Toronto just wrapped, closing out the fall festival trio of Venice, Telluride, and TIFF, and the Oscar picture is starting to come into focus. This week, Christopher Rosen (deputy editor at The Ankler, co-host of the Prestige Junkie podcast) joins the show to break it all down.
We dig into TIFF winner La Bola Negra, the sensation that had the festival buzzing, plus Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine (which won John Malkovich Best Actor at Venice) and Simon Stone's Telluride/TIFF drama Elsinore starring Andrew Scott. We look at who's in the running for Best Picture and the acting categories, and look ahead to some of the fall's biggest swings, including Iñárritu's Digger with Tom Cruise, and so much more.
It's a big one, so settle in.

Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim's documentary "You Can See Everything" about Elizabeth Holmes blew the roof off the Telluride Film Festival at its secret screening. Christina sat down with Jay Ledbetter and Ryan McQuade of the Director Watch podcast (AwardsWatch) to process the experience!

High above Telluride, Christina hops aboard a gondola with Jorge Tenreiro and Sophia Ciminello of AwardsWatch to talk about La Bola Negra, the new film from Los Javis. From the Telluride Film Festival.

Christina and Ryan McQuade of AwardsWatch.com discuss two of Telluride's most talked-about films: Martin McDonagh's Wild Horse Nine and Andrew Haigh's A Long Winter.

Emmy time! Eoin Daly is back for our final Emmy predictions ahead of the 78th Emmy Awards, hosted by Mariska Hargitay, (airing September 14th). Who will take home the gold? Tune in!

Follow Eoin on instgram @eoin_daily

This week Christina has the honor of talking to actor, comedian, writer and activist Steve Way about his incredible performance as Alden on  Furious, creator Liz Meriwether's riveting crime thriller. (Furious was just renewed for a second season!) In a wide-ranging conversation, they talk about what drew Way to the role of Alden, what sets Furious apart from other police procedurals, Meriwether's uniquely complicated and multifaceted characters, and the show's moments of humor. Steve talks about the near-death experience at 14 that reshaped how he sees his own life, when he knew he was funny, and his years in stand-up comedy. As well as discussing his advocacy for disability rights, the gap between America's gestures of inclusion and its follow-through, and expanding opportunities for disabled actors in Hollywood, and so much more.

Christina joins the AwardsWatch podcast for a special episode! We’re less than two weeks before the 53nd Telluride Film Festival kicks off on Labor Day weekend and we have a packed show. On episode 360 AwardsWatch Executive Editor Ryan McQuade is joined by Editor-In-chief Erik Anderson Associate Editor Sophia Ciminello, contributors Jay Ledbetter, Mark Johnson, and Jorge Tenreiro, and Christina Birro of Pop Culture Confidential to break down what we think will be at Telluride this season, who might be getting the Silver Medallion festival tributes, and much more.

You can listen to The AwardsWatch Podcast wherever you stream podcasts, from iTunes, iHeartRadio, Soundcloud, Stitcher, Spotify, Audible, Amazon Music, YouTube and more.

Music: “Modern Fashion” from AShamaleuvmusic (intro), “B-3” from BoxCat Games Nameless: The Hackers RPG Soundtrack (outro).

Summer's winding down but the watchlist isn't. Ryan McQuade (AwardsWatch) is back on Pop Culture Confidential to review and discuss The End of Oak Street and The Invite, plus a couple of TV picks worth your time, Furious and Lanterns.

Christina is joined by director Brian L. Tan and co-producer Tara McNamara to talk about their new film Bandit & their filmmaking journey! Tan describes the film as "The White Lotus from the perspective of the help." Set in Indonesia, Bandit follows two childhood friends, desperate for cash, whose theft goes horribly wrong. The film is already making serious festival waves: it won the Grand Jury Prize at the Dances With Films festival in Los Angeles and Best Foreign Film at the Burbank International Film Festival.

Christina talks to creator and showrunner George Kay.

Kay is one of the most versatile and prolific creators working in television. His work spans genres and continents, with global hits like Lupin, The Long Shadow, and Hijack. George Kay is seemingly the busiest man in television, with two shows premiering soon: first his upcoming Swedish crime drama Blood Sacrifice, starring Jakob Oftebro and Peter Andersson as an estranged father-son detective duo hunting a killer targeting police, premiering August 20 on Netflix , and later the fall the legal drama War, starring Dominic West and Sienna Miller.

In a wide-ranging conversation, Christina talks to Kay about his shows and process and they dig into the rules of a great cliffhanger, simplicity of character, writing a show not in your own language, and much more.