Legendary Australian film critic, cinephile, film scholar, programmer, and author, David Stratton, sadly passed away this week, aged 85. In 2017, he joined Jason Di Rosso in the studio to discuss David Stratton: A Cinematic Life, Sally Aitken's documentary about his lifelong love of movies.

British A-listers Tom Hiddleston and Chiwetel Ejiofor on The Life of Chuck, a fantasy drama based on the novella of the same name by Stephen King. 

Beloved Australian actor Essie Davis discusses her role in the upcoming Disney sci-fi series Alien: Earth.

Georgian director Dea Kulumbegashvili speaks about her haunting abortion drama April, which won the Special Jury Prize at Venice.

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer, Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Ross Richardson
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

U.S. director Zach Cregger discusses Weapons, his excellent horror about a community left questioning who or what is behind the disappearance of a classroom of children.

The showrunners behind Apple TV+ series Platonic, in which Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen star as a charming duo of best friends in L.A.

Naomi Watts on The Friend, an adaptation of the bestselling book about a writer who finds her cosy New York life up-ended after her closest friend bequeaths her a Great Dane.

CREDITS

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer, Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Angie Grant
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

British-Peruvian musician Luis Felber (Attawalpa) co-created the buzzy Netflix series Too Much with his wife Lena Dunham, a rom-com full of joy and complexity set in London. Luis gets beneath the surface of it all with Jason. 

Australian filmmaker Michael Shanks on Together, his sticky body horror that made a mark at Sundance, starring Dave Franco and Alison Brie.

French master François Ozon on his latest When Fall is Coming, an ambiguous murder-mystery set in Burgundy.

CREDITS

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer, Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Angie Grant
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Screen legend Helena Bonham Carter on Four Letters of Love, where she stars opposite Pierce Brosnan in an adaptation of Niall Williams'  1997 novel about a couple pulled together by ghosts, fate and the power of love.

Inspired by real events, acclaimed writer/director Pascal Bonitzer’s sharp dramedy The Stolen Painting follows an auctioneer whose professional and personal integrity is challenged by the discovery of a long-lost masterpiece.

French director Louise Courvoisier on her charming debut Holy Cow, in which teenager Totone's carefree life in the countryside takes a turn when he's suddenly left to provide for his young sister.

CREDITS

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer,  Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Brendan O'Neill
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

As two Oscar snubbed films with excellent female leads from earlier in the year become available to watch via streaming, a highlights program featuring Dutch writer-director Halina Reijn on Babygirl, a sexual thriller starring Nicole Kidman as a powerful CEO who embarks on an affair with her much younger intern, played by Harris Dickenson; Plus, Academy Award winning director Pablo Larrain discusses Maria, in which Angelina Jolie is stupendous as the world's greatest opera singer - Maria Callas.

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer, Sarah Corbett
• Sound engineer, Ross Richardson
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Two stand-outs from the Melbourne International Film Festival:

Filmmaker Courtney Stephens on dolphin intelligence, sensory deprivation and the psychedelic experience...her new documentary looks at the strange and often confronting work of twentieth-century utopian neuroscientist John Lilly.

British-Nigerian director Akinola Davies Jr remembers the father he barely knew in his debut feature My Father's Shadow, a Lagos-set family drama that unfolds during a tumultuous period in Nigeria's political history. 

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer, Tony Norton
• Sound engineer, Matthew Sigley
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown
• Music from My Father's Shadow score by CJ Mirra & Duval Timothy

A first glance at the Melbourne International Film Festival...Russian American filmmaker Julia Loktev on her fascinating five and a half hour documentary about journalists in Russia, My Undesirable Friends: Part I — Last Air in Moscow.

One of the luminaries of Australian avant-garde filmmaking Dirk de Bruyn talks about two of his profoundly personal films, appearing as part of a career retrospective at the Melbourne Cinematheque.

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer, Tony Norton
• Sound engineer, Ross Richardson
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Acclaimed director Thomas Vinterberg (Festen, Another Round) on his new 7-part series Families Like Ours, which is set in a hypothetical near future where global warming has led to the imminent flooding of Denmark.

Director Boris Lojkine and actor Abou Sangaré discuss Cannes Un Certain Regard winner The Story of Souleymane, a deeply empathetic drama that follows a food delivery courier through the streets of Paris as he prepares for his asylum application interview.

Black Bird writer Dennis Lehane and actor Taron Egerton on Smoke, a new Apple TV+ series about serial arsonists.

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer, Tony Norton
• Sound engineer, Riley Mellis
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown

Australian director Justin Kurzel on his documentary Ellis Park, which follows Bad Seed and Dirty Three violinist Warren Ellis as he pursues his twin passions: making music and supporting a wildlife sanctuary in Sumatra.

Filmmakers Danny Boyle and Alex Garland talk political allegory and post-Brexit Britain in their new zombie film 28 Years Later, a follow-up to the cult 2002 film 28 Days Later.

Bonus zombie extra: an exhumed interview with the late George Romero, director of the seminal 1968 film Night Of The Living Dead.

• Presenter, Jason Di Rosso
• Producer, Tony Norton
• Sound engineer, Ross Richardson
• Executive producer, Rhiannon Brown