With Francine Stock Writer/director Paul King and writer Simon Farnaby reveal why Hugh Grant's character in Paddington 2, a pompous washed-up actor, was originally called Hugh Grant in the first draft of the script. Award winning director Lynne Ramsay discusses You Were Never Really Here and why her star Joaquin Phoenix barely understood a word she said when she offered him the role of a hit-man called Joe. Director Alexandra Dean discusses her documentary Bombshell about actor Hedy Lamarr's unl...
Mar 08, 2018•49 min
With Francine Stock Director Sebastian Lelio discusses his ground-breaking drama A Fantastic Woman, with transgender star Daniela Vega in the lead, that could win Chile its first ever Oscar. The director of the award winning love story Call Me By Your Name, Luca Guadagnino, explains why it's his version of Dirty Dancing. Production designer Sarah Greenwood is in the enviable position of competing against herself for the Oscar for best production design, for Darkest Hour and Beauty And The Beast....
Mar 01, 2018•34 min
With Francine Stock Award winning film-maker Clio Barnard discusses her latest drama Dark River, based on scientific research conducted at the Wellcome Institute. Critics Gavia Baker-Whitelaw and Briony Hanson go toe-to-toe to get their chosen director into the Film Programme's A to Z. This week it's the Wachowskis versus Wong Kar-Wai. As an alternative option, Pamela Hutchinson makes the case for film pioneer Lois Weber. Composer Neil Brand reveals how Ennio Morricone's score for Cinema Paradis...
Feb 22, 2018•32 min
With Francine Stock Alison Janney discusses her award winning role as Tonya Harding's mother in real-life ice-skating drama I, Tonya, and reveals why she's happy that she never met the real Mrs Harding. Sally Potter talks about her latest film The Party, as it's released for home entertainment, and explains why she thinks there are so few female film-makers in this country and what can be done about the situation. Tim Robey and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh present a beginner's guide to Greta Gerwig, as t...
Feb 15, 2018•35 min
With Francine Stock Guillermo del Toro on his Oscar nominated fantasy The Shape Of Water and why it's a parable for our troubled times. The director of Russian family drama Loveless, Andrey Zvyaginstev, reveals what his film has to say about the conflict in Ukraine. Could the director of Basic Instinct really be one of the greatest film-makers of all time. Larushka Ivan-Zadeh makes the case for Paul Verhoeven, while Simran Hans champions Luchino Visconti for inclusion in The Film Programme's A t...
Feb 08, 2018•35 min
With Francine Stock Director Paul Thomas Anderson discusses Phantom Thread, Daniel Day Lewis' farewell to the film industry. There's another episode of Pitch Battle, in which historians nominate a suitable candidate for the movie treatment, a historical figure who has not yet been the subject of bio-pic. This week Helen Antrobus champions Ellen Wilkinson, the five foot "mighty atom" who led the Jarrow March. Anna Smith explains why she's spent the last twenty five years watching Groundhog Day ov...
Feb 01, 2018•30 min
With Francine Stock. Actor/director Julie Delpy explains why she thinks there are still only a few female directors and why, in her experience, some money men believe that women are too emotional to be in charge of a film production. Florence Pugh discusses the parts she's been offered since her break-through role in Lady Macbeth and why many scripts begin with a description of a female character's appearance rather than her intelligence. Composer Neil Brand reveals why Elmer Bernstein's score f...
Jan 25, 2018•33 min
Alexander Payne gives Francine Stock the low-down on Downsizing.
Jan 18, 2018•31 min
With Francine Stock. Playwright and writer/director Martin McDonagh talks about his award-winning drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and why he never knows which direction his plot is taking when he's writing and is as surprised by the twists and turns as the audience. The heist thriller Baby Driver is choreographed to the songs that its hero is listening to on his headphones, from the coffee machine that's in sync with Harlem Shuffle to the shoot-out that plays out to the strains ...
Jan 11, 2018•32 min
With Francine Stock. The Darkest Hour is the second bio-pic about Winston Churchill in 12 months. Director Joe Wright discusses our continuing fascination with Britain's most famous prime minister and reveals why he cast Gary Oldman in the lead role and why some people doubted his sanity when they heard the news. Gone Girl star Rosamund Pike is in studio to discuss her role in gritty western Hostiles. Sandra Hebron and Nadia Denton slug it out to get their chosen director into The Film Programme...
Jan 04, 2018•38 min
Francine Stock talks to West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin about his directorial debut Molly's Game. Based on the true story of a woman who ran underground poker games for the rich and famous, Sorkin reveals why he didn't name the Hollywood actors who were regular punters. Composer Neil Brand tickles the ivories and shows how Ron Goodwin's theme for 633 Squadron changed the sound of the war movie. Briony Hanson and Scott Jordan Harris slug it out to get their directors in the A to Z of film-makers. ...
Dec 28, 2017•35 min
Larushka Ivan-Zadeh is joined by Clare Binns and Tim Robey as they look back at the best films of 2017 and look forward to things to come from 2018.
Dec 21, 2017•28 min
Inside Science presenter Adam Rutherford joins Francine Stock to assess the latest instalment in the Star Wars saga, while critic Gavia Baker-Whitelaw takes us through the various fan theories about what is going to happen in The Last Jedi, and who is going to die. Director Daniel Rezende discusses his Brazilian drama Bingo: The King Of Mornings, based on a real-life clown and TV sensation who lead a disastrous double life as children's entertainer and drug addict. Perfume expert Dariush Alavi p...
Dec 14, 2017•40 min
With Francine Stock. Artist Ai Weiwei reveals why he decided to make a feature length documentary, Human Flow, about refugee crises around the world and about his own life in exile. The Oscar winning writer of The Hurt Locker, Mark Boal discusses the ethics of depicting police brutality in his latest docu-drama Detroit, which shows three police officers killing and torturing suspects during the 1968 riots. Catherine Bray and Nadia Denton slug it out to get their directors into the The A to Z of ...
Dec 07, 2017•33 min
Francine Stock meets Michael Haneke, award winning director of Funny Games, The White Ribbon, Amour and his latest, Happy End. He tells her why our modern obsession with screens should not replace real life. Critics Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and Tim Robey present a beginnner's guide to the films of Michael Haneke. Perfume expert Dariush Alavi presents the latest in his series The Scent Of Cinema with an olfactory analysis of Martin Scorsese's florid costume drama The Age Of Innocence....
Nov 30, 2017•27 min
With Francine Stock. Slumdog Millionaire and The Full Monty writer Simon Beaufoy tells Francine Stock about The Battle Of The Sexes and why it wasn't love all between tennis players Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs, when he challenged her in 1973 to prove that a woman could play as well as a man. Beaufoy reveals why he would make the film much harder hitting now in the light of the revelations of sexual harassment in the film industry and shares his experiences at the hands of Harvey Weinstein. ...
Nov 23, 2017•34 min
With Francine Stock. Peter Turner explains why his book Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool, about his relationship with Gloria Grahame, took 30 years to make it to the screen, and how Elizabeth Taylor and Madonna were once mooted to play the lead. To complement the release of Film Stars Don't Die In Liverpool, the British Film Institute is showing a season of Gloria Grahame's best bad girl roles, from The Big Heat to Human Desire. Film historian Pamela Hutchinson picks the most fatale of all her ...
Nov 16, 2017•33 min
Can you smell a movie? Francine Stock meets perfume expert and blogger Dariush Alavi who believes he can. Documentary maker Alex Gibney explains how he approached his new film No Stone Unturned, which attempts to solve a murder at the heart of The Troubles. As Paddington returns in a new adventure about a pop-up book, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh leafs through the history of the magical book in children's movies. Sean Baker, the filmmaker known for Tangerine, the movie shot entirely on a phone, tells Fra...
Nov 09, 2017•37 min
Antonia Quirke presents a special edition on the thriller. She hears some tricks of the trade from Ronan Bennett, writer of Face, Public Enemies and Gunpowder, who reveals why he thinks thrillers should really be called "tensers". Award-winning editor Walter Murch takes us through a key scene in the classic conspiracy thriller The Conversation and explains how to build paranoia in the audience by embedding subsonic frequencies in the soundtrack. Composer Rachel Portman explains how music can ach...
Nov 02, 2017•28 min
With Francine Stock What do The Mask, Thor and The Saga Of The Viking Women And Their Voyage To The Waters Of The Great Sea Serpent have in common? And what has this all got to do with Richard Wagner? Norse mythology expert Eleanor Barraclough explains all. Author and director Mark Cousins explains the ways in which cinema has changed the ways we look at the world and why many of us see our lives through the eyes of Hitchcock. The controversial A to Z of film-makers continues with the letter N. ...
Oct 26, 2017•34 min
Francine Stock talks to Rungano Nyoni, the Welsh/Zambian director of I Am Not a Witch, about the surreal adventures of a young girl accused of witchcraft. Francine discusses newly discovered movies from Africa, including a silent drama from 1915, which form a season called Africa's Lost Classics, curated by Lizelle Bisschoff, who explains why we rarely get to see films from that continent. Comedian Rosemary Fletcher tries to work out why so many brilliant female characters end up playing the sid...
Oct 19, 2017•44 min
In a special edition recorded at the BFI London Film Festival, Francine Stock talks to Ian McEwan about his screen work - the films he's adapted, the movies made from his novels, the Hollywood thrillers he's penned, and the ones that got away. The author of Atonement and On Chesil Beach reveals why he prefers to leave film-makers to do what they want with his novels and why the worst thing is to become the bad conscience of a film set, drifting around, saying "that's not what I meant". And why a...
Oct 12, 2017•36 min
Francine Stock asks director Denis Villeneuve why he took on the sequel to the much loved classic Blade Runner. He reveals exactly what Ridley Scott said to him before he started filming. "Get a life!" Writer Paul Rose replies to the critics who slated Pudsey The Dog - The Movie and made it one of the worst reviewed films in recent history. The Snowman director Tomas Alfredson tells Francine about the key difference between Swedes and Norwegians, and about the piece of music he listened to on re...
Oct 05, 2017•34 min
Francine Stock talks to director Jennifer Brea, who turned the camera on herself as she began to fight a disease that the medical profession does not always recognise - ME. Actress Edina Ronay kicks off a new series I Was In The Worst Movie Ever Made, making the case for Prehistoric Women, in which she starred in a fur bikini as a member of a lost tribe who sacrifice men to their white rhino god. Antonia Quirke finds out what happened when Vivien Leigh's wig from A Streetcar Named Desire went un...
Sep 28, 2017•34 min
With Francine Stock. Director Bertrand Tavernier takes Francine Stock on a journey through French cinema, and explains why it's good to meet your heroes, even if you don't like working with them. Elliot Grove saw his first movie at the age of sixteen, banned from going to the cinema by his Amish parents, and he was hooked from that moment. He now runs one of the biggest film festivals in Europe, Raindance, which celebrate is 25th anniversary this week. And it's all thanks to Lassie Come Home. La...
Sep 21, 2017•32 min
Francine Stock talks to the makers of The Work, a documentary about a group therapy session between convicts in Folsom Prison that takes unexpected twists and turns. The A to Z of film-makers continues as Mike Leigh takes on Jerry Lewis, championed by critics Anna Smith and Jonathan Romney. Comedian Rosemary Fletcher takes on the ultimate romantic comedy cliché in her series Rosemary Versus The Rom-Com Main Image: Folsom Prison Yard, from The Work. Credit: Joe Wigdahl.
Sep 14, 2017•29 min
With Antonia Quirke Antonia raids the store-room of foley artist Sue Harding at Twickenham film studios, and tries to make sense of the assorted snow shoes, filing cabinets and car parts that make the squeaks, creaks and bangs on screen. Box office takings fell by 10% this summer in a bonfire of the vanities as many star vehicles failed to launch. So, is this the end of the star system as we know it ? With all the answers is casting director Des Hamilton and box-office analyst Charles Gant. Vivi...
Sep 07, 2017•28 min
God's Own Country tells the story of a romance between a Yorkshire sheep farmer and a Romanian migrant worker. Its director Francis Lee explains how he attempted to authentically conjure the rural setting of his own upbringing. Comedian Rosemary Fletcher examines the decoy love interest in her series Rosemary Versus The Rom-Com. Two Film Programme listeners tell tales of cinemas in unusual places. And have we solved the mystery surrounding what Buster Keaton performed on his 1951 UK tour? Our in...
Aug 31, 2017•34 min
With Antonia Quirke. Will Poulter on the intense experience of playing a racist police officer in Kathryn Bigelow's new film Detroit. Indian filmmaker Shubhashish Bhutiani tells us about Hotel Salvation, the story of a son accompanying his elderly father to the holy city of Varanasi to die. And Best Visual Effects Oscar-winner Andrew Whitehurst rewatches Terminator 2: Judgement Day for us to see how the effects stand the test of time.
Aug 24, 2017•32 min
With Antonia Quirke Stanley Tucci talks about his latest film as writer/director, Final Portrait, the result of a life-long obsession with the artist Giacometti, which was inspired by his artist father. Woman in Black director James Watkins waxes lyrical about the work of Jean-Pierre Melville, the French film-maker who was so obsessed with American culture that he changed his name in honour of the author of Moby Dick. Listener Paul Kleiman talks about his mother Shirley Finn, who kept a record o...
Aug 17, 2017•30 min
