Simon Pegg talks to Matthew Sweet about his latest comedy, A Fantastic Fear of Everything. Producer Stephen Woolley and Catherine Bray of FilmFour join them to celebrate British humour in film - how much does what makes us laugh define who we are as a nation? And why do American audiences still look to British performers to provide them with some element they can't quite manage to grow at home? From Chaplin to Carry On, from Monty Phython to Sacha Baron Cohen - we look at the fine comic traditio...
Jun 08, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock meets with Charlize Theron to discuss her role in two films out this week - Prometheus and Snow White and the Huntsman. It's been one of the most hyped films of the year, but does Ridley Scott's Prometheus deliver? Critic Tim Robey is here with his verdict. Neil Brand is behind the piano to study the use of music in films based on fairy tales. Tom Lawes, owner of the Electric Cinema in Birmingham, has made a documentary called The Last Projectionist. He discusses the dying trade o...
May 31, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock reports from the 65th Cannes Film Festival, speaking to jury member Alexander Payne, director of Moonrise Kingdom Wes Anderson, and Ken Loach whose latest, The Angels' Share, is his 11th film in competition for The Palme d'Or. In this updated repeat of Thursday's programme, we hear about the winners of the much coveted prizes. Producer: Craig Smith.
May 24, 2012•28 min
A celebration of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, considered by many to be Britain's Citizen Kane. With contributions from director Martin Scorsese, editor Thelma Schoonmaker, and filmmaker Kevin Macdonald. Presented by Francine Stock. Produced by Craig Smith.
May 17, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock meets with Jonny Lee Miller to discuss his role in Tim Burton's Dark Shadows. Screenwriter Paul Laverty talks about his Bolivian epic, Even the Rain, starring Gael Garcia Bernal. Nigel Havers looks back at his time in Borneo with a wild Nick Nolte. Julie Delpy on 2 Days in New York, and why she wants to direct Woody Allen in her next film. Producer: Craig Smith.
May 10, 2012•28 min
Fifty years on, Sir Tom Courtenay in conversation with presenter Francine Stock looks back at his first film role in Tony Richardson's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. Neil Brand is behind the piano to study the music of the British New Wave. Critic Sandra Hebron discusses two psychological dramas of a different kind - Alfred Hitchcock's Lifeboat, and Dirk Bogarde in Reiner Fassbinder's Despair. Producer: Craig Smith.
May 03, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock meets with Tom Hiddleston to discuss his role in The Avengers Assemble. Directors Will Sharpe and Tom Kingsley discuss their much praised micro-budget film Black Pond, starring Chris Langham. Janet McTeer reveals who she modelled herself on for the role of a man in Albert Nobbs. Critic Scott Jordan Harris reports from Ebertfest in Illinois. Producer: Craig Smith.
Apr 26, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock meets with Emily Blunt to talk about her new film, an adaptation of Paul Torday's best-seller, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Director Kevin MacDonald makes the case for Bob Marley as one of the most important cultural icons of the 20th century. Juliette Binoche talks about her new film, Elles, an exploration of modern day prostitution in Paris. Producer: Craig Smith.
Apr 19, 2012•28 min
In a special edition of the programme, Matthew Sweet travels to Port Talbot in Wales to meet one of its most famous sons, Michael Sheen. He discusses The Gospel of Us, the film version of his biblical passion play performed amongst the local community last Easter. The actor also takes Matthew on a tour of the town that produced two other stars of the big screen - Richard Burton and Anthony Hopkins.
Apr 12, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock meets with filmmaker Paolo Sorrentino to discuss This Must Be The Place, starring Sean Penn as a jaded rock star on a hunt for the Nazi who persecuted his father. Morten Tyldum discusses his much praised Norwegian thriller, Headhunters. As Headhunters is set to be given the Hollywood treatment, critics Tim Robey and Catherine Bray discuss the complex business of remakes. And Four Weddings and a Funeral director Mike Newell professes his love for Jean Renoir's classic POW drama, La...
Apr 05, 2012•28 min
In an extended interview, Francine Stock meets with Hugh Grant to talk about his new role as the voice of an incompetent buccaneer in the Aardman Animations 3-D stop-motion film, The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists. He also discusses his role in The Leveson Inquiry, and why he thinks the films of Jean Luc-Godard are pretentious nonsense. Also on the programme, a profile of Jafar Panahi, one of Iran's most famous directors, whose latest work, This Is Not A Film, is an attempt to make a f...
Mar 29, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock meets with Jennifer Lawrence to discuss her lead role in The Hunger Games. Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne discuss their new film, The Kid with a Bike. Director Andrew Haigh on his indie breakthrough hit, Weekend, about an intimate relationship between two men in Nottingham. Actor Brian Cox does his best impression of Orson Welles and explains why he'll be performing the entire script of 'the greatest film never made', Welles's adaptation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Produce...
Mar 22, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock meets with Mark Wahlberg to discuss his new film, Contraband, his love of European thrillers, and why his criminal record has helped his acting career. Polish director Agnieszka Holland discusses her new film, In Darkness, a real-life tale of a group of Jews who hid from the Nazis in the sewers of Lvov, in Poland. And a celebration of the late director Ken Russell, as Kim Newman reviews a new cut of The Devils, and from behind the piano Neil Brand deconstructs Russell's use of mus...
Mar 15, 2012•28 min
Actor John Cusack on playing Edgar Allan Poe, and his concerns for free speech in America. Juliet Stevenson discusses the difficulties of working with Peter Greenaway on his film from 1988, Drowning by Numbers. Declan Donnellan and Nick Ormerod are better known as the co-founders of the theatre company, Cheek by Jowl. This week sees the release of their debut film, Bel Ami, starring Robert Pattison as the amoral cad from the famous novel by Guy de Maupassant. Riz Ahmed is a British actor noted f...
Mar 08, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock meets with Minnie Driver and director Marc Evans to discuss their high school musical Hunky Dory, a love letter to 1970's Wales. Austrian Markus Schleinzer discusses his debut Michael, where a paedophile imprisons a young boy in his cellar. Pasquale Iannone explains why The Conformist from 1970 is director Bernardo Bertolucci's masterpiece and a blue print for the American New Wave. And as the Oscar stardust settles, box office analyst Charles Gant reveals what we've actually been...
Mar 01, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock talks to Woody Harrelson, who plays a violent racist cop in his new film Rampart. It's been hailed by many as one of the performances of the year. So why no Oscar nod? He explains all. Also out this week is Black Gold, a vast sweeping epic which tells the story of the discovery of oil in the Arab states at the turn of the 20th century. Staring Mark Strong and Antonio Banderas, the film is conspicuous in featuring no Arab actors in the lead roles. One of the producers behind the fi...
Feb 23, 2012•28 min
In this week's programme Matthew Sweet grapples with two men who've played the Devil, Max von Sydow and Ciaran Hinds. Von Sydow doesn't sport any horns for his latest Oscar nominated appearance in Stephen Daldry's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close but Ciaran Hinds gamely plays a comic demon in Ghost Rider II - quite a contrast with his role in the Woman in Black which is also in cinemas at the moment. There's a cameo from the cult British director, Norman J Warren, whose feature debut, Her Pri...
Feb 16, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock talks to David Cronenberg about his new film A Dangerous Method, a study of the birth of psychoanalysis and the relationship between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. This is not the first time the Austrian neurologist has been portrayed on film. Sandra Hebron, film academic and trainee psychotherapist, delves in to Freud's celluloid past. Director James Watkins discusses working with Daniel Radcliffe in his new film, The Woman in Black. And co-creator of the Flight of the Conchords, J...
Feb 09, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock and Alexander Payne discuss his Oscar-nominated film The Descendants, starring George Clooney as a Hawaiian land owner with family troubles. Journalist Jane Graham reports from Glasgow, the UK city proving to be a hit with Hollywood filmmakers. Director Sean Durkin on his debut Martha Marcy May Marlene, a cult film in more ways than one. And as BAFTA honour John Hurt, the actor reflects on over 50 years in cinema. Producer: Craig Smith.
Feb 02, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock talks to three Oscar-nominated directors - Martin Scorsese, Michel Hazanavicius and Woody Allen. Uggie, the Jack Russell from The Artist, has been snubbed by the Academy despite an online campaign to have him receive a best actor nod. But should animals receive Academy Awards? Susan Orlean, author of a new biography of Rin Tin Tin, believes so. She explains why. Director Volker Schlöndorff discusses his Oscar winning film from 1979, The Tim Drum, an adaptation of Gunter Grass's ce...
Jan 26, 2012•28 min
In this week's Film Programme Francine Stock talks to Ralph Fiennes about his directorial debut, Coriolanus, and the juggling needed to act and direct in the same picture. She also examines the lure of the short film with Terry Gilliam and Ewan Bailey. Ewan is taking his beautiful and harrowing film, DeafBlind to the Slamdance festival this week --it was selected from thousands of entries for the prestigious showcase -- and Terry's stylish and sinister account of a foreign holiday -- The Wholly ...
Jan 19, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock weighs up the week's two big releases -- Steven Spielberg's War Horse and Steve McQueen's Shame. Spielberg is already being tipped for an Oscar and McQueen has been gathering plaudits from all over the world for his film which features Carey Mulligan and Michael Fassbender in a study of sex addiction. Producer: Zahid Warley.
Jan 12, 2012•28 min
The Film Programme strays into the territory of Greek tragedy this week embracing the family, family politics and politics itself. Francine Stock talks to Olivia Colman about playing opposite Meryl Streep in The Iron Lady, Phyllida Lloyd's film about Margaret Thatcher; she discusses teenage pregnancy,lost daughters and redemption with Rodrigo Garcia the director of Mother and Child which stars Annette Bening and Naomi Watts; and she joins the critic Jonathan Romney to assess the celebrated Chile...
Jan 05, 2012•28 min
Francine Stock is joined by historian Ian Christie and film composer Neil Brand to explore the enduring appeal of the silent era. Tipped for Oscar success and opening this week in the UK, The Artist is a film with almost no dialogue and which chronicles the transition from silent to talkies. We hear from its director Michel Hazanavicius. As a child actor Diana Serra Carey appeared in hundreds of shorts and features between 1920 and 1924 as 'Baby Peggy'. Now 93 she looks back as one of the last s...
Dec 29, 2011•28 min
December is a time for looking forward as well as a time for looking back and this week Francine Stock is doing a bit of both. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a glimpse of our immediate celluloid future opening as it does on Boxing Day so Francine has been talking to one of the film's stars, Daniel Craig. Stieg Larsson's story was, he says, a nice change from Bond and it gave him the chance to work with one of his heroes, the director, David Fincher. Shift focus slightly and we find ourselves...
Dec 22, 2011•28 min
Francine Stock talks to two of the brightest stars in British cinema, the actor, Eddie Marsan and the director, Carol Morley. Carol's documentary, Dreams of a Life, is being hailed as one of the most accomplished and disturbing films of the year. Its a story of casual neglect -- no harm intended more a case of someone just slipping off the radar -- but it ends in death. A young woman's body is discovered in a North London flat ...there are three years worth of bills on the floor and the televisi...
Dec 15, 2011•28 min
Truth - as they say - is stranger than fiction. Mike Cahill's science fiction morality tale, Another Earth, came out this week just days after it emerged that scientists had found Kepler 22b - a planet which, it seems, may share many of the attributes of our own bluey green globe. Francine Stock has been talking to Mike about coincidence, the genesis of his film and, of course, the multiverse. She's also taken a trip to the parallel world of American politics with Nick Broomfield to discuss his ...
Dec 08, 2011•28 min
Martin Scorsese talks to Francine Stock about the future of cinema, his passion for its history and the way he has used 3D to bring them both to life in his new film Hugo.
Dec 01, 2011•28 min
Conflict is this week's theme. It begins with the clash between Marilyn Monroe and Sir Laurence Olivier during the filming of The Prince and The Showgirl - a story which lies at the heart of Simon Curtis' My Week with Marilyn starring Kenneth Branagh and Michelle Williams; it continues with the friction caused when belief bumps into psychoanalytic dogma in Nanni Moretti's We Have a Pope; it encompasses the struggle between invading Nazis and Welsh farmers in Resistance - a counterfactual film ma...
Nov 24, 2011•28 min
Two of British cinema's true originals feature in this week's programme - Terence Davies and Andrew Kotting. Terence Davies has directed a version of Rattigan's heartbreaking drama, The Deep Blue Sea, with Rachel Weisz in the lead role and Andrew Kotting is releasing This Our Still Life, which documents his relationship with his daughter Eden, the paintings they make together and the life they lead in an idyllic but spartan farmhouse in the Pyrenees. Francine Stock will also be entering the terr...
Nov 17, 2011•28 min
