As authors of the ebook Portraits of resistance: The cinema of Céline Sciamma, the first book to be written about the French director, we had to talk about her new film, Petite Maman, on the podcast.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, Associate Editor Brett Pardy, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh.

On this episode:

• Why we love Céline Sciamma and Portraits of resistance (1:45)
• Related episodes (2:49)
• Petite Mamam summary (5:07)
• Lindsay's history with Céline Sciamma's films (6:37)
• Céline Sciamma's precise attention to detail (9:02)
• Why we like this film - a non-saccharine view of childhood (11:03)
• Petite Maman's relationship to Sciamma's prior films (19:59)
• Absences and goodbyes (26:26)
• Time in the film (31:00)
• The house's space (35:38)
• The fantasy element (39:29)
• How Sciamma portrays and directs children (45:15)
• Temporary utopias (47:00)
• What would kids think of the film? (59:47)
• Empathy in the film (1:01:30)
• Conclusion (1:04:02)

Show notes:

• Read Alex's full review of Petite Maman from Berlinale 2021
• As we discuss in the episode, Petite Maman builds upon the themes we discussed in Portraits of resistance: The cinema of Céline Sciamma, the first ever book about French filmmaker Céline Sciamma, her process, her body of work. Portraits of resistance contains interviews with the cast and crew, as well as essays on the film and Céline Sciamma's career. You can purchase the book for $26.99 Canadian or become a Seventh Row member for $39.99 Canadian per year and choose Portraits of resistance as the free ebook you receive for joining.

Related episodes:

• Ep. 96: Water Lilies and Jennifer's Body: Girlhood and compulsory heterosexuality (Member's Only)
• Ep. 90: Jeanne Dielman and Les Rendez-vous d'Anna: A Chantal Akerman mother's day (Member's Only)
• Ep. 84: Berlinale 2021, Part 2: The Competition (Member's Only)
• Ep. 30: Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

We're joined by Lindsay Pugh to continue our ongoing conversation around films about female artists, and how the way these stories are being told is changing, including The Souvenir, Mothering Sunday, Bergman Island, and more.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh

Show notes and related episodes:

• Ep. 44: Shirley and portraits of female artists (Member's Only)
• Ep. 122: Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World
• Ep. 121: Ninjababy & Obvious Child: Unwanted pregnancies in romantic comedies
• Ep. 118: The Souvenir Part I and II
• Ep. 114: Mia Hansen-Løve's Things to Come and Bergman Island (Member's Only)
• Ep. 92: Sugar Daddy and An Easy Girl: Commodifying women (Member's Only)
• Ep. 89: Spinster and The Forty-Year-Old Version: Coming of age at forty (Member's Only)
• Ep. 54: I Used to Go Here and Unexpected: Kris Rey's thirtysomethings (Member's Only)
• Ep. 45: The films of Anne Émond, from Nuit #1 to Nelly (Member's Only)
• Ep. 30: Céline Sciamma's Portrait of a Lady on Fire (Member's Only)
• Ep. 15: Vita & Virginia and the author biopic (Member's Only)
• Ep. 14: The Souvenir and the films of Joanna Hogg (Member's Only)

We're joined by Andrew Kendall to discuss the new German film Fabian: Going to the Dogs, directed by Dominik Graf, and how it portrays life in a totalitarian state.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and special guest Andrew Kendall

On this episode:

• Related episodes (1:52)
• Fabian: Going to the Dogs synopsis (4:36)
• Connecting the past to the present (6:57)
• Adapting a 1932 novel with the knowledge of hindsight (15:01)
• The film's tone (33:40)
• Meret Becker as Frau Moll (47:03)
• How the film approaches the rise of Nazism (48:56)
• How this is like Tony Richardson's Tom Jones (54:07)
• Period costumes (58:48)
• Pietro Marcello's Martin Eden and masculinity (1:05:35)
• Conclusion (1:20:27)

Show notes:

• Read Alex's review of A Radiant Girl (Sandrine Kiberlain, 2021)
• Read an interview with Dominik Graf about making Fabian with Steve Erickson of The Film Stage
• Purchase our ebook Peterloo in Process: A Mike Leigh collaboration
• Purchase our ebook Roads to nowhere Kelly Reichardt's broken American dreams
• Read Andrew's reviews at Stabroek News

Related episodes:

• Ep. 93: The films of Agnieszka Holland (Member's Only)
• Ep. 82: Quo Vadis, Aida and Our Lady of the Nile: Genocide on film (Member's Only)
• Ep. 5: Christian Petzold's Transit (Member's Only)

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

On this episode we dig into how Run Woman Run explores coming of age in your thirties through an Indigenous perspective. This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh. On this episode:

• Coming of age in their 30s episodes (1:42)
• Run Woman Run (5:16)
• How the film depicts trauma (13:43)
• Asivak Koostachin as the spirit of Tom Longboat (19:00)
• The anti-romcom (24:02)
• Land depiction (34:37)
• Health and "tough love" (37:06)
• Why Run Woman Run should have been longer (1:00:13)
• What settler critics often miss (1:15:34)
• Conclusion (1:18:16)

Show Notes

• Read Alex's review of Run Woman Run
• Read Orla's interview with Kímmapiiyipitssini: The Meaning of Empathy director Elle-Máijá Tailfeathers
• Read Laura Anne Harris' interview with The Road Forward director Marie Clements
• Read Alex's interview with Monkey Beach director Loretta Todd
• Read Alex's interview with Blood Quantum director Jeff Barnaby
• Read our list of the best Canadian films of 2021, including Night Raiders, Bootlegger, Red Snow, and Kímmapiiyipitssini
• Pre-order Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions, the first book to ever be published on Joachim Trier.
• Stay tuned for Orla's interview with director Zoe Leigh Hopkins

Related episodes

• Ep. 89: Spinster and The Forty-Year-Old Version: Coming of age at forty
• Ep. 63: Indigenous YA, part 2
• Ep. 62: Indigenous YA, part 1
• Ep. 54: I Used to Go Here and Unexpected: Kris Rey's thirtysomethings

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Associate Editor Brett Pardy recently defended his PhD about film and empathy. We discuss his research, what inspired him to get into the topic, and how Seventh Row ties in.

This episode also features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney and Executive Editor Orla Smith.

On this episode:

• Brett's Doctoral Dissertation (0:45)
• Related episodes (4:48)
• Brett's origin story for getting into this study (9:36)
• Cultural perceptions of films as just entertainment (18:24)
• What does empathy through film look like? (29:03)
• Having conversations about films (34:36)
• Expanding people's film horizons (43:31)
• How Seventh Row relates to this (48:36)
• Conclusion (1:02:18)

Show notes:

• Read Brett's interview with Stupid Young Heart director Selma Vilhunen and writer Kirsikka Saari
• Read Alex's interview with Meditation Park director Mina Shum
• Read Roger Ebert's speech about empathy and film.
• See the They Shoot Pictures, Don't They Top 1000 film list

Related episodes:

• Bonus 26: Benedict Cumberbatch's best, worst, and poshest performances (Member's Only)
• Bonus 19: Who is the poshest actor in Britain? (Member's Only)
• Ep. 90: Jeanne Dielman and Les Rendez-vous d'Anna: A Chantal Akerman mother's day (Member's Only)
• Ep. 86: Una & Slalom: Depictions of childhood sexual assault (Member's Only)
• Ep. 73: Promising Young Woman and The Assistant: Explorations of rape culture (Member's Only)
• Ep. 72: Steve McQueen's Small Axe (Member's Only)
• Ep. 69: Paddington and Paddington 2 (Member's Only)
• Ep. 68: Hillbilly Elegy and Down to the Bone: Mothers struggling with addiction (Member's Only)
• Ep. 46: A conversation between Mina Shum and Philippe Falardeau (Member's Only)
• Ep. 39: Jeff Barnaby's Rhymes for Young Ghouls and Blood Quantum (Member's Only)

We discuss Benedict Cumberbatch at his best, worst, & poshest, from The Power of the Dog to The Courier to The Electrical Life of Louis Wain. This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and regular guest Caitlin Merriman.

Show notes:

• The Power of the Dog is streaming on Netflix
• The Courier is available on VOD and streaming on Prime
• The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is streaming on Prime
• Stuart: A Life Backward (David Attwood, 2007) is streaming on Crave in Canada and HBO Max in the US

Related Episodes

• Bonus 22: Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (Member's Only)
• Bonus 20: Belfast and the self-mythologising of Kenneth Branagh (Member's Only)
• Bonus 19: Who is the poshest actor in Britain? (Member's Only)
• Ep. 111: TIFF 2021, part 2 (Member's Only)
• Ep. 28: 1917 and Jarhead — Sam Mendes' war films (Member's Only)
• 21st Folio, Episode 1: Hamlet at the Barbican with Benedict Cumberbatch

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Alex and Orla report from the 2022 Berlinale Film Festival, and introduce you to the films they loved, from Laia Costa-starrer Lullaby, to Swedish YA film about grief, Comedy Queen.

On this episode:

• Related episodes (1:10)
• Joachim Trier challenge (2:14)
• What we had screeners for (5:22)
• Berlin's films for young audiences (11:21)
• Alis (Clare Weiskopf & Nicolás van Hemelryck) (14:31)
• Comedy Queen (Sanna Lenken) (16:44)
• Lullaby (Alauda Ruiz de Azúa) (20:56)
• My Small Land (Emma Kawawada) (28:21)
• Until Tomorrow (Ali Asgari) and Millie Lies Low (Michelle Savill) 34:16
• Stay Awake (Jamie Sisly) 46:00
• Coma (Bertrand Bonello) (47:50)
• We Might as Well Be Dead (Natalia Sinelnikova) 50:26
• Creative nonfiction: Nelly & Nadine (Magnus Gertten) and Mutzenbacher (Ruth Beckermann) (52:50)
• Conclusion (1:01:55)

Show notes and related episodes:

• Read Alex's interview with Little Wing director Selma Vilhunen
• Take our Joachim Trier challenge, in preparation for our forthcoming ebook on Trier's work, Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions
• Ep. 121: Ninjababy & Obvious Child: Unwanted pregnancies in romantic comedies
• Ep. 84: Berlinale 2021, Part 2: The Competition (Member's Only)
• Ep. 83: Berlinale 2021, Part 1: The Sidebars (Member's Only)

We discuss This is Going to Hurt, an early contender for best show of the year, the excellence of Ben Whishaw, why Ambika Mod is such an exciting newcomer, and how it brilliantly discusses the mental health of National Health Service workers.

This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and Contributing Editor Lindsay Pugh

Content warning: This episode discusses suicide

Show notes and related episodes

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.

Over the course of one month, we challenge you to watch one Joachim Trier feature film per week, in chronological order, to catch up to The Worst Person in the World.

Click here for more details.

On today's episode, we'll be doing something a little different. Instead of our usual discussions of films with a panel of critics, Alex interviews British actress Olivia Vinall about performing Shakespeare. In this conversation, we talk about each of Olivia's four Shakespearean roles: Desdemona, Cordelia, Juliet, and Rosalind. We talk about how she finds a way into the text, what it's like working with different directors, and why she loves Shakespeare so much. On this episode:

• Other recent Shakespeare episodes (1:48)
• Background on Vinall's career (3:55)
• What Vinall loves about Shakespeare (8:28)
• Contemporary acting style in Shakespeare (15:50)
• Performing Shakespeare in different venues (28:28)
• Rosalind in As You Like It (33:07)
• Working with directors (37:47)
• Seeing other performances of Shakespeare as an actor (46:52)
• Acting in a live recording (51:14)
• Vinall's next projects (55:32)
• Conclusion (57:38)

Show notes:

• Follow Olivia Vinall on Instagram (@olivia_vinall)
• Read Alex's career profile interview with of Olivia
• Read Alex's review of Sam Mendes' production of King Lear, starring Vinall
• Vinall's performance in Othello is available through National Theatre at Home
• Olivia Vinall has narrated 13 audiobooks, including Thomas Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd. They are available through itunes and Audible.

Related episodes:

• Bonus 24: Kenneth Branagh's Much Ado About Nothing (Member's Only)
• Bonus 22: Joel Coen's The Tragedy of Macbeth (Member's Only)
• Bonus 17: Saoirse Ronan and James McArdle in The Tragedy of Macbeth at the Almeida Theatre (Member's Only)
• 21st Folio, ep. 6: Maxine Peake talks Hamlet

Follow Seventh Row on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, and read our articles at seventh-row.com.