Screen Slate Podcast

Visionary Between the Temples filmmakers Nathan Silver (writer/director) and C. Mason Wells (writer) join host Jon Dieringer for a housewarming pod in the new Screen Slate HQ. We speak about the duo’s long-running collaboration, the family history that inspired the story of an adult bat mitzvah, and casting Jason Schwartzman and Carol Kane for performances that are standouts in two illustrious careers.

Plus: Chris Wells is nearly ki...

Princely filmmaker Lance Oppenheim speaks with Jon Dieringer about his new HBO docuseries Ren Faire. We talk about the genesis of the project, the research project, making it alongside his recently released feature Spermworld, and all the layers of palace intrigue within its unexpectedly twisty, treacherous story.

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Uncompromising masterwork? Historically poor use of 150 million dollars with a direct-to-Tubi aesthetic? Or somewhere in between? Screen Slate's Jon Dieringer and Filmmaker Magazine's Vadim Rizov attended the first Cannes screening and sat down to discuss their impressions of this sui generis late-late-style work.

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The Screen Slate Podcast is supported by its Patreon members. Sign up and get access to bonus ...

Documentary filmmakers Brian Becker and Marley McDonald visit Screen Slate HQ to talk about Time Bomb Y2K, their fantastic new movie that deftly employs all archival footage to offer a panoramic view of turn-of-the-millennium digital hysteria. On the episode we share Y2K memories, dig into archival research, discuss the wider cultural context that precipitated the moment, and the films featured in the accompanying documentary serie...

Screen Slate travels to Richard Hell’s East Village apartment to discuss his latest collection of poetry, What Just Happened. We talk about moving to New York to become a poet and his early jobs in bookstores, including Cinemabilia, the movie memorabilia store whose manager Terry Ork played a key role in early punk. We also get into Richard’s film roles, including Smithereens and Nick Zedd’s Geek Maggot Bingo, and what he’s been wa...

Criterion Channel '90s Horror programmer Clyde Folley returns to the pod to hack into deep cuts like Def By Temptation, The Rapture, When a Stranger Calls Back, and perennial Screen Slate favorite Demon Knight. We also celebrate the inclusion of essential 2014 artifact Unfriended in the Channel's High School horror series. Plus: Caroline Golum returns as co-host!

'90s Horror trailer
Unfriended on the Cri...

Filmmaker Jacqueline Castel joins us to talk about her feature debut My Animal, which unites Amandla Stenberg and Bobbi Salvör Menuez in a haunting, queer werewolf story set in a small town in Northern Ontario. A veteran music video director best known for her many collaborations with Sacred Bones artists like Zola Jesus and Pharmakon along with musician-directors such as Jim Jarmusch and John Carpenter, Castel speaks about the ele...

Ira Sachs visits the pod to talk about his new film Passages, in which the marriage of a gay couple (Franz Rogowski & Ben Whishaw) is thrown into disarray when one of them begins a passionate affair with a woman (Adèle Exarchopoulos). The stylish, sexy drama is one of the hottest films of the summer, not least for its expert direction and impeccable cast. Sachs talks to Screen Slate’s Jon Dieringer about mentorship, his strateg...

Mary Bronstein visits Screen Slate HQ to talk about Yeast, her bracingly funny, often excruciating, and authentic 2008 portrait of toxic female friendship, which has had a recent string of sold-out repertory screenings in Los Angeles, New York, and London. On this episode we discuss how the cast and crew came together, channeling anger into creativity, and how the film is in many ways a response to the insular, male-centric mumblec...

Recorded live from the Screen Slate Villa at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, this pod features Roxy Cinema New York programmer Illyse Singer and filmmaker Jason Lester in a frank discussion about “the different Cannes within Cannes.”

Jason covers the history of the Cannes market and how it’s adapted to changing distribution models. And Illyse talks about being a programmer at Cannes and New York representation at the 2023 festival. W...

New York Magazine/Vulture film critic Bilge Ebiri joins Screen Slate editor Jon Dieringer for a discussion of Martin Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon. In this spoiler free-ish discussion, we cover how the film fits into the Goodfellas crime mold and smartly diverges from the book to center the Osage characters. We also talk about where DiCaprio and De Niro's performances fit within their body of work for Scorsese, an...

In our first Cannes audio dispatch, Screen Slate editor Jon Dieringer speaks to Joanna Arnow about her film The Feeling That the Time for Doing Something Has Passed, a breakout hit of Quinzine 2023. We cover her shift from documentary self-portraiture to autofiction, casting, and finding the right moment to enter and exit scenes in editing. Plus: the inside scoop on Arnow’s Harry Potter musical and frequent Screen Slate pod co-host...

Prismatic Ground founder Inney Prakash returns to talk about the latest installment of the annual festival centered on experimental documentary and avant-garde film. We talk about the (sold out) opening night film, Soda Jerk's Hello Dankness, new work by Tsai Ming-Liang, assembling a supergroup of venues to stage this year's roving fest, a heretofore unannounced new Prismatic Ground venture, and more. John Klacsmann and C...

This 44 min. Patreon-exclusive bonus that goes deeper into LA film culture, including the cursed history of The Silent Movie Theater (where Bret and Caroline both worked in different iterations); Kenneth Anger mailing weird shit to Klax; Klax’s scene report on Dimes Square turning out for an invite-only Martin Scorsese screening; and discussion of new releases Beau is Afraid and Showing Up.

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Bret Berg of The American Genre Film Archive and Museum of Home Video visits Screen Slate HQ along with returning co-hosts Caroline Golum and John Klacsmann. A beloved fixture of the LA film scene, Bret gives us an insider report on its resurgent rep film culture. We also talk about AGFA’s film restoration projects (including Joe Dante’s The Movie Orgy and something called Bat Pussy), the nuts-and-bolts of film programming, and MOH...

Filmmaker Kelly Reichardt joins the pod over Zoom to discuss her new film Showing Up. We talk about how the art school setting bred on-set creativity, shooting in familiar Portland haunts, artist-landlords, turning Outkast's Andre Benjamin into a certified ceramics guru, and the film's discrete shoutout to Light Industry co-founder Ed Halter. And much more!

For more on Showing Up, see our earlier pod with cinemat...

Our friends Daniel Goldhaber, Ariela Barer, Daniel Garber, and Jordan Sjol visit Screen Slate HQ to talk about their new film How to Blow Up a Pipeline, which adapts Andreas Malm's nonfiction book of the same name into a heist-style eco-thriller. We get into the research and adaptation process, stealing locations, balancing Barer’s screenwriting and actor roles, and the art of editing as edging. Plus: what does Andreas Malm th...

Cornish filmmaker Mark Jenkin joins the pod to talk about his new film Enys Men, now playing nationwide. We talk about the legacy of big, scary stones in British horror, working with a skeleton crew, hand-processing 16mm film, eco-friendly filmmaking, and creating soundtracks entirely in post. We also discuss his remarkable BAFTA-winning previous feature Bait, which returns to select theaters this weekend.

Enys Men trailer...