Shows
Mydylarama PodcastLeila Latif on Capernaum and contemporary Arab filmIn this episode, journalist and film critic Leila Latif talks about her coup de coeur pick from a season of Arab women filmmakers season at the Garden Cinema in London - Nadine Labaki's Capernaum. We talk about the importance of the film, its sensitive and sober depiction of poverty, its positive reviews and those that called it overblown or manipulative, and what this says about Western stereotypes of the Arab world. We also talk about Sudanese film, Saleh Bakri's always charismatic turns in Wajib and The Blue Caftan and nod to Wissam Aljafari's short Ambience.
2023-05-1030 minMydylarama PodcastIndy Film Library’s Jack Brindelli on the politics of zombie films, horror and top picks from Amsterdam 2023In the spirit of shedding light on all the great (and not-so great), imaginative and impressive films being made by the independent sector the world over, I spoke to Jack Brindelli from Indy Film Library, a platform that supports and reviews independent, under-celebrated or little-known films. The Indy Film Library is now a member of the Independent Media Association and they have an online and live mini-fest coming up end of April. The live element will be in Amsterdam. Jack wanted to flag three shorts that will be shown. Get your online tickets here!
Jack also talks...2023-04-2039 minMydylarama Podcast”A Lana Del Rey video as directed by the press manager for the Coalition for Families”- Animator Nadia Barbu on Blonde."A Lana Del Rey video as directed by the press manager for the Coalition for Families". Animator Nadia Barbu joins us for scathing review of Blonde.
Nadia is an award winning animation filmmaker and illustrator. You can see her work here.
*Trigger warning* We discuss the film's depiction of abortion and miscarriage.
2023-03-3126 minMydylarama PodcastFragments of a dream - Latin America, the spirit of resistance and musicThis is the recording of the discussion and some music following the screening of Fragments of a Dream at Rich Mix on 19 January 2023. Dr Francisco Dominguez talks to us about the current situation in Chile and what we can do to counter the various far right movements around the world and imperialism, musician Phaxsi Coca treats us to some entrancing live music and the film's co-directors tell us about their work, the Dream Lives On festival in Wales that celebrates Latin American music and peace in the spirit of Chilean activist Victor Jara.
The screening was organised...2023-01-2128 minMydylarama PodcastNana Mensah on her work, African American directors & the Duplass school of filmmaking &We were delighted to chat with Nana Mensah, director, writer and actress. Her first feature film Queen Of Glory, in which she also stars, met with much critical acclaim and was praised for its astute, unsentimental and at times downright hilarious portrayal of a Ghanian family in the US and high achieving academic daughter. We chat about her foray into filmmaking, how she made use of available resources, recent work by emerging filmmakers and artists of African origin(s) in and she shares her experience on the relationship friends and family of Ghanaian and other African origins have with...2022-11-1716 minMydylarama PodcastNina Turner, Operation Varsity Blues & Black Student Debt"What unites these documentaries is that they both believe in a meritocracy"
Summer break is officially over... In this episode, we discuss the problem of student debt in the US, the very specific ways it affects Black Americans and the elitism of higher education, through:
- The Intercept documentary Freedom Dreams: Black Women and the Student Debt Crisis, narrated by former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a longtime ally of the growing debt abolition movement, which looks at the crippling student debt in the US specifically affects Black women. You can watch it HERE.
- The Netflix documentary called Operation Var...2022-09-2530 minMydylarama PodcastQ&A with Philip Ilson, director of the London Short Film FestivalMore Q&As! As Coco Green gets stuck in the final chapters of her PhD, we take a break from our usual format to publish Q&As and whatever audio output we fancy.
To mark our partnership with the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival and celebrate short films, we had a chat with Philip Ilson, founder and director of the London Short Film Festival, and film programmer (for the BFI, amongst others) . We talk about film clubs in the 1990s, the festival's early days, programming freedom and short films to look out for.
Follow Philip on Tw...2022-05-1429 minMydylarama PodcastQ&A with Rich Lucano, aka PhondupeAs we take a short break from our usual, very long-form format, we decided to post audio interviews and content via our podcast channel.
Abla and Mydy contributor and chillout music expert Eddy Durnan sent a series of questions to ambient music maestro Phondupe, whose transportative sounds have provided much-needed escapism to many in the last couple of years. The musician, whose wider known titles include Ama and Silo, tells us more about his work, inspiration, travels and ambitions. We're also publishing this in written form on our website.
We also now FINALLY have a ji...2022-04-2922 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + CrooklynWe're back!! We took a couple of months' break for me to get over the chaos of the first few weeks of having a newborn (my second - still chaotic!).
We're delighted to have Akua Gyamfi join us this week to discuss her work and her top picks. Akua is the founder of The British Blacklist . She's also the creator of the TBB Talks & Your Aunties Could Never Podcasts, as well as co-creator of The Circle Podcast & Web series.
Akua's top picks include the Prince Of Bel-Air reboot and the film she chose to discuss...2022-03-011h 01
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + LuLaRich*MIC ISSUES* Apologies for the less than stellar quality of sound in this week's podcast. We had a minor missing mic issue which has been resolved. Also to look forward to, in the new year, we'll finally have a jingle!
This time, we focus on Amazon Prime doc LuLaRich, which follows the trials and tribulations of MLM empire LuLaRoe, a supposed garish legging selling business that operates as a pyramid scheme in all but name. We discuss the doc itself of course and the problematic nature of multi-level marketing schemes, who they appeal to and why.
2021-12-1449 minMydylarama PodcastOur Picks + The Closer and PassingWe jumped straight into this week's picks:
Dave Chappelle's Netflix show The Closer - we discuss the various contentious issues that had been raised, the concept of punching down - or up - , taking offence, who holds power and critiques of whiteness.
Passing - Does Rebecca Hall's adaptation live up to the book? We discuss casting choices, the American specificity of the phenomenon of passing and the director's perspective on it.
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Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Malignant: in praise of creature featuresAfter a couple of weeks' break for LFF, we are joined by guest Eddy Durnan, a Mydy subscriber, supporter, and a film buff with a long-standing career in visual effects to talk about (the somewhat maligned) Malignant.
A trip down memory lane brings up discussions around Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman...
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2021-10-2748 minMydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Little Fires EverywhereThis week, our focus is the series Little Fires Everywhere. Based on the book by Celeste Ng, the miniseries tells the intertwined stories of Black single mother artist Mia and White suburban housewife Elena and their ramifications. It’s a series that’s rich and complex in perspectives, strands and ideas. We discuss issues it brings up around privilege and motherhood, adoption and abortion, mixed race friendships and the social capital needed to navigate certain systems, like the courts and schools.
We also flag the BBC documentary series A Killing In Tiger Bay, which sheds light on the...2021-09-251h 00
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Little Fires EverywhereThis week, our focus is the series Little Fires Everywhere. Based on the book by Celeste Ng, the miniseries tells the intertwined stories of Black single mother artist Mia and White suburban housewife Elena and their ramifications. It's a series that's rich and complex in perspectives, strands and ideas. We discuss issues it brings up around privilege and motherhood, adoption and abortion, mixed race friendships and the social capital needed to navigate certain systems, like the courts and schools.
We also flag the BBC documentary series A Killing In Tiger Bay, which sheds light on the miscarriage o...2021-09-241h 00
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + ZolaMore Slasher talk! We go back in time to Series 2 this time to discuss gore, twists, popularity and the show's knack for realistic edges. We also highlight Shiny_Flakes: The Teenage Drug Lord, available to watch on Netflix.
Our focus this week is Zola, a brash, colourful, ballsy filmic take on a viral Twitter thread by stripper Aziah "Zola" King and the Rolling Stone article based on it "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted".
We discuss the film's experimental approach and bold choices as well as depictions of se...2021-09-0547 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Slasher: SolsticeThis week, we focus mainly on the third season of serial killer anthology Slasher, to mark the release of season 4 on Shudder. We touch on the excesses of social media, lynch mob mentality, accurate socio-economic depictions and plot twists!
Our top picks include Palestine Action - A Year Of Direct Action Against Elbit Systems UK by Real Media, a doc which as its title suggests explores the effective tactics of direct action. It's free to watch on their website.
As well as 2018 film Trial By Fire, wacky doc The Legend Of Cocaine Island and M. N...2021-08-1947 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + MLMs and On Becoming A God In Central FloridaWe're back! Our latest episode following our month-long break managed to bring together our regular go to topics: MLMs, cults and skincare.
We discuss American series On Becoming a God in Central Florida, starring Kirsten Dunst as a low paid amusement park employee who climbs the rank of a pyramid scheme type marketing company called Fam. We talk about multi-level marketing (MLMs), their legality, their implications for family and society and their history. We briefly mention the series The Path.
We also massively digress onto the topic of skincare. Having discussed MLMs we might as w...2021-07-2852 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Being MortalThis week, we focus on Frontline documentary Being Mortal, in which Boston surgeon Atul Gawande talks to doctors and patients about end of life care. The film highlights the sometimes woeful like of preparation and emotional intelligence shown by doctors and the issues that arise in that critical period.
We also flag Ramin Bahrani's The White Tiger.
The film looks at class and caste divide in India as a poor villager rises up to become a successful entrepreneur.
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Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Bubblegum Noir & Promising Young Woman*We're skipping ep 23 given the relevance of ep 24 to this month's releases - normal service will resume in 2 weeks!*
This week, our guest is Anna Smith, leading film critic and broadcaster and host of the popular podcast Girls On Film. Our focus is women as lead characters in sexually-charged noir films from the 90s to the present day - to the new spate of films that belong to what Anna calls Bubblegum Noir, using Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman as a starting point. We also discuss new release Gillian Wallace Horvat's I Blame Society. You can follow A...2021-06-0353 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + We Work: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion UnicornThis week, we discuss the documentary charting the rise and fall of co-working space/real estate scam We Work and its eccentric co-founder Adam Neumann. We cover the ethics of co-working spaces and their implications and the cultish elements of the We Work "experience".
We flag John Carpenter's prescient classic They Live and the Line Of Duty finale.
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2021-05-1254 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + One Night In MiamiRegina King’s directorial debut starring Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, Eli Goree as Cassius Clay, Aldis Hodge as Jim Brown, and Leslie Odom as Jr. Sam Cooke, is a fictionalised account of the four icons’ meeting in Miami, Fl after Clay’s first heavyweight title with Sonny Liston. The film is based on the Kemp Powers play which imagines their one night at the Hampton House, located in Brownsville, outside of Liberty City, due to segregation laws in Miami, which was the base for Miami's black performers and celebrities. Its strength lies in the key questions it debates about...2021-04-2558 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Crip CampThis week we are joined by psychotherapist Antonella Mercurio to talk about Crip Camp and the issues around activism, aspirational and revolutionary movements and disability rights sparked by the documentary.
Crip Camp (Netflix) sheds light on summer camp for teenagers with disabilities and the rights movement borne out of its pioneering set up.
Top picks include horror film The Empty Man, a creepy, hugely entertaining feature released to mostly so-so reviews in 2020 but has built a bit of a cult following, documentary The Story of Gospel Music and Antonella's pick - albeit one she's mildly e...2021-04-0744 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + The Obituary Of Tunde JohnsonThis week, we are joined by poet and writer Ryan Ormonde to discuss Ali LeRoi's feature film The Obituary Of Tunde Johnson that was screened as part of the BFI Flare Festival.
The "timeloop" film which sees Tunde, a young Black gay man who is shot and killed by a police officer, relive his last day on Earth over and over again. We talk about the relationships, Black masculinity, race and of course drift off topic to talk about ice cream and skincare.
Top picks this week include Welsh crime drama Hinterland, Jack Black biographical co...2021-03-2356 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + TypicalWe're stretching things a bit this week to include filmed theatre: our guest is director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour whose latest production is Typical at the Soho Theatre (available to stream online). The play stars Richard Blackwood as Christopher Alder, a Black man who died in police custody in 1998.
The play, a monologue that's halfway between poetry and rap recounting Christopher's last day and the acts of racism he experiences leading up to his death, highlights issues around racial stereotypes and institutional racism.
We discuss those with Ana as well as the implications of filming theatre and he...2021-03-1654 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Judas And The Black MessiahHighlights this week include the Glasgow Film Festival, entirely online, with its usual strong selection and carefully curated programmes, running from 24 February to 7 March and MLK/FBI is a 2020 American documentary directed by Sam Pollard who co-directed the 1987 doc Eyes on the Prize, which traces the FBI's investigation of Martin Luther King. Obviously Eyes on the Prize comes up as we discuss our main film of the evening: Judas And The Black Messiah directed by Shaka King, a powerful and much-needed portrait of Black Panther Fred Hampton and a dramatised account of the BFI's infiltration of the Black Panthers a...2021-03-0146 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Be Kind RewindThis week, guest and Mydylarama co-founder Judy Harris joins us to discuss the beauty of amateur cinema, community cohesion, gentrification, colourblind casting and the joys of play in Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind.
We also touch on the issues around race and casting choices in Netflix hit show Bridgerton.
When she's not doing revisions on a PhD on the utopian film theory of the poet Vachel Lindsay, which the viva panel described as "conceptually ambitious but let down by its organisation" - a statement which could be applied to her whole life - Judy works wi...2021-02-1157 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Women In Body HorrorThis week, we are joined by Georgina Allan, film editor for the Radical Art Review to talk about women in horror, specifically focusing on Julia Ducournau's Raw and Alice Lowe's Prevenge and their representations of women as complex protagonists and instigators of violence (as opposed to helpless victims or mindless monsters).
We mention Jordan Peele's Us, Marina De Van's In My Skin and Don't Look Back and others.
Picks of the week include Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson's mind warping, beautiful Synchronic and Channel 4 series Adult Material, a three-dimensional, intelligent and nuanced look at the wo...2021-01-1955 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur picks + Antebellum & Century Of The SelfWe are joined once again by Tom Barlow, chair of The Media Fund and host of the show News Club UK, to discuss the 2002 documentary series The Century of the Self. The Adam Curtis documentary analyses how Freudian theories are used for ideological control by consumer capitalism and governments. We talk about the implications of conceptualising freedom as autonomy and self-expression; and the conditions for building a democracy outside of emotional manipulation.
Tom will briefly discuss his pick of the week, BBC series Ladhood.
Antebellum is a 2020 American thriller film written and directed by Gerard B...2020-12-291h 02
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + The Imposter & Little White LieBefore we introduce our picks, we quickly shoehorn in one last point about last week's Three Identical Strangers...This week's top picks include Aaron Sorkin's historical legal drama The Trial Of The Chicago Seven, and Najwa Najjar's Palestinian road trip festival hit Between Heaven And Earth.
We discuss the utterly bonkers documentary The Imposter, in which an Algerian-French young man in Spain claims to be a 16-year-old Texan, who'd been missing for 3 years, and Little White Lie, the story of director Lacey Schwartz who grew up in a white family and was not aware that she was...2020-12-1452 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + The Last Blackman in San Francisco & One Man And His ShoesNew fortnight, new episode.
Abla's picks of the week are the brilliant, creepy horror debut Caveat by filmmaker Damian McCarthy and Palestinian film Western Arabs, a chaotic, powerful and very personal look at the impact of displacement, by Omar Shargawi, as both films are reviewed on Mydylarama.
Our festival to watch out for is Documenta Madrid, flagged by Film Fest Report.
Coco's picks were The Lovers And The Despot - a documentary about an actress and her filmmaker husband who were forcibly taken to North Korea by Kim Jong-Il to help develop the co...2020-12-0151 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + His House & The Social DilemmaThis week, Abla picks Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult, a sort of parallel documentary to the previously discussed The Vow, also about Keith Raniere and NXIVM but more explosive and revelatory and Egyptian horror series Paranormal.
She mentions award-winning documentary Tell Spring Not to Come This Year available to watch online all this month here.
Coco Green talks about:
The China Hustle (2017)
Like the 2016 documentary Betting on Zero, about short sellers and their suspicions of fraud in the multilevel marketing company Herbalife, The China Hustle has a similar focus, but with Chinese companies running a simil...2020-11-1457 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Keenie Meenie: Britain's Private ArmyOur guest this week is Phil Miller, investigative journalist and staff reporter at Declassified UK. We discuss the origins of British mercenaries in recent proxy wars and the extent of government culpability in his documentary (and the book it's based on) Keenie Meenie: Britain's Private Army (2020) - available online!
We've not been bawled over by any films so we're only highlighting a couple of festivals to watch out for this week: IDFA - the Amsterdam documentary film festival, one of the biggest in the world, which will be live and online and which Film Fest Report reminded...2020-10-2648 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Top Picks + Revolution & Social Change in Sci-FiA longer episode than usual in which we are joined by Media Fund Strategic Coordinator Thomas Barlow. Among the many other things he does is conducting anti-fascist history tours in his home city of Manchester!
Tom chose to focus on themes of revolution and social change in sci-fi, with a particular focus on Elysium, The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica. We discuss how the film and series creators depict the agents of change, the use of a single hero-like protagonist as opposed to the class of workers or oppressed characters taking things into their own hands. We touch o...2020-10-121h 12
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + "Colonial Chic" & Gone With The WindThis week's focus is colonial chic in light of the touted and actual removal of Gone with the Wind (1939) from a number of programmes and archives due to its racist outlook. We discuss themes of colonialism and postcolonialism through film, namely the above and Jane Austen's work, and their filmic representations. As the saying goes, it’s not what you're looking at, it’s what you see.
Our picks this week are the Encounters Film Festival—GET YOUR PASS—and its expert, sharp-eyed curating—only £10 gives you access to hundreds of excellent and very entertaining short films, as well as...2020-09-2943 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + WavesThis week we are joined by Matt Howsam, a production coordinator in the VFX industry and a film critic.
We mention the hilarious and highly original One Cut of the Dead (2017) by Shin'ichirô Ueda, a Japanese Zombie comedy in the style of some of the best mockumentaries out there and a homage to low budget filmmaking. Depending on where you are you can watch it on Shudder or buy the DVD. Abla also highlights the Netflix series Unwell (2020– ), which looks at the dark side of the wellness industry and some of the products and concepts currently being flo...2020-09-1339 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Pablo Navarrete (No Extradition)This week, Coco and Abla interview documentary filmmaker and journalist Pablo Navarrete. Pablo's latest film No Extradition is a record of the campaign of support for Julian Assange who is facing extradition to the US. He also follows John Shipton, Assange's father, over several months as he fought to secure his son's release from Belmarsh prison in the UK.
The filmmaker, whose first documentary "Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela" dates from 2009, was working for Telesur when he collated most of the film's footage.
We also talk to Pablo about his p...2020-09-0746 min
Mydylarama PodcastOur Picks + Black Is King (Special Guest)For this episode of Mydylarama's Top Picks podcast, we're joined by our guest, academic, film programmer and Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film Festival producer George Crosthwait.
George's pick of the week, and also his first trip back to the cinema since February, is Shannon Murphy's debut film Babyteeth (2019), an Australian coming-of-age drama that both impressed and confused him due to it's tonal eccentricities.
Abla's picks of the week include Richard Pryor: Omit The Logic (2013), now available on Sky, a pretty engaging and informative documentary about the comedian's life, and a couple of festivals to look out...2020-08-191h 00
Mydylarama PodcastAmerican Horror Story: Apocalypse & Top PicksAnother fortnight, another episode! We start with our picks and move on to a discussion about American Horror Story: Apocalypse (S8, 2018).
As huge horror fans, we'll have other episodes down the line in this genre....
Coco's Top Pick is American Son (2019), performed as a one set straight play, in which an interracial couple waits at the police station for news of their teenage son's whereabouts, revealing the lies a family has told themselves about political race and the limitations of family and love. Despite the gratification of seeing Nia Long and Omar Epps in a sexy thriller, the best thing to...2020-08-0549 min
Mydylarama PodcastThe Staircase (2018) & Our PicksIn this episode, we discuss our picks of the fortnight and focus on true crime documentary The Staircase and the issues that it brings up.
The Dark finale was definitely a highlight, a truly gripping series, with twists and turns as bonkers as those in Lost, with none of the incoherence and sheer wackiness. Palestinian filmmaker Sameer Qumsieh's doc Walled Citizen, in which he explores travelling with the world's lowest ranking passport was screened as part of the Galway FF selection. You will hopefully be able to catch it at the UK Adventure Travel film fe...2020-07-2147 min
Mydylarama PodcastTop 5 on Netflix - The Black Middle ClassesFrom Self-Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker (2020); Strong Island (2017); Skin (2019); I Am Not Your Negro (2016); & Black Privilege (2019), emerges the theme of Black Middle-Class aspiration. While they all hit the mark for entertainment value, some fall short in misrepresenting a fantasy of black life that is more based-on-aspiration than matter-of-fact.
In light of the solidarity expressed by the Black Lives Matter movement - and other protesters and campaigners - with Palestinians, our intro is about Palestinian films that shed light on the current issue of annexation. Abla talks about the London Palestine Film Festival col...2020-07-0949 min
Mydylarama PodcastTop 5 Black Lives Matter Collection on NetflixThe myDylarama team has decided to launch a podcast, on the back of our Screen Extra section, and our wish to offer an academic/contextual/ socio-political take on film and screen-related matters.
It will be hosted by Coco Green, armchair critic and wannabe academic (ABD PhD) and Abla Kandalaft, a film programmer and journalist. We both research and work with issues around race, colonialism, class and culture.
Our first myDylarama podcast begins with this top five from Coco Green. She lists her Netflix picks of the last 2 weeks that address issues around Black lives and...2020-07-0122 min