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Ep. 426: Julia Loktev on My Undesirable Friends: Part II—Exile Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Julia Loktev’s continuing chronicle of Russian independent journalists My Undesirable Friends: Part II—Exile had its world premiere at the Venice film. I sat down with Loktev in Venice to talk about her equally stirring and urgent Part II. We delved into the trust involved in accomplishing this up-close-and-personal filmmaking as well as capturing all the complex tones (dramatic and even some humor) among these journalists, who boldly continue their work chronicling Russia abroad even as their home country declares them persona non grata. My Undesirable Friends: Part II—Exiles opens October 9 at Film Forum after screening in the New York Film Festival. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 425: Robert Daniels on Toronto 2026: Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother, Union Town, Alpha Gang, The Liberation, I Play Rocky Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2026 Toronto Film Festival kicked off its 51st edition this year, and I saw as many films as I could fit into my visit to the city. Here to talk about some more is Robert Daniels, regular New York Times contributor and associate editor of RogerEbert.Com. Among the titles discussed are Your Mother Your Mother Your Mother (directed and written by Bassam Tariq, starring Mahershala Ali), I Play Rocky (Peter Farrelly), Union Town (Barbara Kopple), Alpha Gang (Zellner Bros.), and The Liberation (Guy Nattiv, starring Carrie Coon). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 424: Mark Asch on Toronto 2026: Tender Loving Care, The Debut, Misty Green, Idda, The Face of Horror Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 2026 Toronto Film Festival kicked off its 51st edition this year, and I saw as many films as I could fit into my visit to the city. Here to talk about a few is Mark Asch, who’s writing for a number of publications. Among the titles discussed are the new Mike Leigh movie, Tender Loving Care; The Debut (directed by Jesse Eisenberg, starring Julianne Moore); Misty Green (directed by and featuring Chris Rock, starring Rosalind Eleazar); Idda ( directed by Irene Dionisio); and The Face of Horror (directed by Anna Biller). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 423: Jessica Kiang on Venice 2026: Bunker, Possible Love, Queer Edward II, Mr. Nelson Did You Kill People, Oasis Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the 2026 edition of the Venice Film Festival winds down, I was delighted to sit down with Jessica Kiang of Variety to talk about a few more selections. Among the films discussed are Bunker (directed by Florian Zeller, starring Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem), Possible Love (Lee Chang-dong), Mr. Nelson Did You Kill People? (Shinya Tsukamoto), the German-Austrian drama Oasis (Jannis Lenz), and the Derek Jarman documentary Queer Edward II (Theo Rollason). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 422: Jonathan Romney on Venice 2026: Dau, Life of Jorge Luis Borges, Bertolucci by Guadagnino, Musk, plus Naza Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The podcast returns with more from the 2026 Venice Film Festival! This time I’m joined on the Lido by Jonathan Romney, who writes criticism at Screen Daily and the Observer. Among the films discussed are Dau (directed by Ilya Khrzhanovsky), Life of Jorge Luis Borges (Mariano Llinás), Joie de Vivre (aka the Bernardo Bertolucci documentary by Luca Guadagnino), Musk (Alex Gibney), and the devastating Naza (Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 421: Guy Lodge on The Spiral, A Place to Heal, Boatbuilders, Agata the Writer Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The podcast returns with more from the 2026 Venice Film Festival! This time I’m joined on the Lido by Guy Lodge of Variety. Among the films discussed are The Spiral (directed by Paolo Strippoli, featuring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi), A Place to Heal (Cedric Kahn), Boatbuilders (Luke Lorentzen), and from the Venice Days showcase, Agata the Writer (Kuba Dorabialski, starring Mia Wasikowska). Plus a couple of short picks from each of us! Stay tuned for more from the Venice Film Festival. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 420: Tim Grierson on Possible Love, Primetime, and A Woman Unknown Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The podcast returns with more from the 2026 Venice Film Festival! This time I’m joined by Tim Grierson of Screen Daily, also a regular contributor to several other publications. Among the Venice world premieres discussed are three Competition titles: Possible Love, the much-anticipated return by director Lee Chang-dong; Primetime, the fiction feature debut from Lance Oppenheim, starring Robert Pattinson; and A Woman Unknown, directed by May el-Toukhy. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 419: Beatrice Loayza on Venice 2026: Ink, Wild Horse Nine, Imperium, More Basics of Philosophy Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The podcast returns with more from the 2026 Venice Film Festival! This time I’m joined by Beatrice Loayza, a regular contributor to The New York Times and other publications. Among the Venice world premieres discussed are the opening film Ink (directed by Danny Boyle, starring Guy Pearce and Jack O’Connell), Wild Horse Nine (Martin McDonagh), Imperium (Sergei Loznitsa), and a highlight for Loayza at the time of recording, Basics of Philosophy (Paul Schrader). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 418: Jordan Cronk on Venice 2026: Bucking Fastard, The Basics of Philosophy, My Undesirable Friends Part II Exile, Too Much Sugar Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The podcast returns to the Venice film festival in, you guessed it, Venice, Italy! I kick off this year’s edition with Jordan Cronk, critic and co-founder of Acropolis Cinema in Los Angeles. We discuss a few films from the first few days of the festival: Bucking Fastard (directed by Werner Herzog, starring Rooney and Kate Mara), My Undesirable Friends: Part II–Exile (Julia Loktev), The Basics of Philosophy (Paul Schrader), and Too Much Sugar (Robert Greene). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 417: Mark Asch on No Picnic, Late Fame, Half-Cocked, Welcome II the Terrordome, Wet Hot American Summer, One Night Only Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. This August I welcomed back Mark Asch for another summertime episode extravaganza. This time we talk about some of his recent viewing from the past—No Picnic (directed by Philip Hartman), Half-Cocked (Suki Hawley and Michael Galinsky), and Wet Hot American Summer (David Wain)—as well as a two recent releases, Late Fame (Kent Jones) and One Night Only (Will Gluck). We also discuss the newly restored 1994 film Welcome II the Terrordome, the Afrofuturist debut feature of Ngozi Onwurah. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 416: Keva York on Locarno 2026: Nowhere to Lay My Eyes, I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming, 16 Moments in My Life, Donkey Princess, Asphalt Guerrilla Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. The 79th Locarno Film Festival is wrapping up and joining me for a chat about some of the highlights is returning guest Keva York, a critic who’s also working away as an editor for the festival’s daily. Among the films discussed are I Rarely Wake Up Dreaming (directed by Isabelle Stever), Albert Serra’s concert documentary on Ingrid Caven (16 Moments in My Life), Donkey Princess (Cristóbal León and Joaquín Cociña), Asphalt Guerrilla (Edgar Pêra) and last but not least, the latest Hong Sangsoo film (Nowhere to Lay My Eyes). York also shares notes on an interview she conducted with Rick Baker. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 415: R. Emmet Sweeney on Wings of Dread, MoMA Silent Movie Week, Oh Darling Yeh Hai India, Blades of the Guardians, Driver’s Ed Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. I always look forward to my regular check-in with R. Emmet Sweeney, who oversees physical media production at Kino Lorber and writes on film and jazz at his substack Old New. This time we trade notes on this year’s Silent Movie Week at the Museum of Modern Art, from Raoul Walsh (What Price Glory) to John Ford (3 Bad Men) to Chaplin (Shoulder Arms), and he shares his viewing in current Chinese action cinema, including Wings of Dread (Qin Pengfei & Ashton Chen) and Blades of the Guardians (Yuen Woo-ping); an outstanding 1995 Bollywood pick, the comedically and politically vibrant Oh Darling Yeh Hai India (Ketan Mehta); and a Farrelly Brother joint, Driver’s Ed. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 414: Alissa Wilkinson on Jackass, The Odyssey, Ross McElwee’s Remake and Sherman’s March, Recent Viewing Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. After a summer break avoiding the flocks of the Sun God, I was delighted to welcome back to the show Alissa Wilkinson, a movie critic at The New York Times and author of We Tell Ourselves Stories: Joan Didion and the American Dream Machine. Among the movies discussed are The Odyssey (directed by Christopher Nolan), the Jackass series and the larger stories they tell, Ross McElwee’s new essay documentary Remake and his classic feature-length debut Sherman’s March, and some recent viewing. My Fourth of July holiday watch is also revealed, in response to the (nonexistent) demand to know this fact. Stay tuned for more climate-controlled summertime episodes of The Last Thing I Saw! Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 413: Jourdain Searles and Maxwell Paparella on Backrooms, Maddie’s Secret, I Love Boosters, Rose of Nevada, Disclosure Day Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. As the summer settles in, I thought it was high time to catch up with a few theatrical releases of note. I had a wonderful time with my two guests who’ve each previously been on the show but not together: Jourdain Searles, critic and programmer, and Maxwell Paparella, deputy editor of Filmmaker magazine. We wove a thread or two through several titles that hopefully by now listeners have had a chance to see: Backrooms (directed by Kane Parsons), Maddie’s Secret (John Early), I Love Boosters (Boots Riley), Rose of Nevada (Mark Jenkin), and Disclosure Day (Steven Spielberg). Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass

Ep. 412: Pierre Coffin on Minions and Monsters Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw, with your host, Nicolas Rapold. Somehow Minions and Monsters was just the heaping serving of nuttiness that I needed last week! But what I hadn’t quite anticipated was the extent of the movie's Hollywood references—ranging from Citizen Kane all the way back to... Eadweard Muybridge?! The movie love was evident and so I was eager to chat with Pierre Coffin, the director of Minions and Monsters, and the voice of its multilingual multitudes. We talked about movie influences, inspiration for the Minions voice, animation favorites and pet peeves, his favorite Miyazaki film, and much more. Please support the production of this podcast by signing up at: rapold.substack.com Photo by Steve Snodgrass