British Film Institute

Kirk Douglas died this week. In this special episode of the British Film Institute's flagship podcast the BFI's Digital editor, Henry Barnes, pays tribute by introducing clips from an archive interview with the star, which was recorded at the National Film Theatre in 1972. Douglas talks about his roles in classics like Spartacus, as well as the fun he had playing the bad guy and playing with his public image.This episode of the podcast was written, presented and edited by Henry Barnes. Production and mixing by Peter Sale.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The 2010s saw huge changes in the way films were watched and talked about. In the final episode of this series of The Bigger Picture (and the final episode of this decade) Anna, Hen and Pete explore the trends in film and telly - including #MeToo, streaming, Marvel and TV's REAL golden age - that developed over 10 extraordinary years in screen culture. Plus! Anna shares what she's learnt about film, herself and the world during te 2010s and Hen exclusively reveals his pick for the greatest screen experience of the last decade. Clue: it ain't classy. Thanks to all of The Bigger Picture's listeners for spending time with us this year. We wish you all happy holidays and a peaceful, prosperous 2020. The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI is ... BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskayaand producer Peter Sale.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Greta Gerwig's take on Little Women, Louis May Alcott's classic novel, starts fast and speeds up from there. We talk about how Gerwig's antic adaptation barely pauses for breath, but still makes room in its period setting for a very modern take on women, work, money and freedom.Starring Saoirse Ronan as aspiring writer Jo Marsh, Little Women tells the story of Jo and her sisters - Meg, Amy and Beth - as they leave adolescence and find their way in the world. It's Gerwig's second film as director after the Oscar-nominated Lady Bird, which also starred Ronan.Elsewhere in this episode: witch stories, clockwork games and Anna swoons and swoons again over the lovely (for now) Timothée Chalamet, who plays this Little Women's Laurie.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Heartless, irrational, unstoppable - zombies and the sea are natural soul(less) mates and Mati Diop's debut film pairs them beautifully. Atlantics, which took home the first feature award at this year's London Film Festival, is a love story between a Senegalese woman and her departed lover. It hits the high water mark for stories of supernatural love.Anna, Hen and Pete talk about what makes a ghoulish love story glimmer, how the sea shines as a metaphor on film and why love stories in which one person is dead are the most beautiful and tragic of all.!WARNING: Contains spoliers for Atlantics!The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskayaand producer Peter Sale.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A paperwork thriller. A chit-chat drama. The Report, the true story of the US Senate intelligence officer who investigated the CIA's torture of detainees after 9/11, uses dialogue - lots and lots of dialogue - to tell a slow-burning story of an instution reaching far beyond its limits.In this episode of The Bigger Picture Hen, Anna and Pete describe how watching the film is more akin to listening to long-form narrative podcast than going to the cinema, why the film remains a thrill despite its slow pace and how - bizarrely - scenes of state-sanctioned torture have become a trope unto themselves.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskayaand producer Peter Sale.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alejandro Landes's Monos has teen soldiers running wild in the mountains of an unspecified south American country. Hen, Anna and Pete take a trek up into the weird world of guerrilla warfare, presided over by a cow called Shakira.They talk about the film's treatment of Colombia's long-running war, how Landes masterfully creates an atmosphere of tension out of teen tomfoolery and Mica Levi's awesome score. Plus, nonsense chat about what we'd call a cow if one were gifted to us.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Cultureand producer Peter Sale  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dum-de-dum dum. Dum-de-dum de-dum dum-de-dum-de. Singin' in the Rain, the Gene Kelly classic, has been re-released by the BFI as part of a three-month musicals season. To celebrate Hen, Anna and Pete take a tour through the finger-clicking, puddle-stomper and talk about how, as well as being a timeless musical, the film endures as a Hollywood satire. Plus, Anna recommends her pick of the films she saw at this year's London Film Festival and Hen gets into Fortnite, a mere two years too late. The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Cultureand producer Peter Sale  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Joker, Todd Phillips's gunky take on DC Comic's supervillain, gives us the origins story of a lonely guy with mental health issues who finds himself through violence. Anna, Hen and Pete talk about the films great debt to Taxi Driver and The King of Comedy, examine what the film adds to the character's lore and wonder if asking us to pity the fool was the best strategy.Plus, Hen recommend a documentary on the civil rights activist and archivist, no ... hoarder ... no, archivist ... no, hoarder Marion Stokes and Anna heads back to her favourite streaming service for Unbelievable, a police procedural centred on the pursuit of a serial rapist.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Cultureand producer Peter Sale  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

No Anna this ep, but Hen and Pete are joined by a special guest, filmmaker Shola Amoo. Shola's in to talk about his new film, The Last Tree, which sees a British-Nigerian kid plucked from his rural foster home by his birth mum, who expects him to take root and thrive in London.Shola talks about the social rules inherent in growing up black in the city, how the expectations on second-generation kids have changed with the arrival of the internet and why grime - "Britain's best black export", according to Shola - offers a template for what black British filmmakers could do with film.Plus, Shola recommends a under-rated Kanye West album and Hen waves a placard for the Guardian's Anywhere But Westminster video series.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and CultureProducer Peter Saleand special guest, filmmaker Shola Amoo.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hen, Anna and Pete get a line on a reel-y good film. Bait, BFI-backed and brilliant to boot, is written and directed by Mark Jenkin. Set in Jenkin's native Cornwall, it's a drama about the effects of gentrification on a village fishing community and it says a lot about the state of Britain today.Bait follows Martin (Edward Rowe), a fisherman without a boat raging against the wealthy Londoners who have bought his childhood home. In the face of tourism and city money, angry, displaced Martin is left floundering. These situations, Jenkin seems to be saying, are where Brexit came from.Elsewhere in the ep, Anna is hopped up on the Zendaya-starring TV series Euphoria, Hen has been spending time with San Quentin prison's in-house podcast Ear Hustle AND an incredibly awkward bit in which one of the pod earnestly reads out song lyrics about the corrosive effect of captalism on communities. Yay! The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskaya, Dice's Head of Arts and Cult

Pedro Almodóvar returns with Pain and Glory, a deeply personal film about an ageing film director (played by Antonio Banderas) struggling with the physical and psychological ailments that are preventing him from making films.Hen, Anna and Pete tuck into Pedro's pain, exploring how the director joins the ranks of artists across cultures who have worked out how to make their personal tragedy accessible to a wide audience. This episode also features ... moon-eyed discussions about Kendrick Lamar's genius, PERSONAL INFORMATION on the PERSONAL LIFE of Anna Bogutskaya (kind of) and the first ever Bigger Picture remix, spun by producer Pete out of our chat about Jeremy Deller's brilliant acid house documentary Everybody in the Place: An Incomplete History of Britain 1984-1992.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesAnna Bogutskaya, Dice.fm's Head of Arts and CultureProducer Peter Sale  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Clamber into your double denim and strap your hands across our engines! On this episode of The Bigger Picture we've got the goss on a film inspired by The Boss: Blinded by the Light, in which a British-Pakistani teen finds an escape from the racism and conformity of 1980s Luton through the music of Bruce Springsteen.Hen, Anna and Pete explore how hard it is to portray fandom in film, what a Springsteen-centric story has to say to a millennial audience and how Gurinder Chadha's film follows Bend it Like Beckham in exploring how passion can cross cultures and generations.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Southbank Programmer Anna Bogutskaya. BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesProducer Peter Sale  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Whoah. The Bigger Picture logs on for series 3. This episode we're plugging into The Matrix, the Wachowskis' cyber-hacking kung-fu smacking techno western. Anna, Hen and Pete see through the 1s and 0s to discover how the film - 20 years old this year - has aged, work out what it got right about the internet and argue about whether it's a really a love story between Morpheus, Neo and their online dating profiles. There may be a spoon.The Matrix is screening at the BFI Southbank as part of the BFI's Nineties season. More information here:https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=nineties&BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::context_id=The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is ...BFI Southbank Programmer Anna Bogutskaya. BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesProducer Peter Sale  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Season 3 of The Bigger Picture podcast, brought to you by the BFI, starts July 18th 2019. Here Anna, Hen and Pete offer a sneak peek at what's coming up on the show.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

How can those with extraordinary talent survive fame's spotlight? We're struggling, so we went looking for answers in the films of Asif Kapadia, specifically: Senna, Amy and his new documentary, Diego Maradona.The doc tells the story of the Argentine footballer whose genius touch made him a demi-god to the denizens of his adopted home, Naples. In this episode, the last one of season two of The Bigger Picture, we talk about the personal strain of being a public figure, how talent is co-opted by capitalism and - lofty theory alert! - why talented celebrities are the gods we're allowed to hate.Diego Maradona is screening at BFI Southbank from Thursday 13th June, when we will host a post-screening Q&A with Asif Kapadia. It's on general release in the UK from Friday 14th June.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, will return for series 3 in July and is ...BFI Southbank Programmer Anna Bogutskaya. BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesProducer Peter SaleMake it your goal-aaaaahhh! to check these out:• Watch the Ma

Anna's in Cannes and calls from the Croisette to fill Hen and Pete in on the best new films that have premiered at this year's festival. Included in Anna's picks: Robert Pattinson wants to get into the lighthouse, even though he's already in The Lighthouse; Georgian ballet boys fight for their place on the floor in And Then We Danced and the cure for depression is a plant-based panacea in the Ben Whishaw-starring Little Joe. Plus! Beach-time, walkouts and hangovers in Hen's Cannes Cuiz.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Booksmart, Olivia Wilde's racous directorial debut, shows teenage girls being loud, funny, crass and disgusting. Anna and Hen talk about why it's so rare to see that on-screen, recount (a bit) of their own school days and talk about why the American high school movie has become a guidebook for teenagers everywhere.Booksmart, starring Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever, is out in UK cinemas on May 27th. It follows two teens - Molly (Feldstein) and Amy (Dever) - facing down graduation as they realise they've spent too long at school studying and not enough time partying.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is...BFI Southbank Programmer Anna Bogutskaya. BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesProducer Peter Sale  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Hello, you people! The Goonies, re-released in 4k recently, has delighted and inspired a generation of film-makers and film fans. Unfortunately, Hen is not one of them. Anna explains why Richard Donner's action-adventure is ace and Hen is dead inside. Set in 1980s Astoria, Oregon, The Goonies, starring Sean Astin, Corey Feldman and Josh Brolin, follows a gang of kids on the hunt for 17th-century pirate treasure. Based on a story by Steven Spielberg and a script by Chris Columbus, the film builds a kids-only world where the adults - namely, the mafioso crime family The Fratellis - are monstrous and the thrills strictly PG.Anna and Hen talk about the film's substantial influence, its place in pre-teen fantasy cinema and Anna's favourite moments.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is...BFI Southbank Programmer Anna Bogutskaya. BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesProducer Peter SaleOn shuffle:• Behind the scenes on The Goonies looks fun: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6Hm2wox660• Young Chunk wows Wogan: h

Roll up, roll up for a big-top Bigger Picture all about Tim Burton's Dumbo. Thrill! At Anna, Hen and Pete's soaring appraisal of Disney's 1941 original! Gasp! At the flap they get themselves into tearing down the new one! Wonder! at Hen winging it through an extended rant about the wonders of booze! All this and a musical number too!The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is...BFI Southbank Programmer Anna Bogutskaya. BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesProducer Peter SaleStuff for your eyes:Just leaving this here ... https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/aug/16/why-i-love-dumbo-pink-elephantsHow Dumbo could be seen to subvert racist stereotypes: https://www.ferris.edu/HTMLS/news/jimcrow/links/essays/reversal.htmSob: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHYGzJIUn58  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Strap on your pointe shoes and join Anna, Henry and Pete as they hit the floor with an episode about the Soviet ballet dancers who defected to the west. Inspired by Ralph Fienne's The White Crow, a biopic of the ballet supremo and defector Rudolf Nureyev, the gang track the careers of Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov and the contemporary Ukrainian dancer Sergei Polunin, asking what it takes for these dancefloor geniuses to make it in western pop culture.The Bigger Picture, presented by the BFI, is...BFI Southbank Programmer Anna Bogah...Anna Bogurts... Anna Bogutskaya. BFI Digital editor Henry BarnesProducer Peter SaleNext steps:• The Guardian's Simon Hattenstone interviews Sergei Polunin: https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/mar/07/sergei-polunin-sacked-putin-tattoo-interview• Four great Soviet ballet dancers (via Russia Beyond): https://www.rbth.com/arts/2015/08/11/dancing_their_way_to_freedom_4_great_soviet_ballet_defectors_48425.html• Gregory Hines and Mikhail Baryshnikov strut their stuff: https://www.yout