Someone Else's Movie

With their charming indie The Travel Companion rolling through its US release, directors and co-writers Travis Wood and Alex Mallis are here to ponder the paradoxes and metaphors of Hong Sang-soo’s 2011 drama The Day He Arrives. Your genial host Norm Wilner is really happy he could drop this one right after the Tropical Malady episode, for reasons that will become apparent.

It’s a Friday bonus episode! And we’re joined by writer-director Bretten Hannam, whose new film At the Place of Ghosts opens across Canada today, for a look at Apitchatpong Weerasethakul’s beguiling 2004 breakout Tropical Malady. Your genial host Norm Wilner is sorry about all the table noises, we recorded this one in-person during TIFF.

With his new film Two Pianos now playing in New York and Los Angeles, award-winning French writer-director Arnaud Desplechin is here to discuss a film he loves with his whole heart: Judd Apatow’s Funny People, the one where Adam Sandler and Seth Rogen play comedians grappling with life, death and jokes. Your genial host Norm Wilner truly did not see this coming.

With his latest drama Erupcja – starring Charli XCX as a young woman adrift in Warsaw – now playing select North American theaters, indie filmmaker Pete Ohs is here to explore the evocative world of Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s Evil Does Not Exist, about a very polite collision of cultures in a Japanese mountain village. Your genial host Norm Wilner also thinks this was one of the best films of 2024.

With her award-winning first feature Blue Heron rolling into theatrical release, writer-director Sophy Romvari returns to the podcast to unpack Martha Coolidge’s devastating 1975 documentary Not a Pretty Picture, in which Coolidge enlisted a group of actors to re-create her own sexual assault and explored the effect the project has on her cast, and herself. Your genial host Norm Wilner has never seen anything like it.