Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For Hyphenates Cheat Sheet: we program you a double feature that will not only make for a great evening's viewing, but will bring you suitably up-to-speed before our next episode lands…
THE 'BURBS (1989) and GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH (1990)
Don't let the fact that The 'Burbs is incredibly silly and funny distract you from the fact that it is also an incredibly clever satire on the veneer of the American Dream. At the tail end of the Reagan era and the Cold War, Joe Dante made a film about white America's fear of foreigners, set in an idealised neighbourhood whose pristineness belies a rotten, ugly heart. Tom Hanks stars as the quintessential middle-class husband and father who has a growing suspicion of his unusual neighbours, and, egged on by the mob mentality of other members of the suburban cul-de-sac, ignites chaos and destruction. It's possibly Dante's cleverest work, and a potential insight into his worldview. Your evening continues with a viewing of Gremlins 2: The New Batch. The original Gremlins is widely considered the superior film, but we're going to make a case for the sequel. The point of the Cheat Sheet is to give you everything you need to know about the director in the space of two films, and Dante's predilection for Looney Tunes-inspired wackiness and meta-textual gags that trample uncaringly over the remains of the fourth wall make Gremlins 2 the irresistible choice. Film critic Leonard Maltin appears at one point in the film, trashing the original Gremlins on screen before he himself is attacked by Gremlins, who then stop the actual film we're watching as we're watching it, taking over the cinema we are presumably in! The first Gremlins felt like Dante meeting the audience halfway; the sequel feels like Dante Unleashed. Watching these two films back-to-back should tell you everything you need to know about what makes Joe Dante tick.
Substitutions: If you can't get or have already seen The 'Burbs, track down Innerspace (1987). It's not exactly the suburbam satire that The 'Burbs is, but it's the perfect mix of action and comedy, and one of the most eminently rewatchable films Dante has made. Who doesn't want to see Dennis Quaid shrunk to microscopic proportions and injected into Martin Short's arse? Crazy people, that's who. If you can't get or have already seen Gremlins 2: The New Batch, get yourself a copy of Looney Tunes: Back In Action. After years of emulating the Bugs Bunny aesthetic on screen - and collaborating more than once with the great Chuck Jones - Dante fulfilled what was surely a prophecy from the mists of time, directing the 2003 live action Looney Tunes film. Though it doesn’t quite reach the peak of the original cartoon (but what since 1964 has?), it’s still far more in the spirit of the classic series than every hipster's favourite ironic go-to reference Space Jam. You know it's true.
The Hidden Gem: Want to see something off the beaten path, a lesser-known work from Joe Dante's filmography? We recommend you take a look at 1993's Matinee. Dante's love letter to William Castle features John Goodman as a schlocky film producer promoting his horror film Mant! in southern Florida as a group of movie-loving kids try to cope with the Cuban Missile Crisis. We'll likely never see a movie-length dramatisation of Joe Dante's childhood, so Matinee is probably the next best thing.
The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Neil Marshall talking Joe Dante, will be released on 31 May 2017.
Writer, director and Hi4H May 2017 guest host Neil Marshall
A big question kicking around Hi4H headquarters since we released our first episode in May 2010 has been this: who will be the first person to be both a guest and a filmmaker of the month? We've talked about a lot of very talented and very still-alive filmmakers on the show… and have tried to lure many of them on as guests, coming awfully close a couple of times, but to no avail. Until now!
If you are yet to listen to last month's show, a) hurry up, and b) here's a rundown of Neil's bonafides: he is an English filmmaker best known for horror films such as Dog Soldiers (2002), The Descent (2005), Doomsday (2008) and Centurion (2010), as well as his high-profile television work that has included Game of Thrones, Hannibal, Constantine, Black Sails and Westworld. And about 24 hours ago it was announced he’s directing the reboot of Hellboy with David Harbour in the lead role! (The timing of the Hellboy announcement with this announcement is complete coincidence, although we’re more than willing to pretend we were in on it the whole time and this was deliberately-timed synergy.)
Of course, all of that is far less important than his next role: that of Hell Is For Hyphenates guest host!
So which filmmaker will Neil be joining us to talk about?
None other than Joe Dante!
Dante is a beloved director for cinephiles who grew up in the 1980s and 1990s. This was the era in which high-concept fantasy and self-aware comedy merged to push big budget Hollywood films into what would eventually be referred to as “geek†cinema, with directors such as Steven Spielberg and George Lucas helping to turn the niche into the mainstream.
Joe Dante was one of the key figures of this movement. From his beginnings directing episodes of the groundbreaking comedy series Police Squad!, to his early films such as Hollywood Boulevard (co-directed with Allan Arkush), Dante was quickly established as someone with a sincere love of genre films and a keen sense of humour.
With a career including Piranha, Twilight Zone: The Movie, The Howling, Gremlins, Innerspace, Explorers and The 'Burbs, he defined the movement of multiplex cinema that was exciting, fantastical, smart, and above all fun.
So what is it about Dante's films that specifically appeals to Neil? Join us on May 31 when we find out!
“When you need to set the ocean on fire, you hire Neil Marshall.”
An American, a Brit and an Australian walk into a podcast… This month certainly isn't the first time we've recorded across three continents, but with daylight savings ending in one place and starting in another, it certainly made for some tricky scheduling as one of us got up super early, one of stayed up super late, and another relaxed in the comfort of the early evening. See if you can guess which was which! Actually, don't.
We were covering John Carpenter’s films on Hi4H at the same time Kurt Russell was announced as starring in Guardians 2. So this moment in Carpenter’s Elvis (1982) really stood out to us as an almost-prophecy.
We kick off this month's episode with a look back at three different films from April 2017 (according to the disparate release dates across our various countries). Lee examines the daddy issues at play in James Gunn’s Marvel sequel Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2; Sophie looks at Raoul Peck’s documentary I Am Not Your Negro, which examines the final unfinished work by legendary American writer and essayist James Baldwin; Lee jumps back in to celebrate the very special occasion that is a new Warren Beatty film, as he reviews Beatty’s Howard Hughes semi-biopic Rules Don't Apply, his first directorial effort since 1998’s Bulworth, and his first on-screen appearance since 2001’s Town and Country.
We then welcome our special guest Scott Weinberg, critic, horror aficionado, film producer, and co-host of the movie podcast 80s All Over, which he presents alongside fellow Hi4H alum Drew McWeeny.
Scott joins us to look at the recent examination of the Netflix distribution model. Is Netflix's particular brand of video-on-demand a revolutionary way of bringing rare and obscure content directly into your home, or is it a behemoth burying films and hiding sleeper hits from view?
Then Scott takes us through the works of his filmmaker of the month, English horror director Neil Marshall! From Dog Soldiers to The Descent, from Doomsday to Centurion, across his many episodes of iconic television, Scott takes us through what makes Marshall's films so distinctive, and why he is such a key voice in 21st century horror cinema.
Further reading:
If you want to hear our chat about the first Guardians of the Galaxy, listen back to our episode from August 2014.
As we said in the Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2 chat, Elizabeth Debecki isn't the only Australian actress being villainous in Marvel's cosmic universe. If you haven't seen the Thor: Ragnorak trailer, have a look and see if you're into Cate Blanchett-in-antlers as much as Lee.
The David Ehrlich article that inspired our middle segment, entitled “Netflix Keeps Buying Great Movies, So It's a Shame They're Getting Buried†can be read here on Indiewire.
During the third segment, we digress slightly into talk of Return To Oz (1985), and the fact that the director had himself digressed into astrophysics. The director in question is Walter Murch, the Oscar-winning editor behind Apocalypse Now, The Godfather, The English Patient and more, and his unlikely interest in astrophysics is detailed in Lawrence Weschler's book Waves Passing in the Night (Bloomsbury Publishing), released in January of this year.
Scott mention a couple of other films about the Lost Legion. These include the 2011 film The Eagle, based on the Rosemary Sutcliff novel The Eagle of the Ninth, directed by Kevin McDonald, which has no official connection to Centurian but is considered by some to be an unofficial sequel due to Channing Tatum's character Marcus Flavius Aquila being the son of Titus Flavius Virilus, played by Dominic West in Marshall's film. The other film is 2014's The Lost Legion, directed by David Kocar & Petr Kubik.
Sophie references the fact that the Nicholas Winding Refn film Drive was very nearly directed by Neil Marshall, with Hugh Jackman in the role that eventually went to Ryan Gosling. Check out the announcement of the unrealised project from March 2008.
Mere days after the release of this episode, in which we wondered if Neil Marshall would ever return to directing films, it was announced that he would be helming the reboot of the popular comic book series Hellboy! The first two Hellboy films were, of course, directed by Guillermo Del Toro, and you can listen back to our thoughts on his Hellboy films in our del Toro episode with guest Maria Lewis.
Outro music: score from The Descent (2005), composed by David Julyan
The latest episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Scott Weinberg talking the films of Neil Marshall, can be heard on Stitcher Smart Radio, subscribed to on iTunes, or downloaded/streamed via our website.
Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For Hyphenates Cheat Sheet: we program you a double feature that will not only make for a great evening's viewing, but will bring you suitably up-to-speed before our next episode lands…
DOG SOLDIERS (2002) and THE DESCENT (2005)
Your evening's viewing begins with Dog Soldiers, the first feature by Neil Marshall. The film follows a group of soldiers in the Scottish Highlands who find their training mission interrupted when they are terrorised by a pack of werewolves. Marshall's debut feature revels in the grand tradition of low-budget horror films, using budgetary limitations to its advantage: a contained cast and a remote location means that the characters are front and centre and the scares are restrained and effective. After watching a group of men battle werewolves in the forest, you're going to want to watch a group of women battle subhumans in an underground cave system: his follow-up The Descent is a masterful horror, stylish as hell and terrifying as all get-out. Marshall wisely keeps his focus on character, forgoing the usual trope stereotypes in favour of complex people we genuinely care about. And then he drops them in the most terrifying setting imaginable. If you're not claustrophobic when the film begins, you will be by the end, and the confined cave system isn't even the scariest thing about this ingenious horror flick. Honestly, text your friends now because this is a double feature designed for company.
Substitutions: If you can't get or have already seen Dog Soldiers, check out Doomsday (2008). This postapocalyptic virus film was conceived by Marshall when he imagined futuristic soldiers battling medieval knights, and draws inspiration from the likes of Mad Max and Escape From New York. If you can't get or have already seen The Descent, track down Centurion (2010). The historical action film features Michael Fassbender as a Roman soldier on the run in Britain, fighting Picts and traitorous Romans alike as he tries to stay alive in 117AD.
The Hidden Gem: Want to check out something slightly off the beaten track? Well, it's kind of tricky to do a Hidden Gem this month, as Marshall's only made four features. We were tempted to suggest one the many high-profile episodes of television he's directed (particularly the 2012 Game of Thrones episode Blackwater), but we think we might go with Marshall's 1999 short film Combat. It's under eight minutes long, you can watch it literally right now by clicking on this link, and it's a perfect encapsulation of what makes Marshall so interesting: a straightforward high-concept idea executed with all the filmmaking elements available. If you are going to watch a double feature as suggested above, we recommend kicking it off with a pre-show screening of Combat.
The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Scott Weinberg talking Neil Marshall, will be released on 30 April 2017.
Film journalist, producer, and Hi4H April 2017 guest host Scott Weinberg
If you’re into film and you're on Twitter, you definitely know who Scott Weinberg is. But for those who are yet to make the leap to the microblogging social media platform, Scott has been a film journalist for almost two decades, writing on cinema for Cinematical, FEARnet, Nerdist, Thrillist, Playboy and others. He’s one of film criticism’s most passionate voices, and recently launched the popular 1980s cinema-themed podcast 80s All Over alongside Hi4H alum Drew McWeeny.
He's also become hands-on behind the camera, producing last year's horror film Found Footage 3D. But all of that pales in comparison his next role: Hell Is For Hyphenates guest host!
Scott is best known for his love of horror cinema, so we were keen to hear which filmmaker he would want to talk about. So who did he go with? None other than British horror director Neil Marshall!
Marshall was praised for his gritty debut feature, the 2002 werewolf horror Dog Soldiers. His 2005 spelunking follow-up The Descent immediately achieved cult status, and with two iconic horrors under his belt, Marshall quickly became one to watch.
After a few more features, Marshall turned to television, working on Black Sails, Constantine, Hannibal and Westworld. He has also directed for Game of Thrones, with his debut episode Blackwater considered one of the best-directed episodes of the entire series.
So what is it about Marshall's films that Scott loves so much? Check back in with us on April 30 when we find out!
Allison Anders is a name that doesn't get mentioned nearly as much as it should. And thanks to Jennifer Reeder, this month we're pointing out why this is a mistake that needs to be corrected. From Gas Food Lodging to Grace of My Heart and Things Beyond the Sun, Anders was one of the defining voices of 1990s American indie cinema. So what happened? We take a decent stab at figuring it out, as we celebrate the remarkable films that Anders has made and continues to make.
Blink and you’ll miss her: director Nicole Holofcener cameos as a prison guard in one shot of Mi Vida Loca (1993)
Jennifer was in London for the BFI Flare Festival, and by an amazing coincidence, so was Allison Anders! Jennifer’s film Signature Move was Flare’s Closing Night Gala film, and Allison’s seminal Gas Food Lodging was celebrating its 25th anniversary with a restored 2K digital print. Before you get excited, we don't actually have Allison on this episode, but we are working to get her on a future show to find out which filmmaker she herself admires. Nevertheless, Sophie managed to track her down and snap a photo with her, which you can see below!
Before we talk the films of Allison Anders, Sophie and Lee tackle some new releases, looking at a couple of very different films with an unexpected thematic link: James Mangold's Wolverine swansong Logan, and Sara Taksler's Bassem Youssef documentary Tickling Giants.
Pre-fame cameos: (l-r) Jason Lee, Spike Jonze and Tiffany Anders doing a deal in Mi Vida Loca (1993)
Then Sophie joins Jennifer in her hotel room to talk all things Anders, and find out why she was such an influence on a young Jennifer Reeder. Sophie then checks back with Lee for some final thoughts on AA’s films. As with all of our episodes, we do our best to appeal to both Anders fans as well as those with no knowledge of her films. Like Ted the Bellhop, we do our best to cater to everyone.
A couple of familiar names appear on-screen in Gas Food Lodging (1992) (left) and Sugar Town (1999) (right)
Further reading:
That moment in the Man of Steel trailer that Lee talks about obsessing over can be seen here about 22 seconds in
Two pieces that explore Bassem Youssef's move to the US, including this interview on NPR's Fresh Air and this one with Rolling Stone
Sophie references the Amy Schumer Show sketch “The Last Fuckable Day†(which was, coincidentally, directed by Nicole Holocener)
Lee mentions his repeated viewings of the Four Rooms trailer, which you can take a look at here, if you’re curious
Since Nicole Holofcener's come up a number of times this month, we should point out you can listen back to our Holocener episode with our guest, actress Pollyanna McIntosh
With this episode, we're three quarters of the way through covering anthology film Four Rooms, which Allison Anders co-directed by Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Alexandre Rockwell. While we wait for a guest to pick Rockwell, you can listen back to our Tarantino episode (also our third anniversary show) with director Brian Trenchard-Smith, and our Rodriguez episode with comedian Jon Bennett
Sophie mentions the epic Greta Garbo record collection that Allison Anders owns, and you can read Allison's blog about it right here
Outro music: “God Give Me Strengthâ€, written by Burt Bacharach & Elvis Costello and performed by Kristen Vigard, from Grace of My Heart (1996)
Jennifer and Sophie get purple at the Flare Festival (photo credit: Carol Morley)Sophie runs into the subject of this episode, the one and only Allison Anders, at the BFI (photo credit: Anna Bogutskaya)
The latest episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Jennifer Reeder talking the films of Allison Anders, can be heard on Stitcher Smart Radio, subscribed to on iTunes, or downloaded/streamed via our website.
Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For Hyphenates Cheat Sheet: we program you a double that will not only make for a great evening's viewing, but bring you suitably up-to-speed before our next episode lands…
GAS FOOD LODGING (1992) and GRACE OF MY HEART (1996)
Happy 25th birthday Gas, Food, Lodging, the Dinosaur Jr-soundtracked ode to the beautiful landscapes of New Mexico and the intense girls who inhabit them. Anders' first solo-directed feature - like her first Border Radio (1987, with Kurt Voss and Dean Lent) - hovers in the borderlands, where Shade (Fairuza Balk) falls (didn't we all?) for her (quite evidently queer) best friend Darius (Donovan Leitch) before realizing that it's Javier (Jacob Vargas) who loves her. Meanwhile her sister Trudi (Ione Skye, Leitch's older sister in real life) has fallen for a geologist, with grave consequences. Their mother Nora (Brooke Adams) is trying to hold it together and find new love. One trailer, three tough-as-velvet women, and a soundtrack that knew what the ’90s was about before the ’90s even happened. Music is Anders' particular genius, with Border Radio the first in a trilogy of contemporary SoCal musician films - but it's 1960s and ’70s-set Grace of My Heart that most captured ours, telling tales of the Brill Building with characters who are almost just not quite (but enough to thrill) the stars of the era. Ileana Douglas has the starring role she always deserved as debutante-turned-songwriter Denise Waverly who finds her voice with the help/hindrance of variously dependent men (most loyal being producer Joel Milner, in an all-out funky turn from John Turturro) and equally variously resilient, funny women (including a surprisingly excellent turn from Patsy Kensit). With a soundtrack that mixes covers of obscure songs by big names from the era (Joni Mitchell's ‘Man from Mars' makes a particularly striking appearance) with original songs, Grace of My Heart is one for fans of The Get-Down or Vinyl - but with way more girl power.
The Hidden Gem:Things Behind the Sun (2001) brings together Mi vida loca's rawness with Anders' inside knowledge of the music biz, this is an astoundingly courageous (and semi-autobiographical, for Anders) film that should have made Kim Dickens a huge star. She gives absolutely everything to her role as Sherry, a rock singer breaking into the college radio charts with a powerful song about having been raped, which catches the ear of music journalist Owen (Gabriel Mann) and brings up memories for him, too. It's a slow burn (aided by a tour de force performance from Don Cheadle as Sherry's manager and lover) and a tough watch, but - much like the Nick Drake title song - it will haunt you forever.
The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Jennifer Reeder talking Allison Anders, will be released on 31 March 2017.
Artist, filmmaker, and Hi4H March 2017 guest host Jennifer Reeder
We’re delighted to announce our next guest, Jennifer Reeder: an American artist, filmmaker and screenwriter. Her 2015 film A Million Miles Away (available to watch here for free!) was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and she has received nominations or wins at the Berlin International Film Festival, the AFI Fest, the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival, the Rotterdam International Film Festival, and many others.
Jennifer first attracted attention for her performance and video work as “White Trash Girlâ€, a pseudonym and character through which she explored lower-income white culture in the United States. She is on her way to London, where her latest film Signature Move will be the closing night film at BFI Flare 2017.
But more important than all that is the fact that she is about to be a Hell Is For Hyphenates guest host when she joins us for our next episode!
So which filmmaker has Jennifer chosen to discuss on the show?
None other that indie director Allison Anders.
Anders first came to attention in1987, when she co-directed the feature Border Radio with UCLA classmates Kurt Voss and Dean Lent. It was 1992's Gas Food Lodging that truly put her on the map, her first solo feature winning her Best New Director from the New York Film Critics Circle and the National Society of Film Critics.
Anders was one of the figures of 1990s independent American cinema, going on to direct Mi Vida Loca (1993) and Grace of My Heart (1996). She continued her tradition of collaborative filmmaking with 1995's notorious Four Rooms, which she directed alongside Quentin Tarantino, Robert Rodriguez and Alexandre Rockwell.
She has recently been directing TV series and telemovies, working on the likes of Sex and the City, The L Word, Orange in the New Black, Murder in the First and Riverdale. Most recently, Anders directed the 2013 June Carter Cash biopic Ring of Fire and the 2017 remake of Beaches.
So what is it about the films of Allison Anders that specifically appeals to Jennifer Reeder? Join us on 31 March when we find out!
Desperate times call for desperate measures. And the Hell Is For Hyphenates version of desperate measures is to organise an episode in slightly the wrong order. Anarchists, we.
As we said in the episode announcement, we felt it was incredibly important to this month focus on Iranian filmmaker Asghar Farhadi. With the USA imposing a draconian travel ban on select Muslim countries, Farhadi has chosen to protest the policy by staying at home instead of attending this year's Oscars ceremony. This despite him receiving a Best Foreign Language film nomination for The Salesman.
The real actual Japanese poster for Chicago, and definitely not something we photoshopped in like five minutes.
We enlisted the help of Tehran-born, Toronto-based film critic and author, Tina Hassannia, an expert in Farhadi's films and author of Asghar Farhadi: Life and Cinema. The insight Tina brings to this episode as a critic, as someone who has spoken directly with the filmmaker, and as someone familiar with the culture depicted in Farhadi's films is unique and fascinating. Long story short, this is a great episode.
Before we get to Farhadi, Sophie and Lee cast their eyes over three of this month's films, including Ang Lee's adaptation Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk, which was released in the USA and Australia last year, but has only this month made it to British shores.
They then look at the ups and downs, pros and cons of crafting a sequel to an iconic work, as Danny Boyle finally makes good on his decades-old promise to reunite Renton, Begby, Sick Boy and Spud in the unusually-titled T2: Trainspotting.
Then, social and scientific progressiveness come together as they always should with the engaging and crowd-pleasing biopic Hidden Figures, based on the book by Margot Lee Shetterly and directed by Theodore Melfi.
Confusion abounds.
After the reviews are done, Tina joins us to talk about what role awards shows have in activism. Following Meryl Streep's rousing Golden Globes speech and David Harbour's viral Screen Actors Guild call to arms, do award winners have an obligation to use the spotlight to get political? Or should the glitz and glam of red carpets be done away with completely during times of suffering?
We then dig into the films of Farhadi, looking at Dancing in the Dust (2003), Beautiful City (2004), Fireworks Wednesday (2006), About Elly (2009), A Separation (2011), The Past (2013) and The Salesman (2016). We examine the social and political context of his work in a discussion that will be interesting even if you've never seen any of his films.
But we're not done yet! In a special bonus segment, Sophie heads to Trafalgar Square, where the City of London hosted a special screening of The Salesman in an open air cinema. The screening, which took place about 24 hours before our episode was released, saw an estimated 2 000 people in attendance. We hear select speeches from TV presenter and journalist Mariella Frostrup, model and actress Lily Cole, London Mayor Sadiq Khan, filmmaker Mike Leigh, and in a specially-recorded video message, Asghar Farhadi himself.
Further reading:
If you're wondering what our introductions referred to, click through for details on the Bowling Green massacre and the Swedish “major incidentâ€. Our thoughts are with the victims of these not-made-up tragedies.
We kick off this month's reviews with a look at Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk (which has just received a release in the UK), directed by Ang Lee. For more Ang Lee talk, listen back to our Ang Lee episode with guest Julia Zemiro. We take a look at Danny Boyle's T2: Trainspotting. To hear our thoughts on the first Trainspotting, as well as all the other Danny Boyle films, listen back to our Danny Boyle episode with guest Sarah Ward.
Sophie refers to articles contrasting Danny Boyle and Antonia Bird (listen back to our Antonia Bird episode with guest Kate Hardie). The articles, which have the same opening paragraph, appeared in Bomb Magazine, and you can read the Antonia Bird piece here and the Danny Boyle one here.
The book that Hidden Figures is adapted from is called Hidden Figures: The Story of the African Women Who Helped Win the Space Race and is by Margot Lee Shetterly. It can be found in book stores and all the familiar online places.
Sophie refers to the Fine Young Cannibals returning their awards in protest after the Brit Awards screened a video message from Margaret Thatcher. We couldn't find a video of the 1990 moment, but it is referenced here in The Guardian.
We spend much of the middle segment offering protest speech advice to anyone attending the Oscars. Lee has an incredibly helpful video guide on Academy Award etiquette that aired almost exactly ten years ago, which features a segment on the dos and don'ts of Oscar protest speeches.
Asghar Farhadi previously won an Oscar for A Separation at the 2012 ceremony, Iran's first ever win for Best Foreign Language film. Watch his moving speech here.
The Oscar speeches weren’t quite as political as we were anticipating, but that doesn’t mean the evening wasn’t devoid of strong opinions and activism. Here’s Time Magazine‘s roundup of the evening’s political moments.
Here's a great piece by BFI Head of Festivals and London Film Festival director Clare Stewart about the importance and impact of Asghar Farhadi's films.
As you now know (but we didn't yet at time of recording), Asghar Farhadi's The Salesman won Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. He was, as we know, not there to accept the award, but had Iranian-American businesswoman Anousheh Ansari—the first Iranian to go into space—read out a statement on his behalf, which can be both viewed and read here.
If you want to see the video of Asghar Farhadi’s message to the audience in Trafalgar Square, Curzon Artificial Eye has posted the video here.
Sophie described the evening, the speeches and the mood of the crowd in an article for Sight and Sound, available here on the BFI website.
Finally, the directors of the five films nominated for Best Foreign Language Film—Martin Zandvliet (Land of Mine), Hannes Holm (A Man Called Ove), Asghar Farhadi (The Salesman), Maren Ade (Toni Erdmann), Martin Butler & Bentley Dean (Tanna)—released an extraordinary joint statement regarding the culture of fear in the USA:
Outro music: score from About Elly (2009), composed by Andrea Bauer
The latest episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Tina Hassannia talking the films of Asghar Farhadi, can be heard on Stitcher Smart Radio, subscribed to on iTunes, or downloaded/streamed via our website.
Thousands gather in Trafalgar Square for the screening of Asghar Farhadi’s The Salesman.“Whether you’re from Iran or Iraq, Streatham or Shoreditch, Lebanon or London, you are welcome.” London mayor Sadiq Khan.Filmmaker Mike Leigh sings the praises of his friend and colleague Asghar Farhadi.Asghar Farhadi speaks to the London crowd in a specially-recorded video message.
Want to become an instant expert in our filmmaker of the month without committing yourself to an entire filmography? Then you need the Hell Is For Hyphenates Cheat Sheet: we program you a double that will not only make for a great evening's viewing, but bring you suitably up-to-speed before our next episode lands…
Substitutions: If you can't get or have already seen About Elly or A Separation, you must watch the film his two subsequent films: The Past (2013), which replays some of the themes of divorce, betrayal and children bearing the brunt of adult struggles seen in A Separation, but with the added knife-twist of cross-cultural relationships and immigration, as Farhadi shoots in France. And then there's The Salesman (2016) is a drama about drama, going back to the filmmaker's roots in studying theatre. It follows a couple whose relationship frays during their participation in a production of Death of a Salesman, as they confront the scandalous past of their apartment's previous tenant. What's past is, as ever in Farhadi's films, all too poignantly and unsettlingly present.
The Hidden Gem: Set on Iranian New Year's Eve, Fireworks Wednesday (2006) is punctuated by small explosions, literal and metaphorical, as Alidoosti's character Rouhi, a bride-to-be, gets sent by her employment agency to clean for a warring married couple: Mojdeh is convinced Morteza is having an affair; Morteza thinks Mojdeh is crazy. Rouhi spends a long day caught between them, their son Amir Ali, their beautician neighbour Simin, and the febrile celebratory atmosphere outside.
The next episode of Hell Is For Hyphenates, featuring Tina Hassannia talking Asghar Farhadi, will be released on 28 February 2017.
