Filmwax Radio is proud to welcome 3 female documentary filmmakers to the podcast for their first time. First up is the filmmaker Wendy Lobel . “ Anxiety Club ” provides an intimate and humorous look at anxiety through the eyes and minds of some of the most brilliant comedians working today. Marc Maron, Tiffany Jenkins, Baron Vaughn, Aparna Nancherla, Mark Normand, Eva Victor and Joe List offer candid reflections on their relationship with anxiety through exclusive interviews, standup performance...
Aug 19, 2025•51 min•Season 15Ep. 865
Filmwax friend Julia Loktev returns to the podcast for her third visit. Last Fall the first part of her epic documentary premiered at the New York Film Festival . This Friday, August 15th “My Undesirable Friends: Part 1 — Last Air in Moscow” will have its theatrical premiere at Film Forum in New York City. Moscow, winter 2021: At TV Rain, the only remaining independent channel, young journalists have been branded foreign agents — targeted for surveillance or worse, and required to tag their repo...
Aug 12, 2025•28 min•Season 15Ep. 864
Returning to the podcast in this first segment is the documentary filmmaker Lisa D’Apolito (“Love, Gilda”). Coming-of-age can be difficult, but is always more bearable when you have someone who connects with you on a cellular level. Shari Lewis – a children’s television pioneer before Fred Rogers, Jim Henson, and others – was one of those people. She was a dancer, singer, and magician, but was best known as the ventriloquist behind sock puppets Charlie Horse, Hush Puppy and, of course, Lamb Chop...
Jul 28, 2025•1 hr 14 min•Season 15Ep. 863
In the first segment, a returning Michael Koresky (“Films of Endearment”), the Museum of the Moving Image ’s editorial director, with his latest book “ Sick and Dirty: Hollywood’s Gay Golden Age and the Making of Modern Queerness ” (Bloomsbury, 2025). The book is an original history celebrating the persistence of queerness onscreen, behind the camera, and between the lines during the dark days of the Hollywood Production Code. From the 1930s to the 1960s, the Motion Picture Production Code sever...
Jul 23, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Season 15Ep. 862
“Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmakers Apocalypse” (1991), the award-winning documentary chronicling the tumultuous making of Francis Ford Coppola’s “Apocalypse Now” recently had a theatrical run at New York’s Film Forum in a new 4K restoration. In the late 1970s, director Francis Ford Coppola, accompanied by his family and cast and crew, travelled to the Philippines to begin work on what would become “ Apocalypse Now”. But it soon became one of the most notorious shoots in cinema history, spiraling ...
Jul 18, 2025•32 min•Season 15Ep. 861
In the first segment of this episode I am joined by the producers Fisher Stevens and Maura Anderson of Highly Flammable. They have 2 documentaries that want you to know about. One is “ We Are Guardians ” directed by the team of Edivan Guajajara, Rob Grobman and Chelsea Greene. In the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, thousands of people are unlawfully invading protected lands, devastating centuries-old forests for resources and fast profits. Now as the health of the entire Amazon teeters at the edg...
Jul 11, 2025•55 min•Season 15Ep. 860
My guests today are the filmmaker Jonathan Berman , director of “ Commune “, Elliott Sharp , the film’s composer, and one of its producers, Christian Ettinger . In 1968, two hippies hiking near Mt. Shasta in Northern California stumbled across an unlikely property for sale: an abandoned goldmine and surrounding land, 300 acres for $22,000. Fueled by contributions from the Doors, the Monkees, Frank Zappa and others, they bought the property and named it Black Bear Ranch. It quickly became the pro...
Jul 09, 2025•31 min•Season 15Ep. 859
“ Death & Taxes ” is a feature documentary about wealth, inequality and the American Dream, viewed through the lens of the estate tax and the very personal story of a father and son at odds over what kind of inheritance we want to leave our kids and our country. Filmmaker Justin Schein’ s father, Harvey Schein, liked to say he lived the so-called “American Dream:” rising from poverty in Depression-era Brooklyn to great financial success as one of America’s top CEOs of the 1970s. But Harvey S...
Jul 04, 2025•34 min•Season 15Ep. 858
My guest in this episode are documentary filmmaker Jake Rademacher whose new film “ Brothers After War “, a follow up to his 2009 documentary “Brothers At War”, is currently available on DVD and digital platforms. He’s joined by his Executive Producer Gary Sinise (“Forrest Gump”, “The Green Mile”). “Brothers After War” finds Rademacher on a journey to reconnect with the veterans (including his two brothers) he embedded with in Iraq during the making of the first film. Combining footage from his ...
Jun 28, 2025•34 min•Season 15Ep. 857
My guests are multi-hyphenate creatives and frequent collaborators Edgar Morais and Luke Eberl . They are both currently in post-production on a narrative feature film set in rural Portugal, and in production on a documentary that they started filming in 2014 that spans the lives of Jonathan Velasquez, Eddie Velasquez and their friends, executive produced by Larry Clark. Edgar Morais is a filmmaker, photographer and actor. His directorial debut, the short film”Heatstroke”, screened in competitio...
Jun 20, 2025•49 min•Season 15Ep. 856
This episode celebrates two new outstanding documentaries that have been in the festival circuit these past months. Filmmaker Sasha Wortzel makes both her feature documentary directorial debut with “River of Grass”, and on Filmwax as well. “ River of Grass ” is a present-day reimagining of environmentalist Marjory Stoneman Douglas’s celebrated book, “The Everglades: River of Grass,” (1947), which transformed the public’s understanding of the area from worthless swamps to an essential source of f...
Jun 13, 2025•1 hr 4 min•Season 15Ep. 855
The Texas based filmmaker Bryan Poyse r returns for his 3rd visit to the podcast. It’s been 11 years since he visited. His new film, a comedy, is called “Leads” and will be having its world premiere this week at the Tribeca Film Festival . Written and directed by two-time Independent Spirit Award nominee Bryan Poyser, Leads is a sharp, spirited comedy about second acts and sibling chaos. Mags (Heather Kafka) is a drama lecturer with a steady job, a kid to raise, and her dreams of artistic greatn...
Jun 05, 2025•47 min•Season 15Ep. 854
Struggling documentarian Simon (Tristan Turner) relies on the unique perk of his roommate and best friend Bruce’s (Anthony Oberbeck) airline job: free flights as his travel companion, which he indulges in frequently to shoot footage for his films. When Beatrice (Naomi Asa), a charming fellow up-and-coming filmmaker, enters their lives and starts to date Bruce, Simon fears his one advantage in the harsh world of the film industry may disappear before his eyes. Increasingly obsessed and unable to ...
Jun 03, 2025•22 min•Season 15Ep. 853
Founder and Artistic Director of the Berkshires International Film Festival, Kelley Vickery makes her 3rd appearance on the podcast. The 19th festival runs May 29th through June 3rd in Great Barrington, MA and Lenox, MA.
May 16, 2025•26 min•Season 15Ep. 852
Rob King returns to the podcast. He is a professor of film and media studies at Columbia University’s School of the Arts. He is the author of “Hokum! The Early Sound Slapstick Short and Depression-Era Mass Culture” (2017) and “The Fun Factory: The Keystone Film Company and the Emergence of Mass Culture” (2009). And now Rob has a new book “ Man of Taste: The Erotic Cinema of Radley Metzger ” (Columbia University Press, 2025). We are joined by novelist Cathy Brown who has some background behind th...
May 11, 2025•44 min•Season 15Ep. 851
After 10 years, the filmmaker and author Alex R. Johnson returns to the podcast. Alex R. Johnson is a writer and filmmaker who lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. His feature film “Two Step” premiered to critical acclaim at SXSW in 2014 and went on to become a New York Times Critic’s Pick. His screenplay “Northeast Kingdom” was selected for the 2016 Black List, and his screenplay “Any Rough Times Are Now Behind You” was selected by the Austin Film Society’s Artist Intensive lab where he was mentore...
May 02, 2025•27 min•Season 14Ep. 850
“Chinatown” is inarguably one of the greatest films ever made in the United States. While Roman Polanski is often credited for that certitude, the film’s editor Sam O’Steen is also largely responsible for the film’s place in film history. And the Metrograph Cinema in NYC is once again recognizing Sam’s place in the editing pantheon by screening “Chinatown” in a gorgeous 35mm print as part of the ACE Presents series. That’s on Saturday, April 26th, 6:50 PM with a post screening conversation betwe...
Apr 25, 2025•36 min•Season 13Ep. 849
Based on a true story, “The Luckiest Man in America” is set in May 1984, when an unemployed ice cream truck driver from Ohio (Paul Walter Hauser) steps onto the game show “Press Your Luck” harboring a big secret: the key to endless amounts of money. His winning streak is threatened when the bewildered executives in the control room start to uncover his real motivations. My guests in this episode are actor Paul Walter Hauser (“Black Bird”, “Richard Jewell”) and director Samir Oliveros (“Bad Lucky...
Apr 04, 2025•42 min
The filmmaker Geremy Jasper (“Patti Cake$”) returns for her second visit to the podcast with his new film, “O’Dessa”. Set in a post-apocalyptic future, O’Dessa is an original rock opera about a farm girl on an epic quest to recover a cherished family heirloom. Her journey leads her to a strange and dangerous city where she meets her one true love – but in order to save his soul, she must put the power of destiny and song to the ultimate test. The film’s cast includes Sadie Sink, Kelvin Harrison ...
Mar 28, 2025•25 min•Season 15Ep. 847
The documentary filmmaker Jeremy Workman (“The World Before Your Feet”, “Lily Topples the World” )returns for his 7th visit to the podcast with his latest work, “ Secret Mall Apartment “. In 2003, eight young Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment in a hidden space inside the Providence Place Mall and lived in it for four years, filming everything along the way. They snuck in furniture, tapped into the mall’s electricity, and even secretly constructed a brick wall with a locking door, smuggl...
Mar 22, 2025•32 min
During demonstrations in apartheid-era South Africa, the police arrest Panic (Thomas Mogotlane), a mapantsula or petty gangster, while rounding up activists. His interrogation reveals the motivation for his involvement in the township riots. Once only concerned with partying, alcohol and his own interests, Panic finds himself being irreversibly pulled into the fray. Now, he is forced to choose between his personal freedom and taking a stand in the fight against the oppressive apartheid governmen...
Mar 19, 2025•43 min•Season 15Ep. 845
Follow the intellectual and emotional journey of a group of medical students at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx in the new PBS documentary “ The Calling: A Medical School Journey” . Captured through verité scenes and personal video diaries, the film offers an inside look at America’s healthcare system through the eyes of these aspiring practitioners as they learn what it takes to become a doctor in one of the country’s most underserved communities. On this episode I speak with t...
Mar 16, 2025•23 min•Season 15Ep. 844
Filmmaker Atom Egoyan (“Exotica”, “The Sweet Hereafter”) returns after 9 years for his third appearance on the podcast. He has a new movie that is currently in theaters called “Seven Veils” starring Academy Award® nominee Amanda Seyfried (“Mean Girls”, “Mama Mia”). The film follows theater director Jeanine (Seyfried) who, after years away, re-enters the opera world to stage her former mentor’s most famous work. Haunted by dark and disturbing memories from her past, Jeanine allows her repressed t...
Mar 10, 2025•52 min•Season 15Ep. 843
Senior Curator of Film at the Museum of the Moving Image, Eric Hynes , is my guest in the first segment. Eric and I discuss the Museum’s upcoming First Look festival to take place Wednesday, March 12th through Sunday, March 16th. First Look, MoMI’s annual festival showcasing adventurous new cinema, returns for its 14th edition, offering a diverse slate of major New York premieres, work-in-progress screenings and sessions, gallery installations, and fresh perspectives on the art and process of fi...
Mar 07, 2025•1 hr 5 min•Season 15Ep. 842
The film author and teacher William J. Mann makes his first appearance on the podcast. Mann is a New York Times -bestselling author of many books on Hollywood and the American film industry, including his most recent “The Contender: The Story of Marlon Brando”, for which he was granted access to Brando’s private estate archive, as well as “Kate: The Woman Who Was Hepburn” (named a Notable Book of the Year by the Times ); “Hello Gorgeous: Becoming Barbra Streisand: (praised by USA Today for its “...
Feb 28, 2025•45 min•Season 15Ep. 841
