INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE with Greg Laemmle & Raphael Sbarge

What happens when a thirteen-year-old Jewish boy preparing for his bar mitzvah decides he might actually be Catholic?

Actor Joshua Malina (The West Wing, Scandal) joins Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge to discuss ETHAN BLOOM, a warm, funny, and unexpectedly moving coming-of-age film about religion, grief, first love, and the complicated relationship between fathers and sons.

Malina plays Gary, a widowed father trying to understand his son, Ethan, whose search for spiritual comfort leads him from his Jewish upbringing toward the Catholic Church.

Directed by Herschel Faber, the film approaches some of life's biggest questions with humor, compassion, and a welcome sense of curiosity.

A conversation about acting, family, faith, and the beautiful messiness of growing up.

Find the film and screenings: https://www.menemshafilms.com/ethan-bloom

INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE is hosted by Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge, celebrating the filmmakers and films at the heart of independent cinema.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What does it mean to spend your working life entering strangers’ homes, photographing their private spaces — and then moving on?

Writer-director Paula González-Nasser joins Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge to discuss THE SCOUT, her acclaimed feature debut starring Mimi Davila as a New York location scout whose unusual job offers fleeting glimpses into the lives of strangers.

Drawing from González-Nasser’s own years scouting productions including Russian Doll, Search Party, High Maintenance and Never Rarely Sometimes Always, the film becomes something much larger: a funny, quietly moving exploration of creative work, loneliness, urban life, and the people whose labor makes movies possible.

Paula talks about finding a movie inside an invisible job, the influence of filmmakers like Chantal Akerman and Michelangelo Antonioni, learning to trust the film’s slower rhythm, shaping Sofia with Mimi Davila, and the very real anxiety of stepping behind the camera for the first time.

A New York Times Critic’s Pick, THE SCOUT is now in theaters from Greenwich Entertainment.

00:00 — THE SCOUT
01:10 — Finding a Film in an Invisible Job
03:40 — Location Scouting After COVID
04:51 — The Films That Shaped THE SCOUT
07:27 — Film Clip: Inside a Stranger’s Home
09:20 — Trusting the Film’s Slow Burn
11:42 — Why Sofia Stays at the Edge of the Frame
12:36 — Editing: When to Enter and Leave a Scene
14:27 — Becoming a Director — and Imposter Syndrome
17:31 — The Voicemails: A Greek Chorus
20:00 — The Real Cost of New York Locations
20:24 — THE SCOUT Trailer
22:31 — Why the Story Is Just a Day in the Life
24:05 — Creating Sofia with Mimi Davila
25:58 — Antonioni, French New Wave & Visual References
27:12 — How Audiences Are Responding
28:59 — Finding Humor in New York Loneliness
30:54 — Closing

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE LAST FIRST: WINTER K2 | Amir Bar-Lev

There are mountains people climb because they can. And then there is K2.

The second-highest mountain on Earth, and one of its deadliest, had never been climbed in winter. For decades, mountaineers called it the last great first. In 2021, teams from around the world converged on its slopes to claim it.

Amir Bar-Lev (The Tillman Story, My Kid Could Paint That, Happy Valley) joins Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge to discuss The Last First: Winter K2, his account of that season and what it revealed: the commercialization of extreme mountaineering, the pressure of cameras and social media, national pride, the economics of expedition climbing, and the long question of who gets credit for the risks taken at altitude.

At the film's center are Icelandic climber John Snorri Sigurjónsson, Pakistani mountaineer Ali Sadpara and his son Sajid, and the Nepali climbers determined to make history on their own terms. Their paths expose fault lines of class, nationality and opportunity running through the traditional hierarchy of Himalayan climbing.

Bar-Lev also talks about building a documentary from competing accounts, archival footage and survivors who don't agree on what happened, and why he chose to preserve that uncertainty rather than resolve it.

What does it mean to be first? Who gets remembered? And when ambition, money, national identity and filmmaking itself enter a place where one decision can mean life or death, who pays the price for glory?

The Last First: Winter K2 premieres October 2 on Apple TV.

Film clips, trailer material and production imagery courtesy of Apple Original Films.

Hosted by Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge.

Subscribe to Inside the Arthouse on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwB-ioi_dD-Lr8PUjdkBWyw?sub_confirmation=1

Support the show: https://buymeacoffee.com/insidethearthouse.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sundance-winning director Josef Kubota Wladyka joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE to discuss HA-CHAN, SHAKE YOUR BOOTY!, his joyous, deeply personal new film starring Oscar nominee Rinko Kikuchi.

Kikuchi plays Haru, a woman whose life in Tokyo has revolved around ballroom dancing with her husband, Luis. When tragedy suddenly upends that world, Haru retreats from life — until family, friendship, desire and dance begin pulling her back toward it.

Wladyka talks about the deeply personal inspiration he found in his Japanese mother, and how that connection helped shape a story about grief, resilience, aging, identity and the complicated ways people begin again. He also discusses collaborating with Kikuchi, building a character who is allowed to be messy and contradictory, and using dance as an emotional language when words are no longer enough.

The conversation explores the film's balance of humor, tenderness and magical realism; the challenge of moving between sorrow and joy without sentimentalizing either; and the importance of allowing older characters to retain desire, unpredictability and agency.

Wladyka also reflects on the film's journey to Sundance, where his direction was honored, and on the larger idea at the heart of HA-CHAN, SHAKE YOUR BOOTY!: that grief and joy are not opposites, and that sometimes the act of moving forward begins quite literally by moving your body.

A warm, funny and surprisingly moving conversation about loss, love, desire — and why we should never stop dancing.

00:00 — Introduction: HA-CHAN, SHAKE YOUR BOOTY!
01:32 — Meet Director Josef Kubota Wladyka
03:45 — Finding Joy in a Story About Grief
06:25 — The Personal Story Behind the Film
09:15 — Rinko Kikuchi and Creating Haru
12:10 — When Life Gets Messy
15:25 — Dance as an Emotional Language
18:35 — Grief, Desire and Starting Over
21:45 — Humor, Fantasy and Magical Realism
24:45 — Japan, Family and Cultural Identity
27:30 — Sundance and Trusting the Film
30:05 — Why We Should Never Stop Dancing

INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE is dedicated to the people, films and ideas keeping independent cinema alive. If you enjoyed this conversation, subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, watch the full episode on YouTube, and join us each week for new conversations with the filmmakers behind the movies worth seeing on the big screen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

THE WEIGHT director Padraic McKinley joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE to discuss Ethan Hawke, Russell Crowe, and the making of his gripping Depression-era wilderness thriller.

Set in Oregon in 1933, THE WEIGHT stars Hawke as Samuel Murphy, a father separated from his daughter and sentenced to a brutal work camp. When Warden Clancy, played by Crowe, offers him early release in exchange for transporting stolen gold across treacherous wilderness, Murphy accepts—but suspicion, betrayal, and desperation soon begin to fracture the group.

McKinley traces the unusual path that led to his feature directorial debut. After years as an editor and television director, he formed a creative partnership with Hawke while making THE GOOD LORD BIRD. That relationship helped transform THE WEIGHT into a deeply personal story about a father determined to return to his daughter.

He also takes us inside the film’s creative DNA, from SORCERER, DELIVERANCE, THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, and SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION to the patient, character-driven American filmmaking of the 1970s. McKinley explains how editing shaped his approach to directing and how vintage lenses, restrained coverage, long takes, and an episodic structure created the film’s distinctive rhythm.

The director also recounts the punishing production in the Bavarian forest—including freezing water, unforgiving terrain, heavy packs, ticks, temperamental period automobiles, and an injury sustained by Hawke. Finally, he shares what it was like directing Hawke and Crowe together—and why, when two actors of that caliber sit across from one another, sometimes the director’s most important job is simply to make sure the camera is running.

THE WEIGHT also stars Julia Jones, Austin Amelio, Avi Nash, Lucas Lynggaard Tønnesen, Alec Newman, and Sam Hazeldine. The film premiered at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival, screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, and opens in U.S. theaters September 18 from Vertical.

Hosted by Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge.

Please follow INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE and share the episode with someone who loves independent cinema. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever you listen.

00:00 Directing Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe

00:22 Introducing THE WEIGHT

01:51 Director Padraic McKinley joins the show

02:12 From editing to directing

04:43 Meeting Ethan Hawke

08:02 The origins of THE WEIGHT

10:19 Rebuilding the screenplay

12:35 THE WEIGHT trailer

14:51 The classic films that inspired THE WEIGHT

18:42 Returning to patient, character-driven storytelling

21:27 Creating the look of a 1970s thriller

22:55 Filmmaking in an age of shrinking attention spans

27:10 The emotional meaning of the teddy bear

28:25 Surviving the Bavarian forest

31:19 Shooting in unforgiving terrain

33:15 Working with Ethan Hawke

34:48 Directing Russell Crowe

37:24 Two great actors face one another

40:14 Why THE WEIGHT belongs in theaters

41:26 Closing

If you value the work we do and would like to help us continue supporting independent cinema, visit:
https://buymeacoffee.com/insidethearthouse.com

The people, films, and ideas keeping independent cinema alive.

#TheWeight #EthanHawke #RussellCrowe #PadraicMcKinley #IndependentFilm

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Academy Award-winning filmmaker Orlando von Einsiedel joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE to discuss THE CYCLE OF LOVE, the extraordinary true story of PK Mahanandia and his nearly 6,000-mile bicycle journey from India to Sweden for love.

In 1977, PK, a young street artist from Delhi born into a poor Dalit family, set out on a secondhand bicycle with a handful of paintbrushes and almost no money. His destination was Sweden, where he hoped to reunite with Lotta, the woman he loved and believed fate had promised him.

Von Einsiedel discusses discovering PK and Lotta’s story through their children and the six-year journey required to bring it to the screen. He explains how limited archival footage led the filmmakers to combine personal archives, dramatic reconstruction, vérité documentary, and unscripted encounters with people along PK’s original route.

The conversation also explores the caste discrimination that shaped PK’s childhood, his struggle to believe himself worthy of love, and the strangers whose kindness transformed his understanding of himself.

THE CYCLE OF LOVE is an inventive, deeply moving, and unabashedly hopeful reminder that love can cross borders, challenge the divisions society creates, and change the stories we believe about ourselves.

Watch INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE on YouTube and subscribe for more conversations with the filmmakers shaping independent, international, and arthouse cinema:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwB-ioi_dD-Lr8PUjdkBWyw?sub_confirmation=1

If you value the work we do and would like to help us continue supporting independent cinema:

https://buymeacoffee.com/insidethearthouse.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE celebrates two years of filmmaker conversations with Jim Jarmusch, Mark Cousins, Embeth Davidtz, Sara Khaki, Mohammadreza Eyni, and Alexandre O. Philippe.

What began with the hope that someone might watch has grown into more than 100 episodes, nearly half a million subscribers, and over four million views. To mark our second anniversary, we’re returning to five of the conversations you watched—and shared—the most.

Director and film historian Mark Cousins explores the mind and movies of Alfred Hitchcock through MY NAME IS ALFRED HITCHCOCK.

Actor and filmmaker Embeth Davidtz discusses her deeply personal directorial debut, DON’T LET’S GO TO THE DOGS TONIGHT, adapted from Alexandra Fuller’s memoir about a childhood shaped by family, memory, and the final years of colonial Rhodesia.

Jim Jarmusch reflects on his creative life, his distinctive approach to filmmaking, and FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER.

Academy Award-nominated filmmakers Sara Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni take us inside CUTTING THROUGH ROCKS, their extraordinary documentary about Sara Shahverdi, the first elected councilwoman in her rural Iranian village—and her fight to create a different future for its girls.

Director Alexandre O. Philippe discusses CHAINED REACTIONS, his documentary exploring the lasting cultural and artistic impact of Tobe Hooper’s THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE.

These films could hardly be more different, but each reflects what brought us here in the first place: a belief that movies matter—and that thoughtful conversations with the people who make them can deepen the way we see their work.

Thank you to every filmmaker who has joined us, and to everyone who has watched, listened, subscribed, commented, and shared over these first two years. We truly could not have done it without you.

Chapters

00:00 Two years of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE

Watch INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE on YouTube and subscribe for more in-depth conversations with the filmmakers shaping independent, international, and arthouse cinema:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwB-ioi_dD-Lr8PUjdkBWyw?sub_confirmation=1

If you value the work we do and would like to help us continue supporting independent cinema, please consider making a small contribution:

https://buymeacoffee.com/insidethearthouse.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

HOW TO DIVORCE DURING THE WAR director Andrius Blaževičius joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE to discuss Lithuania’s official Oscar submission and his Sundance-winning drama about marriage, Ukraine, propaganda and moral compromise.

Marija tells her husband Vytas that she wants a divorce on February 23, 2022. The next morning, Russia launches its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Blaževičius uses the fracture of one family to reflect a larger crisis: a Europe divided by fear, political polarization and the temptation to choose personal comfort over collective responsibility.

In this extended conversation, he discusses the atmosphere in Lithuania during the first months of the invasion, political divisions within families, changing gender roles and the challenge of finding bittersweet humor in people attempting to behave honorably—and failing their own ideals.

He also takes Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge inside the film’s remarkably natural performances and explains why the couple’s young daughter becomes its quiet witness, seeing far more than her parents understand.

HOW TO DIVORCE DURING THE WAR won the Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic at the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and is Lithuania’s official submission for Best International Feature Film at the 99th Academy Awards.

00:00 A Marriage and a Continent in Crisis
00:08 Introducing HOW TO DIVORCE DURING THE WAR
01:00 INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE
01:30 The Conversation Begins
02:04 Building a Story Around Divorce and War
04:03 Lithuania’s Fear: “We’re Next”
05:37 When Political Division Enters the Family
07:31 Comfort vs. Collective Responsibility
09:40 HOW TO DIVORCE DURING THE WAR Official Trailer
11:40 Making the Political Personal
14:29 Weak Men, Strong Women and Changing Roles
17:41 Performances That Feel Like a Documentary
21:31 Finding Humor in Difficult Times
24:41 Characters Who Fail Their Own Ideals
28:50 Dovilė: The Child Who Sees Everything
31:32 Why the Film’s World Looks So Gray
34:42 Choosing Comfort Over Truth
37:12 Sundance, the Oscars and the Film’s U.S. Release
38:40 Closing

The film is now playing in U.S. theaters.

Tickets, theaters and more information:
https://zeitgeistfilms.com/film/how-to-divorce-during-the-war

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is no straight line through the life of Franz Kafka.

FRANZ director and three-time Academy Award nominee Agnieszka Holland joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE for an extended conversation about Kafka and her bold, unconventional new film, a TIFF 2025 Official Selection.

Rather than trying to solve the mystery of Kafka, Holland enters it—moving through dreams, letters, loves, fears and contradictions to find the fragile, funny and fiercely determined man obscured by a century of mythology.

Past and present collide as Prague remembers Kafka, reinvents him and transforms a once-suppressed writer into a modern cultural brand. At the center is Idan Weiss, whose quietly affecting performance lets us glimpse the living man behind the literary icon.

Holland reflects on discovering The Trial as a teenager and coming to regard Kafka as an "admired brother"—someone she wanted, in her words, to bring out of the shadows and into color and light.

She also takes us inside the making of FRANZ: its restless, fragmented structure; the creative freedom that allowed her to approach the film like "quantum physics"; finding Idan Weiss; and the challenge of bringing Kafka's terrifying "In the Penal Colony" to the screen.

Along the way, Holland speaks candidly about Hollywood, the disappearance of ambitious middle-scale cinema and the artistic fearlessness she has found at this stage of her career.

What emerges is both a portrait of Kafka and a conversation about the elusive act of filmmaking itself—how we search for someone across time, how stories resist explanation and how mystery can sometimes bring us closer to the truth.

Join Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge for an intimate conversation with Agnieszka Holland about FRANZ.

FRANZ opens in U.S. theaters Friday, August 21, 2026.

Tickets, theaters and more information:

https://cohenmedia.net/product/franz

CHAPTERS

00:00 Agnieszka Holland on Kafka's Contradictions

00:24 Introducing FRANZ

01:51 The Conversation Begins

02:34 Kafka as Holland's "Admired Brother"

05:48 Searching for the Man Behind the Myth

08:56 Making a Film Like "Quantum Physics"

12:16 Creative Freedom and Filmmaking Without Fear

15:40 Hollywood and the Disappearing "Cinema of the Middle"

19:37 Why Kafka Is Frighteningly Relevant Again

19:47 Prague: From Banned Writer to Cultural Brand

21:22 Finding Idan Weiss

25:34 The Terror of "In the Penal Colony"

28:39 FRANZ Official Trailer

30:49 A Life Told Through Fragments and Puzzles

33:06 Creating an Epic Period Film in 40 Days

33:55 Building the Visual World of FRANZ

36:09 Did Making the Film Solve the Mystery of Kafka?

37:19 Remembering Andrzej Wajda

39:29 Where to See FRANZ

40:14 Closing

Subscribe to INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE on YouTube for more in-depth conversations with the filmmakers shaping independent, international and arthouse cinema:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwB-ioi_dD-Lr8PUjdkBWyw

Find INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and wherever you listen.

Like the show? Consider making a small contribution to support the work we do:

https://buymeacoffee.com/insidethearthouse.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Why would a woman pretend to be pregnant for nine months — and how do you tell her story without reducing her to either a victim or a villain?

Two-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Maite Alberdi joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE to discuss A CHILD OF MY OWN, her provocative new Netflix documentary about Alejandra, a woman whose desperate desire to become a mother leads her to construct an elaborate lie — and ultimately cross an irreversible line.

Alberdi takes us inside the film's striking creative process, including its blend of documentary testimony, casting sessions, stylized dramatic reconstruction, and conflicting accounts of what actually happened. She discusses the enormous social pressure placed on women to become mothers, the difficulty of separating truth from self-created narrative, and her determination to understand Alejandra without excusing her actions.

The conversation also explores the ethical responsibility of documentary filmmakers, the relationship between performance and reality, and why Alberdi wants audiences to question their own judgments as the story unfolds.

CHAPTERS

Join us for a thoughtful and revealing conversation with one of contemporary documentary cinema's most distinctive filmmakers.

Follow: @laemmle, @OfficialRaphaelSbarge, @Netflix

Please subscribe to INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE for more in-depth conversations with the filmmakers shaping independent, international, and arthouse cinema. Find us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you listen.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices