy, insist upon hope, and protect the natural world around us for generations and stories to come.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drawing on the economist’s toolkit, she reframes “happiness” as utility, shows how to maximize it under constraints, and treats fertility as “reproductive capital” to be timed and invested thoughtfully. She shifts the spotlight from women “leaning in” to men leveling up at home, and from vibes to data: track time, surface invisible labor, and use BATNA thinking to set walk-away points at work and in relationships.

In an age of burnout and performative perfection, Low offers practical moves: pay yourself first with leisure, set boundaries (not just flexibility), negotiate through win-win framing, interview partners like co-CEOs, and ignore the social-media mirage that distorts what you value. The result is economics reimagined as a compassionate daily practice—not to impress a boss, but to align with your own utility function and live better.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Drawing on everything from Dougal and the Blue Cat to Angel Heart, from Walter Murch’s “pickle jar” of sound to Tarantino-style needle drops, Kermode turns listening into a way of seeing: treat scores as storytelling, not wallpaper; hear nostalgia without depending on it; notice how rooms, acoustics, and “vibrations” change performances; and understand why live accompaniment can transform a film in the moment. Along the way: Ken Russell’s emotional maximalism, Under the Skin’s alien minimalism, American Graffiti’s jukebox world-building, and the strange alchemy that turns cues into cinema.

In an age of playlists and temp tracks, Kermode offers practical tools: the “trust Neil Brand” rule for live scoring (watch the film, watch each other), left-hand “semaphore” for staying in key, the needle-drop test (does the song deepen the scene or just decorate it?), room-tuning for performance energy, analogical listening (let pop, jazz, and electronics cross-pollinate), and permission to change your mind as the years—and the mixes—change. The result is criticism reimagined as a compassionate daily practice: not to win arguments about taste, but to listen better, feel more, and love movies more deeply.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In 2003, British police infiltrated a group of idealistic young environmental activists, forming sexual relationships and spying without warrant on hundreds of innocent civilians. Among these young activists was Kate Wilson, who developed an intimate relationship with Mark. Unbeknownst to her, Mark was a fictional persona created by the Metropolitan Police to spy on her. After this shocking discovery, Kate Wilson fought back, and now she joins us to tell her story.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices