INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE: Oscar Inside & Indie Cinema Discussions

What happens when recognition arrives decades after you’ve stopped waiting for it?

Director Kent Jones joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE to discuss LATE FAME, starring Willem Dafoe, Greta Lee, and Edmund Donovan.

Dafoe plays Ed Saxberger, a forgotten New York poet who abandoned his literary ambitions for a steady job at the post office. When an enthusiastic young admirer appears at his door, Ed is welcomed into a circle of twenty-something artists who proclaim him a rediscovered genius.

Suddenly celebrated again—and drawn to Gloria, a magnetic but precariously situated actress and singer play...

Ten states, 10,825 miles, and 123 theaters. Director Rustin Thompson joins Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge to discuss THE LAST PICTURE SHOWS and the people keeping America’s small-town cinemas alive.

Independent movie theaters, small-town cinemas, and the fight to preserve theatrical moviegoing are at the heart of THE LAST PICTURE SHOWS, a new documentary from filmmaker Rustin Thompson.

Ten states. 10,825 miles. 123 theaters.

Thompson traveled across the American West searching for what remained of a once-essential center of small-town life: the local movie theater. He encountered abandoned cinemas, theaters struggling to survive, an...

Luis Valdez, LA BAMBA, ZOOT SUIT, Chicano cinema, and El Teatro Campesino take center stage in AMERICAN PACHUCO: THE LEGEND OF LUIS VALDEZ, director David Alvarado's documentary about a groundbreaking American artist.

From performing on flatbed trucks for farmworkers with El Teatro Campesino to bringing ZOOT SUIT to Broadway and directing LA BAMBA, Luis Valdez transformed American theater and cinema — creating space for Chicano stories, history, humor, and identity.

In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge speak with David Alvarado about making AMERICAN PACHUCO, tracing Valdez's extraordinary career, and ex...

Celebrate Bastille Day with highlights from four filmmaker conversations featuring Rebecca Zlotowski, François Ozon, Louise Courvoisier, and Laura Piani—and the films A Private Life, The Stranger, Holy Cow, and Jane Austen Wrecked My Life.

To mark Bastille Day, we’re revisiting four conversations from the INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE archive—highlights from interviews with the filmmakers behind some of the most compelling contemporary French films.

Director Rebecca Zlotowski discusses family, memory, identity, and the mysteries hidden within our closest relationships in A Private Life, starring Jodie Foster.

Director François Ozon...

David Wain joins us to talk about his new comedy, Gail Daughtry and the Celebrity Sex Pass — a Sundance 2026 Official Selection starring Zoey Deutch, Jon Hamm, and John Slattery, from Sony Pictures Classics.

The premise is deliberately, gloriously absurd: a Midwestern bride-to-be discovers her fiancé has used his "celebrity pass" to cheat — and sets off for Los Angeles to even the score with her own pass, Jon Hamm. What follows is a full-tilt Hollywood comedy that never apologizes for being exactly what it is.

We talk with Wain about writing the film with longtime collaborator Ken M...

Documentary filmmaking, indie films, and arthouse movies take center stage in this special Fourth of July episode of Inside the Arthouse — a film podcast dedicated to independent film, indie cinema, and the voices that define American storytelling.

While much of the industry turns to reboots, sequels, franchises, and superheroes, we're turning to a different kind of American story — films driven by voice, risk, authenticity, and the courage to see the world differently.

In this special edition, we revisit a curated selection from our library of more than 100 filmmaker interviews — five films that remind us why indepe...

Carla Simón’s new film ROMERÍA follows Marina, a young woman who travels to Galicia in search of the truth about the parents she never really knew. What begins as a practical errand becomes something harder to name — an excavation of memory, silence, and the stories families carry across generations.

In this conversation, Simón reflects on the autobiographical roots of the film, the challenge of transforming private history into cinema, working with young performers, and the delicate balance between grief, imagination, and discovery.

Following the international success of SUMMER 1993 and ALCARRÀS, ROMERÍA...

From the directors of Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song comes a new portrait of a man who was somehow at the center of everything — and never quite in the frame.

Peter Asher was one half of Peter & Gordon, swept into the British Invasion on songs written by Paul McCartney. He signed and produced James Taylor at Apple Records. He spent the next three decades guiding Linda Ronstadt, Carole King, Barbra Streisand, and many more — quietly shaping some of the most beloved records in American music.

PETER ASHER: EVERYWHERE MAN is the...

Who was she?

In this episode of Inside the Arthouse, we sit down with groundbreaking Saudi filmmaker Haifaa Al Mansour for a conversation about UNIDENTIFIED, a gripping mystery thriller set in modern Saudi Arabia.

The film follows Noelle Al Saffan, a recently divorced woman rebuilding her life through a clerical job at a police station. When the body of an unidentified teenage girl is discovered in the desert, Noelle is drawn into a mystery no one seems eager to solve — and a question that becomes impossible to ignore: who was she?

What begins as...

INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE | THE CURRENTS — Director Milagros Mumenthaler

What happens when a woman survives an inexplicable impulse — and tells no one?

In this episode, Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge sit down with Argentinian-Swiss filmmaker Milagros Mumenthaler to discuss her haunting new psychological drama THE CURRENTS, distributed by Kino Lorber and an Official Selection of TIFF 2025.

THE CURRENTS follows Lina, a Buenos Aires fashion designer who, while accepting an award in Switzerland, is suddenly overtaken by an urge to jump from a bridge into an icy river. She survives. She says nothing. But she is n...

For our 100th episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we return to the belief that started it all: movies matter most when they are shared.

Over the course of 100 episodes, this show has become a gathering place for filmmakers, actors, programmers, distributors, theater owners, advocates, and film lovers who believe in the power of cinema on the big screen, in community, and in the places where stories still feel alive.

In this special milestone episode, we look back at conversations with Oscar-winning and Oscar-nominated artists whose work reminds us what independent and international cinema can still...

In Time and Water, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Sara Dosa turns Iceland’s disappearing glaciers, a family’s archive, and one man’s fading memory into a cinematic letter to the future.

Dosa, the director of Fire of Love, joins Inside the Arthouse to discuss her new documentary from National Geographic Documentary Films. The film follows Icelandic writer and poet Andri Snær Magnason as he gathers photographs, home movies, folk songs, and the melting ice of his homeland into a time capsule for what may soon be lost.

In this conversation, Dosa reflects on grief as a cinem...

CAN ARTISTS AFFORD SILENCE? — BERNSTEIN'S WALL With Director Douglas Tirola

In this episode of Inside the Arthouse, we explore Bernstein's Wall with director Douglas Tirola, the powerful documentary examining the life, legacy, and contradictions of Leonard Bernstein. Going beyond Bernstein's extraordinary musical career, the film reveals the personal and political tensions that shaped one of the most influential artists of the twentieth century — in his own words.

Together we discuss what artists owe the public in times of upheaval, whether art can actually change the world, and why Bernstein's questions feel more urgent than ever.

What does it take to build power—and the people who wield it?

In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, filmmaker Olivier Assayas (Personal Shopper, Carlos) joins hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge to discuss his latest film, The Wizard of the Kremlin — starring Paul Dano and Jude Law as Vladimir Putin.

We explore: – Political power and influence on screen – Storytelling and the shaping of public perception – The craft behind building complex, real-world characters – Why films about power resonate so deeply right now

For cinephiles and filmmakers, this is a deep dive in...

What does it mean to remake a film no one can see?

The 1922 silent horror A Blind Bargain, starring Lon Chaney, is one of cinema’s great lost works—destroyed, surviving only in fragments and memory. And yet, over a century later, director Paul Bunnell set out to bring it back.

In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, Bunnell discusses the strange challenge of rebuilding a film from absence—reimagining its story in the 1970s, and confronting themes of obsession, sacrifice, and transformation.

With Crispin Glover stepping into one of Chaney...

A haunting Māori Gothic ghost story — director Taratoa Stappard breaks down Mārama and the history, identity, and trauma behind the film.

What is Mārama—and why does it feel unlike anything else in cinema right now?

In this episode of Inside the Arthouse, hosts Greg Laemmle and Raphael Sbarge sit down with New Zealand filmmaker Taratoa Stappard to explore his haunting new film — a self-described “Māori Gothic ghost story” that blends psychological horror with a powerful historical reckoning.

Set in 1859, Mārama follows a young Māori woman who tr...

Legendary journalist Amy Goodman joins us to discuss media consolidation, independent journalism, and the new documentary Steal This Story, Please!
As corporate ownership reshapes the news landscape, the fight for a free and independent press has never been more urgent.

In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we’re joined by Goodman alongside Oscar-nominated filmmakers Tia Lessin and Carl Deal to explore the making of Steal This Story, Please! and the rise of Democracy Now!

For over three decades, Goodman has challenged power, elevated underreported stories, and redefined what independent media can be. This co...

François Ozon on Adapting Camus' The Stranger | Inside the Arthouse

What does it mean to feel nothing — and why does that still resonate decades after Albert Camus first put it on the page?

In this episode of Inside the Arthouse, we sit down with acclaimed French filmmaker François Ozon to discuss his bold new adaptation of Camus' The Stranger (L'Étranger) — one of the most widely read and persistently provocative novels of the 20th century.

Translated into more than 75 languages and continuously in print since 1942, The Stranger has long been considered unadaptable...

Matthew Shear — writer, director, and star of Fantasy Life — joins us to talk about the deeply personal story behind his debut feature.

In this conversation, Shear reflects on how his own experiences with anxiety and depression shaped the film, and why he wanted to portray mental health in a way that feels lived-in rather than sensationalized. Instead of leaning into extremes, Fantasy Life finds something more honest — where these struggles are simply part of everyday life.

We also talk about the challenge of directing himself in the lead role, working alongside a remarkable cast including Amanda...

Christian Petzold is widely regarded as one of the most important filmmakers in contemporary world cinema. In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we explore his latest film, MIROIRS NO. 3.

From his early work to his international breakthrough with Barbara (2012), Petzold has built a remarkable body of films including Phoenix, Transit, Undine, and Afire. His collaborations with Nina Hoss and Paula Beer have helped define modern German cinema and global arthouse filmmaking.

Now, Petzold reunites with Paula Beer for MIROIRS NO. 3, a luminous and deeply human film inspired by Maurice Ravel’s pi...

A conversation with the Oscar-shortlisted director on history, myth, and the making of PALESTINE 36

What happens when history challenges the story we’ve been told?

In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we sit down with acclaimed filmmaker Annemarie Jacir to discuss her new film PALESTINE 36, a powerful historical drama that revisits the years leading up to the creation of the State of Israel and offers a perspective rarely explored in narrative cinema.

For decades, the history of Palestine during this period has been shaped as much by cultural myth as...

SHTTL director Ady Walter and actors Moshe Lobel and Saul Rubinek discuss the film’s powerful portrait of Jewish life in a shtetl just before the Nazi invasion of Eastern Europe. What was life like in a Jewish shtetl just before the world changed forever? In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we explore SHTTL, director Ady Walter’s striking film about life in a Jewish village on the eve of World War II, through conversations with the filmmaker and two of the film’s stars. In this conversation you’ll hear about recreating a lost world on screen, the role...

CHARLIEBIRD: Tribeca Best Narrative Feature Winner | Libby Ewing Interview Action. It’s the word we most often associate with movies — big spectacle, big movement, big moments. But some of the most powerful films move in a different way. Not through explosions or chase scenes, but through emotional tension, interior conflict, and the quiet shifts that change a life. CHARLIEBIRD, winner of the Founders Award for Best U.S. Narrative Feature at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival, is one of those films. In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we sit down with director Libby Ewing to talk about her feature debu...

RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA at Lincoln CenterWhat does a nation’s cinema look like in a single moment?Each year, RENDEZ-VOUS WITH FRENCH CINEMA gathers a new constellation of films — stories shaped by the tensions, desires, politics, and imaginations moving through France right now. For more than three decades, the series has offered American audiences an early glimpse of that evolving landscape — a place where emerging filmmakers stand beside established voices, and where quiet discoveries can become lasting works.Now in its 31st edition, 22 features arrive at Film at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, offering not just premieres, but a po...

MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN
BAFTA Winner for Best Documentary and Academy Award® Nominee for Best Documentary Feature

What do you do when your government goes to war — and you believe it’s wrong?

In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we explore the extraordinary story behind MR. NOBODY AGAINST PUTIN, the BAFTA-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary that offers a rare inside look at life in Putin’s Russia during the invasion of Ukraine.

At the center of the film is Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, a school videographer in a small Russian town who quietly opposes the...

COME SEE ME IN THE GOOD LIGHT with director Ryan White Oscar-nominated documentary Come See Me in the Good Light follows celebrated poet Andrea Gibson after a cancer diagnosis reshapes their life — revealing how comedy, love, and poetry become powerful acts of resilience. In this INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE Oscar Spotlight episode, director Ryan White joins us for an in-depth conversation about the making of the film, the trust built with Gibson and poet Megan Falley, and how humor becomes a lifeline in the face of mortality. Premiering at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival, Come See Me in the Good Light ha...

Oscar-nominated director Geeta Gandbhir joins INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE to discuss her powerful new documentary, THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR.

In this in-depth conversation, Gandbhir explores the real-life story behind the film, the moral complexities at its center, and the responsibility of documentary storytelling in today’s cultural landscape.

Inside the Making of THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR- Oscar Nominee Best Doc Feature Constructed almost entirely from police body camera footage, THE PERFECT NEIGHBOR examines a tragic neighbor dispute that escalates under Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law — revealing deeper issues of race, fear, gun culture, and the American legal system. In...

The phrase “observational documentary” immediately evokes cinéma vérité pioneers like Frederick Wiseman and the Maysles Brothers — filmmakers who defined patient, fly-on-the-wall nonfiction storytelling. With their Academy Award–nominated documentary **CUTTING THROUGH ROCKS**, directors Sarah Khaki and Mohammadreza Eyni carry that tradition into urgent contemporary territory. It’s a rare Oscar recognition for a feature-length observational film — and a powerful reminder that this rigorous mode of documentary filmmaking remains as vital as ever. At the center of CUTTING THROUGH ROCKS is Sara Shahverdi, the first Iranian woman elected as a councilmember in her rural village. A motorcycle-riding force of nature, Shah...

Oscar Nominated Documentary: THE ALABAMA SOLUTION As part of our ongoing series featuring interviews with this year’s Academy Award nominees for Best Documentary Feature, we speak with directors Andrew Jarecki (CAPTURING THE FRIEDMANS) and Charlotte Kaufman about their Oscar-nominated film, THE ALABAMA SOLUTION. Premiering to critical acclaim at Sundance and now a 2026 Academy Award nominee, the film investigates America’s prison crisis through unprecedented access inside Alabama’s state prison system. Through direct communication with incarcerated activists risking retaliation, the filmmakers document mass incarceration, extreme overcrowding, alleged Eighth Amendment violations, and the broader impact of “tough on crime” politics. ...

There are documentaries about history, and then there are documentaries about the people who were quietly in the room when history happened. STARMAN, the new film from Academy Award–nominated director Robert Stone, belongs firmly in the latter category. It chronicles the life of Gentry Lee—NASA scientist, mission architect, science communicator, and one of those rare figures whose career seems to map directly onto the modern Space Age. If the Space Age began in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik, then Gentry Lee—born in 1942—has lived his entire adult life shaped by humanity’s reach beyond Earth. More than a wit...

When Love Doesn’t Disappear, But Quietly Changes Shape — with director Hlynur Pálmason Like Ingmar Bergman pivoting from the existential weight of The Seventh Seal to the gentler, more reflective tone of Wild Strawberries, Icelandic filmmaker Hlynur Pálmason follows his critically acclaimed 2023 film Godland with THE LOVE THAT REMAINS—a work that feels light and airy even as it engages with emotionally serious terrain. THE LOVE THAT REMAINS centers on Anna and Maggi, parents of three children, as they navigate an amicable separation and divorce. Anna is an artist grappling with stalled momentum, while Maggi works aboard a commer...

In this episode, director Jan-Ole Gerster discusses his new film ISLANDS, Berlin Film Festival premieres, and the creative process behind crafting a slow-burn indie mystery It’s only January, but if ISLANDS is any indication of what lies ahead, 2026 is already shaping up to be a remarkable year for cinema. Written and directed by Jan-Ole Gerster, ISLANDS is a sun-drenched, slow-burn mystery inspired by a character Gerster encountered while vacationing on the island of Fuerteventura. The film carries the seductive pull of a Raymond Chandler or Patricia Highsmith novel, but just when noir convention suggests the story will zig, Ge...

The Sundance Film Festival is back—and with it, the headlines about splashy acquisitions and record-setting deals. But beyond the price tags and bidding wars, a much bigger story is unfolding. How do these deals actually get made? And what happens to the vast majority of films that don’t get picked up? In this episode of ARTHOUSE, we go beyond the headlines to explore the real journey of an independent film—from production to distribution—with industry veteran Gary Rubin. During the indie boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, Rubin was acquiring films at Artisan Entertainment, including his invo...

As the Sundance Film Festival approaches its final year in Park City, we take a moment to reflect on the artists who didn’t simply pass through Sundance—but helped define it, shaping an entire era of American independent cinema in the process. Among those enduring icons is Steve Buscemi. Buscemi’s breakthrough came with Bill Sherwood’s Parting Glances, which premiered at Sundance in 1986. The film became a key work of the emerging New Queer Cinema movement and marked one of the earliest moments when Sundance revealed itself as a true launchpad for bold, deeply personal storytelling. Throughout the late...

A Private Life with Public Consequences: Rebecca Zlotowski has been on our radar since Other People’s Children hit the U.S. in 2023, so we were more than ready for her next move: A PRIVATE LIFE (Vie Privée)—a sleek, sharp French-language genre cocktail that’s equal parts mystery, romance, and darkly playful comedy. Jodie Foster plays Lilian Steiner, a tightly wound Paris psychiatrist whose perfectly curated life starts to fray after a patient dies under unsettling circumstances. What follows is classic Zlotowski: stylish, intelligent, emotionally alive—and way more moving than you expect a “noir-ish” whodunit to be. Foster gi...

HOMEBOUND (Oscar Shortlisted) | A Passport to Contemporary India — Neeraj Ghaywan Interview. We love foreign films at INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE. When they work, they’re more than entertainment—they’re a passport. In this episode, we sit down with Neeraj Ghaywan to discuss his Oscar-shortlisted drama HOMEBOUND, a powerful portrait of contemporary India. That’s exactly what happens in director Neeraj Ghaywan’s powerful new drama HOMEBOUND—an Oscar-shortlisted film set in contemporary India that follows two lifelong friends trying to build a future against overwhelming odds. One is Muslim, the other Dalit, and their bond is tested by caste prejudice, rel...

Jim Jarmusch on Making FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER (Venice Golden Lion) In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we sit down with one of the defining voices of American independent cinema: Jim Jarmusch. Since his 1984 breakthrough Stranger Than Paradise, Jarmusch has carved out a singular path—quietly rebellious, fiercely auteur-driven, and unmistakably his own. His latest film, FATHER MOTHER SISTER BROTHER—winner of the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival—marks a return to one of his most iconic storytelling forms: a set of separate yet interconnected stories, each with its own tone, rhythm, and emotional temperature. The si...

THE PLAGUE (2025) | Charlie Polinger on Childhood, Cruelty, and a Cannes Breakout When a film earns a 100% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, there’s often a quiet suspicion that it’s a critic’s darling—admired more than embraced. But Charlie Polinger’s debut feature THE PLAGUE is something rarer: a film that marries the visceral pull of a taut thriller with the intelligence and moral urgency of serious arthouse cinema. In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we sit down with writer-director Charlie Polinger to discuss a film that has quickly become one of the most talked-about releases of 2025. Drawing from memor...

The Fight to Own Warner Bros. | Hollywood Consolidation, Streaming Wars & the Future of Cinema In this episode of INSIDE THE ARTHOUSE, we step outside our usual filmmaker deep dives to examine a seismic moment in Hollywood—one that could reshape the film industry from top to bottom. Warner Bros., one of the oldest and most influential studios in cinema history, is officially up for sale. After weighing multiple offers, the company initially moved toward a deal with Netflix, a move that would fold more than a century of studio legacy into one of the world’s most powerful streaming plat...

Oscar Shortlisted | THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB — A Girl’s Cry for Help In the press kit for her urgent new film THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Kaouther Ben Hania writes that cinema “doesn’t report, it remembers. It doesn’t argue, it makes you feel.” That ethos reverberates through every frame of this devastating, Oscar-shortlisted work—an act of cinematic remembrance that bypasses rhetoric and lands directly in the body. Regardless of where one stands on the politics surrounding Gaza, THE VOICE OF HIND RAJAB is impossible to watch without being profoundly moved. This is narrative cinema as emot...