The Best Films of 2019

Kleber Mendonça Filho, the director of Aquarius, and collaborator Juliano Dornelles have come up with a politically loaded riff on The Most Dangerous Game scenario. It’s a thrilling blend of genre thrills and shocks, and smart satire. Bacurau, a settlement in rural Brazil, is shaken by its matriarch’s death. But something strange is happening, the water supply has been cut off, and the village has disappeared from satellite maps completely.Under threat from an unknown enemy, Bacurau braces itself for a brutal fight for survival.We hosted writer-director pair Kleber Mendoh-sa Feelyo and Juliano Dornales for a Q&A at Curzon Bloomsbury, where they spoke to Observer and Curzon Magazine contributor Wendy Ide about the films 10 year journey to the screen, its international inspirations and their 11000km search for the perfect small town…. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’re in love. It started with a Water Lilies in 2007. Our love grew stronger with Tomboy in 2011. We were devoted by the time Girlhood came around in 2014. And now, well, we scarcely know what to do with ourselves.This month we’ve dedicated an entire episode of our podcast to Céline Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the film that has set the roof alight with all those fire emojis. Twitter is burning! Sciamma’s fourth film as a director took Cannes by storm back in 2019, earning standing ovations and taking home the Queer Palme. Earlier this year it was nominated at the BAFTAs, having already stolen our hearts.Over the course of the show, you’ll get expert insights on Céline Sciamma’s career up to this point. We’ll hear from the director herself all about the inspiration for the film, the title and that stunning choral number. Modern day portrait artist, Nina Mae Fowler, tells us about the reality of portraiture. And we find out from academic Jennie Batchelor just what it was like for women artists in the 18th century.The podcast is hosted by Steph Watts. It is produced by Ryan Hewitt and Jake Cunningham, edited by Mark Towers, and scripted by Jake Cunningham and Steph Watts. With thanks to all of our contributors, and a special thanks to Kelly Powell, Louisa Maycock and Irene Musumeci.WITH THANKS TO OUR SPECIAL GUESTS:Céline SciammaCéline Sciamma is a French filmmaker, a director and writer. To date she has directed four films: Water Lilies, Tomboy, Girlhood and Portrait of a Lady on Fire, and she wrote the screenplay for award-winning animation, My Life as a Courgette.Tricia TuttleTricia Tuttle is Director of Festivals for the BFI. Tuttle’s appointment as Artistic Director BFI London Film Festival follows her role as interim Artistic Director in 2018 and five successful years as Deputy Head of Festivals at BFI, including BFI Flare and BFI London Film Festival. She is also a huge champion of Céline Sciamma.Nina Mae FowlerNina Mae Fowler is known for her sumptuously detailed, large-scale drawings and installations which interrogate themes of celebrity, beauty, power and sexuality. Also an established portrait artist her sitters have included the biographer Dame Hermione Lee, biologist Richard Dawkins and ballet dancer Carlos Acosta (for which she was shortlisted for the BP Portrait prize in 2008).Most recently, The National Portrait Gallery has unveiled a major new commission by the artist entitled ‘Luminary Drawings’. The series comprises nine portraits of leading British Film Directors which now form part of the museum's permanent collection, including Sam Mendes, Ken Loach, Amma Asante and Sally Potter. Fowler’s work has won widespread acclaim. It is featured in numerous collections of international significance and in 2015 a monograph of her work entitled ‘Nina Mae Fowler: Measuring Elvis’ was published by Cob Gallery, London. The book features a commentary from an array of cultural luminaries including the curator Sandy Nairne and the playwright Polly Stenham. Lucy DahlsenLucy Dahlsen is a curator based in London and former Associate Curator of 20th century and contemporary portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery. Recent exhibitions she has curated include solo presentations of the artists Elizabeth Peyton and Njideka Akunyili Crosby.Jennie BatchelorJennie Batchelor is Professor of Eighteenth-Century Studies at Kent University, publishing in the long eighteenth century with a focus primarily on women's writing, authorship and anonymity, periodicals and women’s magazines, representations of gender, work, sexuality and the body, book history, material culture studies and the eighteenth-century charity movement.She is the author of two monographs and co-editor of four essay collections. Her most recent book (with Nush Powell), Women’s Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1690s-1820s (Edinburgh University Press, 2018), is the ... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Beware, there's spoilers ahead!Bong Joon Ho's PARASITE is the film that keeps on giving. To complement our " rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">deep dive into the #BongHive, we have a very special bonus episode featuring Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and Baby Driver's Edgar Wright in conversation with the Academy Award-winning Director Bong.This Q&A was recorded at Curzon Bloomsbury, before the PARASITE mania hit UK shores. Since recording, the film has made history by winning multiple awards breaking multiple box office records. The PARASITE isn't finished with us yet! Tune in for two friends, peers and fans discussing the most exciting film in cinemas now.PARASITE is playing in cinemas around the country. We strongly recommend watching the film before you listen to this podcast. If you haven't done already, check out our " rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">deep dive PARASITE special, featuring more from Bong Joon Ho, his friend and collaborator Tilda Swinton, the founders of the #BongHive and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We’ve dedicated an entire episode to the film that, for many many months, has been infecting audiences more than any other. Created by South Korean director Bong Joon Ho, since its debut at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2019, Parasite has spread its way to box office success, BAFTA nominations and even a nomination for Best Picture at the Academy Awards.Over the course of the show, you’ll get expert insights on Bong Joon Ho’s career up to this point, we’ll hear from the people behind the frenzied #BONGHIVE fangroup on social media, we’ve got an insider on insiders here to tell us about the art of the Parasite con, and we’re luckily enough to bring you a conversation between Director Bong and one of his great friends and collaborators, Tilda Swinton.The podcast is hosted, scripted and produced by regular Curzon Podcaster, Jake Cunningham.It is edited by Mark Towers, and produced by Ryan Hewitt.With thanks to our special guests:Bong Joon HoDirector Bong has quickly become one of favourite people. Parasite is his seventh feature film, preceded in reverse order by Okja, Snowpiercer, Mother, The Host, Memories of Murder and Barking Dogs Never Bite.Tilda SwintonNo introduction necessary. Tilda Swinton is one of the finest actors working today. Her collaborations with Bong Joon Ho include Snowpiercer and Okja, and she is a total queen.Helen O’HaraFilm journalist for Empire Magazine.Tony RaynsTony Rayns is a film critic, commentator, festival programmer and screenwriter. He has written extensively for Sight & Sound, and its predecessor the Monthly Film Bulletin, and previously contributed to Time Out and Melody Maker.One of the world’s leading experts on Asian cinema, he coordinated the Dragons and Tigers competition for Asian films at the Vancouver International Film Festival 1988-2006 and has provided many DVD commentaries and English subtitle translations for films from Hong Kong, Japan, Korea and Thailand.He has written books about Seijun Suzuki, Wong Kar-wai and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and has been awarded the Foreign Ministry of Japan’s Commendation for services to Japanese cinema.Maria KonnikovaMaria Konnikova is the author of two New York Times bestsellers, The Confidence Game, winner of the 2016 Robert P. Balles Prize in Critical Thinking, and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, an Anthony and Agatha Award finalist. Her new book, The Biggest Bluff, will be out from Penguin Press on June 23, 2020.Maria is a regularly contributing writer for The New Yorker whose writing has won numerous awards, including the 2019 Excellence in Science Journalism Award from the Society of Personality and Social Psychology. While researching The Biggest Bluff, Maria became an international poker champion and the winner of over $300,000 in tournament earnings—and inadvertently turned into a professional poker player.Maria’s writing has been featured in Best American Science and Nature Writing and has been translated into over twenty languages. Maria also hosts the podcast The Grift from Panoply Media, a show that explores con artists and the lives they ruin, and is currently a visiting fellow at NYU’s School of Journalism. Her podcasting work earned her a National Magazine Award nomination in 2019. She graduated from Harvard University and received her PhD in psychology from Columbia University.Find out more about Maria at her website www.mariakonnikova.comIana MurrayFilm critic and #BONGHIVE founding member. Contributing writer at GQ. other publications include i-D, Little White Lies and The Skinny.Parasite plays in our cinemas from Friday 7 February Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we ask the question 'How long have we been on this rock? Five weeks? Two days? Where are we?' as Willem Dafoe and Robert Eggers join us to spill their beans about their new indescribable not-quite horror film The Lighthouse. Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe are left alone on a grim deserted island to tend to a lighthouse in 1890's New England. As tensions rise between the two men, the boundaries between fantasy and reality begin to blur... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we're joined by the writer-director of Waves, Trey Edward Shults. Waves stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Tyler, and 18 year old under pressure to excel from his domineering father, played by Sterling K. Brown. When an injury threatens Tyler's future career, he goes off the rails, and his family struggle to deal with the consequences. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we go deep into the trenches to take a look at Sam Mendes' one-shot wonder, the war drama 1917, and speak to the films lead actors Dean-Charles Chapman and George MacKay, who star as two soldiers given orders to deliver a message across enemy lines that could save thousands of lives. Having won the Golden Globe award for Best Film last weekend, 1917 has announced itself as a major awards contender and one you have to see on the biggest screen possible. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On this week's episode, we see out 2019 with Greta Gerwig's Little Women, and we welcome in 2020 with Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit.In Little Women, Greta Gerwig couldn't have chosen a more beloved classic to adapt for her second feature as director, matched only by the strength of cast she's corralled. Playing the four leads on the verge of womanhood are Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emma Watson and Sharp Objects' Eliza Scanlen. Telling the tale of four daughters of a preacher in post-Civil War Massachusetts as they learn to love and live their own lives, this adaptation emphasises the novel's feminist message of self-determination.Taika Waititi's Jojo Rabbit shouldn't work, but the director pulls it off with panache. Never less than extremely funny, Waititi’s performance as a cracked Adolf Hitler manages to easily overleap any questions of taste, backed up by a hilarious cadre of supporting Nazis (Sam Rockwell, Rebel Wilson and Alfie Allen). This anti-hate satire from the director of Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Thor: Ragnarok will win you over.Plus, Curzon bring you a Christmas Day treat: you can watch Mikhaël Hers' Amanda on Curzon Home Cinema from 25th December, over a week before it arrives in cinemas.Follow the team on Social Media:@jakehcunningham - Jake@samhowlett_1 - Sam@ks_powell - Kelly@ella_kemp - EllaProduced by Jake CunninghamEdited by Mark Towers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's that time of year when we make endless lists of the most wonderful things we have seen at the cinema over the past 12 months. Tune in to hear about our favourites!Discussing the films this week are Jake Cunningham, Sam Howlett, Kelly Powell and Ella KempFollow the team on Social Media:@jakehcunningham - Jake@samhowlett_1 - Sam@ella_kemp - Ella@ks_powell - KellyProduced by Jake CunninghamEdited by Mark Towers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode we welcome a true legend of cinema on to the podcast, the man, the myth... Werner HerzogAs well as talking to Mr Herzog, we round up the results of the European Film Awards where Herzog was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement. Along with this, we take a look at the Next Level of the Jumanji series.Discussing the films this week are Jake Cunningham, Sam Howlett, Kelly Powell and Ella KempFollow the team on Social Media:@jakehcunningham - Jake@samhowlett_1 - SamProduced by Jake CunninghamEdited by Mark Towers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.