Advertise on podcast: Edinburgh Film Podcast

Host Dr Pasquale Iannone marks 45 years since the release of Excalibur, John Boorman’s epic re-telling of the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Released in 1981, the film was shot in Ireland and features Nigel Terry as King Arthur, Nicol Williamson as Merlin as well as several future Hollywood stars such as Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne, Patrick Stewart and Liam Neeson. Joining Pasquale to discuss Excalibur and its approach to Arthurian lore are two specialists in both history and film. Dr Ralph Moffat is Curator of European Arms and Armour at Glasgow Museums. He is responsible for the care, research and dissemination of information about the collection. He is the author of a three-volume sourcebook for the study of medieval arms and armour and recently curated the redisplay of arms and armour at Glasgow’s Burrell Collection. Douglas Wilson Garry recently completed his MSc in Film Studies at the University of Edinburgh. He is also a poet and performer. Throughout his work, both academic and creative, he explores folklore, representations of nature and history. In the discussion, Ralph, Douglas and Pasquale discuss the background to the film and its approach to the legend of King Arthur. They place the film in the context of director Boorman’s career, explore its starry cast, its cinematography, use of locations and its distinctive use of music.

Host Dr Pasquale Iannone discusses the upcoming Iberodocs Film Festival which opens this week across various venues in Scotland. IberoDocs is an annual showcase of the most exciting and innovative documentaries from Spain, Portugal and Latin America. This year, the festival runs between 16th and 26th September and it will open with the Scottish premiere of Argentinian filmmaker Lucrecia Martel’s Nuestra Tierra (Landmarks)(2025). Joining Pasquale to explore some highlights from IberoDocs 2026 is Marketing Manager Luna Carmona. Films discussed include feature documentaries Flamingos: Life After the Meteorite (Lorenzo Hagerman, 2025), Flowers for Antonio (Elena Molina and Isaki Lacuesta, 2025), Ritas (Oswaldo Santana, 2025), Remember My Name (Elena Molina, 2023) as well as shorts Aqueronte (Manuel Muñoz Rivas, 2023) and Waiting to Sea (Jorge Peña Martín, 2026). IberoDocs 2026 runs between 16th and 26th September at various venues around Scotland. For more information, go to iberodocs.org.

Host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined on this episode by Edinburgh filmmaker Louis Paxton to discuss his feature debut, folk comedy The Incomer (2026). The film tells of thirty-something brother and sister Sandy and Isla who live on a remote Scottish island. The pair live cut off from society in a state of arrested development. One day, the local authorities decide to send one of their workers to the island to serve notice of eviction. But the siblings won’t give up their home without a fight. Starring Domhall Gleeson as council worker Daniel, Grant O’Rourke as Sandy and Gayle Rankin as Isla, The Incomer was the Opening Night Film at this year’s Edinburgh International Film Festival after having its world premiere at the Sundance Film Festival in January. While this is Louis’ feature debut, he has been making eye-catching films for many years. He grew up in Edinburgh and his older sister Ruth is also an acclaimed writer-director. In their wide-ranging discussion, Louis tells Pasquale how he and Ruth first got into films - it turns out the three of them all used to rent movies from the same Marchmont video shops. They discuss his short films and work in TV before moving on to The Incomer. Louis tells Pasquale about his use of locations, the idea behind the distinctive look of the film and his approach to music. The film will be released in the UK on Friday 4th September and in the US later in the month.

This episode of the podcast takes us to Finland and the irresistibly dry and droll comedies of Aki Kaurismäki. A major figure in World cinema since the early 1980s, few filmmakers have created such a distinctive universe through their films. As critic and historian Michael Brooke has noted, in Kaurismäki’s films ‘we’re in ‘a never-never land somewhere between the 1930s and the 1980s, where people drive Cadillacs, listen to old-time rock’n’roll, dance the tango, and issue such wise aphorisms as 'Life is short and miserable – be as merry as you can.’ This year marks the 30th anniversary of Drifting Clouds (1996), one of Kaurismaki’s key works and host Dr Pasquale Iannone discusses it in the company of one of the 2025/26 MSc Film Studies students, Deniz Sarisakal. Drifting Clouds is the story of a Helsinki couple in their late 30s who both lose their jobs and find themselves struggling to survive.  It sounds like the plot line of an Italian neorealist picture, or maybe a Ken Loach film, but this is Aki-land, and deadpan humour is never far away. Deniz and Pasquale begin by talking about Kaurismäki’s background and his distinctive formal and thematic approach. They also touch upon his influences, including his love of Japanese auteur Yasujiro Ozu. Discussion then turns to Drifting Clouds and elements such as plot, characterisation and mise en scene as well as sound and music.

On this episode, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by film critic and historian Rachael Nisbet to discuss one of cinema’s most dazzling comic book adaptations, Mario Bava’s Danger: Diabolik (1968). Based on the comics written by sisters Angela and Luciana Giussani, Diabolik chronicles the escapades of the masked master criminal and his lover and co-conspirator Eva Kant. The comics have been massively influential since their first publication in 1962 and have spawned various film adaptations, including a recent trilogy of features released between 2021 and 2023 directed by Marco and Antonio Manetti. The first Diabolik picture was released in 1968 and starred John Philip Law and Marisa Mel in the lead roles. It was recently released in a beautiful 4K restoration by Eureka Entertainment and it will also be screening at Edinburgh’s Filmhouse cinema in early August in all its vivid, kaleidoscopic glory. Rachael and Pasquale discuss the background to the original Diabolik comics, and how Bava's film came about. They then focus on elements such as the film's casting, set design and its brilliantly psychedelic score by Ennio Morricone.

On this episode, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by award-winning writer Olivia Laing to discuss their latest novel The Silver Book. Olivia’s book is part thriller, part queer love story set against the backdrop of the Italian film industry in the mid-1970s. Skilfully merging fact and fiction, The Silver Book shines a light on the work of real-life costume and production designer Danilo Donati. It tells of Nicholas, a young English man who flees London after a traumatic event and moves to Rome where he gets a job assisting Donati as he works on films by Federico Fellini and Pier Paolo Pasolini at the legendary Cinecittà studios. While working together, Nicholas and Danilo become lovers and the novel weaves together events - both real and imagined - to extraordinary effect. Pasquale caught up with Olivia last month at the end of the UK paperback tour for The Silver Book. They discussed Olivia's approach to research and their writing process as well as their love of this twilight era of Italian cinema which yielded so many rich, complex, often controversial works.

Host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by author Caroline Young to discuss her new book Fashioning Hitchcock (Bloomsbury, 2026). Caroline is a prolific author and critic based in Edinburgh. Specialising in fashion, pop culture and classic cinema, her previous books include The It Girls: Glamor, Celebrity and Scandal (2025), Single & Psycho: How Pop Culture Shaped the Unhinged Woman (2025), Crazy Old Ladies: The Story of Hag Horror (2022) and Hitchcock’s Heroines (2018). Spanning more than fifty years of film history, Caroline’s new book provides fascinating insight into the use of costume in films by the legendary Master of Suspense.  Caroline tells Pasquale about the beginnings of the book and the reasoning behind its structure. They discuss the way Alfred Hitchcock used costume in his silent and early sound films before turning to his years in Hollywood with classics such as Rebecca (1940), Notorious (1946), Rear Window (1954), Vertigo (1958), Psycho (1960) and many more. Caroline tells Pasquale about the crucial role of acclaimed costume designer Edith Head in crafting unforgettable pieces for actors such as Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Cary Grant, Kim Novak and Tippi Hedren. Edinburgh Film Podcast was nominated and Highly Commended in the Arts and Culture category at the inaugural Scottish Podcast Awards, which took place in Glasgow in June 2026. EFP was presented with a certificate 'in formal recognition of exceptional merit and distinction, placing this production among the highest tier of its category.'

On this episode, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by Professor Mark Goble to discuss a visual effect that is used in everything from action films to football matches. Whether it’s to extend or amplify, to lyricise or clarify, slow motion is everywhere on our screens. Published by Columbia University Press, Mark’s book Downtime: The 20th Century in Slow Motion (2025) takes a close look at an effect which has been strangely under-explored in film scholarship, despite this near-ubiquity. Mark is Professor of English at University of California, Berkeley specialising in literature’s intersection with technology and media. In their wide-ranging conversation, Mark tells Pasquale about the reasoning behind Downtime’s three-part structure. They then touch upon the work of writers such as Walter Benjamin and Vivian Sobchack on slow motion, before turning to the cinema of New Hollywood in the late 1960s and key works such as Bonnie and Clyde and The Wild Bunch. Many other examples of slow motion are discussed - from Dario Argento to Wong Kar-Wai, John Woo to Joe Talbot - and Mark and Pasquale also consider the use of slow motion in other areas such as sports broadcasting.

On this episode, we dial down the sharpness and celebrate cinematic blurriness. Going against the common assumption that blur is only for backgrounds, a new book by Professor Martine Beugnet explores the power and poetics of the blurred image. Originally published in French in 2017, Blur (2026) is part of the Cutaways series from Fordham University Press, where authors take a close look at one particular cinematic theme or motif. Martine has published widely on film theory and aesthetics since the early 2000s, with highly influential books such as  a monograph on director Claire Denis, Proust at the Movies, Cinema and Sensation: French Cinema and the Art of Transgression and dozens of articles, book chapters and edited collections. She is currently Professor in Visual Studies at Université Paris Cité but she spent more than a decade of the early part of her career teaching here at the University of Edinburgh. Martine tells Pasquale about the process of having her work translated and the appeal of the short format volume. She talks about her choice of film examples which range from mainstream Hollywood cinema to experimental film, silent cinema to contemporary works. Discussion then turns to the many ways in which filmmakers employ blur, whether it’s to create ambiguity, to delineate a sense of character subjectivity or to shift back and forth in time. Films mentioned in the discussion include Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958), The Ipcress File (Sidney J. Furie, 1965), La captive (Chantal Akerman, 2000), Son of Saul (László Nemes, 2015) and In Water (Hong Sang Soo, 2023).

On this episode, we discuss the work of legendary comedy duo Laurel and Hardy, whose careers straddled both the silent and sound eras. They were active between the 1920s and the 1950s, making more than a hundred films together and their unmistakeable big man-little man dynamic would go on to influence many a comedy double-act, from Abbott and Costello to Morecambe and Wise. This year marks the centenary of Laurel and Hardy’s first appearance in a film together and to mark the occasion Neil Brand has been touring a show celebrating Stan and Ollie’s extraordinary artistry. Neil is a writer, broadcaster, composer and peerless silent cinema pianist. His show arrives in Scotland this month and he joined host Dr Pasquale Iannone to discuss the Boys. In their conversation, Neil and Pasquale place them in the context of other giants of American screen comedy such as Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin. They also explore Neil’s previous work on Stan and Ollie, such as his brilliant radio play starring British acting royalty Tom Courtenay. Neil tells Pasquale about the structure of his centenary show, what audiences can expect as well as the joys and challenges of improvising silent film scores. Neil will be appearing at The Gaiety Theatre in Ayr, The Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh, Airdrie’s Town Hall, Eden Court in Inverness and the Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy. For more information, go to the website: laurelandhardypresentedbyneilbrand.co.uk.

Host Dr Pasquale Iannone goes back to Naples in the early 1900s to discuss a pioneer of silent cinema and Italy’s first woman filmmaker, Elvira Notari (1875 - 1946). Notari directed dozens of features and documentaries, but like so much from the silent era, only a small percentage of her work has survived. Most notably there are three films she made between 1920 and 1927 - A' santanotte (1922), È piccerella (1922) and Fantasia e surdate (1927) - a trio of passionate, visually daring, often subversive melodramas set in the streets of Naples - and all based on popular neapolitan songs. After her retirement in 1930, Notari’s work languished in obscurity for decades until film scholars such as Vittorio Martinelli, Mario Franco, Giuliana Muscio and Giuliana Bruno led the way for the rediscovery of a crucially important figure in world cinema. Notari is the subject of a new documentary titled Elvira Notari: Beyond Silence which premiered at the Venice Film Festival in 2025 and which is currently touring the US before arriving in the UK and Ireland. First stop - right here at the University of Edinburgh on Thursday 30th April. Joining Pasquale to discuss this wonderful new film is its writer/director Valerio Ciriaci. Valerio tells Pasquale how he became interested in Notari’s work, the background to his film, as well as his work with key collaborators such as composer Silvia Cignoli. They discuss Notari’s working methods, her reception both in Italy and in the US as well as the timelessness of her thematic preoccupations.

On this episode, host Dr Pasquale Iannone marks the centenary of one of the towering figures of world cinema, the Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda. Born in 1926, Wajda was a clear-eyed and sensitive chronicler of Polish history, literature and culture in a film career spanning more than 65 years. He is probably best known for his war trilogy of the mid to late 1950s - A Generation (1955), Kanał (1957) and Ashes and Diamonds (1958) - politically-committed, formally daring films which chronicled Polish experience of WWII and its aftermath. Joining Pasquale to discuss Wajda is film scholar, critic and programmer Michał Oleszczyk. Based in Warsaw, Michał has written extensively on Wajda and earlier this year he programmed a special strand for the Kinoteka Polish Festival focusing on the artistic kinship between Wajda and one of his former assistants Andrzej Żuławski. Michał also contributed to a major Wajda season at BFI Southbank. Michał and Pasquale position Wajda in the context of post-war Polish cinema, they look at the three films in his war trilogy and they also explore some of his later features, including one lesser-known title starring Sir John Gielgud that was in Ingmar Bergman’s Top 10 Films of All Time.

On this episode, host Dr Pasquale Iannone discusses one of the finest action films ever made, John Woo’s masterpiece of Hong Kong 'Heroic Bloodshed' Hard Boiled (1992). The film has recently been restored in 4K and is about to be released in a special edition box set courtesy of Arrow Video. Starring Chow Yun Fat and Tony Leung, Hard Boiled tells of a hard drinking Hong Kong cop Yuen (aka Tequila) and his investigation into a violent arms smuggling ring. Joining Pasquale to discuss the film is Dr Lin Feng. Lin is Associate Professor in Film Studies at the University of Leicester. She specialises in Chinese-language cinemas, East Asian film history and her other interests include transnational popular screen cultures, and cinematic representation and reception of gender and race. Lin’s monograph Chow Yun Fat and the Territories of Hong Kong Stardom was published by Edinburgh University Press in 2017, while her co-edited collection Renegotiating Film Genres in East Asian Cinemas and Beyond came out in 2020 via Palgrave MacMillan. Lin has also contributed a video interview to the upcoming Hard Boiled Blu-ray release. Lin and Pasquale talk about the landscape of Hong Kong cinema in the 80s and 90s, the career of director John Woo as well as the star image of actor Chow Yun Fat. They then discuss some key scenes from Hard Boiled, exploring the film’s distinctive action scenes as well as elements such as performance and costume design.

Host Dr Pasquale Iannone's guest on this episode of Edinburgh Film Podcast is the acclaimed British filmmaker Ben Wheatley.Since his 2009 debut, the crime thriller Down Terrace, Ben has specialised in highly inventive, unsettling, darkly funny pictures, often written in collaboration with his partner Amy Jump. From the hitman thriller Kill List (2011) to English Civil War drama A Field in England (2013), J.G. Ballard adaptation High Rise (2015) to 70s-set action film Free Fire (2016).Ben's versatility has brought him to the attention of Hollywood. He directed the $130m shark epic Meg 2: The Trench starring Jason Statham and his latest is action film Normal (2025) with Bob Odenkirk.Between these two American projects, Ben made Bulk (2025), a low budget, lo-fi science fiction film featuring familiar faces from the Wheatleyverse - Sam Riley, Alexandra Maria Lara, Noah Taylor and Mark Monero. The film premiered at the 2025 Edinburgh International Film Festival and Ben toured the film at the beginning of 2026, taking in everything from small community cinemas to the biggest screen in the UK, London's BFI IMAX. Before Ben embarked on the tour, he sat down with Pasquale to talk all things Bulk. They discuss the background to the film, Ben's influences, his love of DIY filmmaking and much more.

On this episode of the podcast, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by author Ashley Clark to discuss his new book The World of Black Film (2026). Ashley is a writer, critic and broadcaster. He is also Curatorial Director at the Criterion Collection. His previous roles include director of film programming at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Ashley has curated film series at BFI Southbank and the Museum of Modern Art amongst others. He has written for Film Comment, Reverse Shot, and Sight and Sound, and his first book - on Spike Lee’s Bamboozled (2000) - came out in 2015. Spanning more than a century of film history, Ashley’s new book The World of Black Film is a fascinating, illuminating survey of black cinema through 100 key works. From avant-garde dramas to action thrillers, blaxploitation films to biopics, comedies to war films. Ashley provides sharp, engaging analysis of  pictures by Ousmane Sembène, Spike Lee, Gordon Parks, Sara Gómez, Horace Ové, Kathleen Collins, Souleymane Cissé, Steve McQueen and many more. Ashley tells Pasquale about the background to the book and his approach to selecting the 100 films. He also reveals some of the personal memories and connections that feed into the book.