SOUNDS OF FILM with Tom Needham

This week on a Classic SOUNDS OF FILM, Tom Needham welcomes legendary singer-songwriter, actor, and recovery advocate Paul Williams for an in-depth conversation about his extraordinary career and his work with Jim Henson’s Muppets. Williams, whose iconic songs include “We’ve Only Just Begun,” “Rainy Days and Mondays,” “Evergreen,” “An Old Fashioned Love Song,” and “The Rainbow Connection,” shares stories from his decades in music, ...

On this episode of Sounds of Film, host Tom Needham speaks with acclaimed documentary filmmaker Michael Pack, director and producer of The Last 600 Meters, a compelling look at two of the deadliest battles of the Iraq War told through the firsthand testimony of the Marines and soldiers who fought them.

The conversation explores Pack’s approach to documentary storytelling, the challenges of capturing the realities of modern comb...

In this episode of The Sounds of Film, host Tom Needham speaks with filmmaker Johnny Ma, writer and director of The Mother and the Bear. The film tells the story of a Korean mother who travels to Winnipeg after her daughter’s accident and unexpectedly finds herself on a path of personal transformation.

Johnny Ma explains how the project began years earlier during a stay at a small hostel in Seoul. A conversation with the woman runni...

In this episode of The Sounds of Film, Tom Needham speaks with acclaimed Palestinian filmmaker and visual artist Scandar Copti, the writer and director of the powerful new film Happy Holidays. The multi-layered drama follows four interconnected characters—Rami, Hanan, Miri, and Fifi—as they navigate the pressures of patriarchal values, cultural expectations, and the social systems that shape their realities.

Known for his Oscar-nom...

The Sounds of Film welcomes director Jota Mun, whose feature documentary Between Goodbyes offers an intimate and emotionally layered view of international adoption and family reunion.

The film follows Mieke Murkes, a queer Korean adoptee raised in the Netherlands, as she travels to Seoul to reconnect with her original mother, Okgyun Kang. Their time together reveals decades of unspoken regret, cultural distance, humor, and deep...

The Sounds of Film welcomes acclaimed director Maria Friedman, whose filmed production of Stephen Sondheim and George Furth’s Merrily We Roll Along was recently featured at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Friedman joins Tom Needham to discuss the remarkable evolution of the musical—from its troubled 1981 Broadway debut to the acclaimed revival she directed and filmed.

In the film, adapted from Friedman’s Broadway stagi...

The Sounds of Film presents a special podcast episode hosted by Tom Needham and featuring Emmy-winning producer and talent manager Rory Rosegarten, an Executive Producer of Everybody Loves Raymond and Ray Romano’s manager.

Rosegarten has represented many performers including Robert Klein and Tom Green, produced the Broadway musical Late Night Comic at age 25, co-executive produced the TNT drama Men of a Certain Age, and won two...

The Sounds of Film welcomes writer-director Michael J. Weithorn for a conversation about THE BEST YOU CAN, a new relationship dramedy that world-premiered at the 2025 Tribeca Film Festival and will be available off the record on VOD platforms beginning November 25.

Reuniting Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon on screen for the first time in twenty years, the film offers a smart, sharp, and emotionally resonant look at connection, ch...

Filmmaker Joel Gilbert joins Tom Needham on The Sounds of Film to talk about his new documentary, Roseanne Barr: Is America. In the film, the still hilarious and outspoken Roseanne recounts her unusual upbringing and rise to television stardom. A master storyteller, she shares her take on cancel culture, politics, and the challenges facing free expression in America.

Gilbert discusses Roseanne’s resilience, her lasting cultural ...

This week on The Sounds of Film, host Tom Needham speaks with Guggenheim Fellow Alan Govenar about his new documentary Quiet Voices in a Noisy World: The Struggle for Change in Jasper, Texas.

Opening in New York theaters on November 14, 2025, through First Run Features, the film explores community, race, and healing in the wake of one of America’s most painful tragedies.

Govenar discusses the making of the film, his upcoming NYC...

The next episode of the Sounds of Film features an interview with award-winning filmmaker Cody Sheehy, director of The Last Dive, which will be featured at the Port Jefferson Documentary Film Series on Thursday, November 6 at 7 PM.

Sheehy’s stunning new documentary follows Terry Kennedy, a legendary diver and American veteran whose extraordinary friendship with a giant manta ray named Willy Wow transformed him from a man with a ...

The Sounds of Film welcomes filmmaker Tim Roper, co-director of the powerful new documentary For the Living.

The film tells the extraordinary true story of Marcel Zielinski, a 10-year-old Holocaust survivor who, in January 1945, walked 60 miles by foot from Auschwitz-Birkenau to Krakow in search of his family. Decades later, hundreds of cyclists from around the world retraced his path in a moving event called Ride for the Livin...

The next episode of the SOUNDS OF FILM features an in-depth conversation with Tom Needham and British filmmaker Elliott Hasler, the writer and director of VINDICATION SWIM, the inspiring true story of Mercedes Gleitze, the first British woman to swim the English Channel.

VINDICATION SWIM tells the extraordinary story of Gleitze’s 1927 accomplishment and her subsequent struggle to reclaim her achievement after being falsely accus...

Today’s episode of THE SOUNDS OF FILM features Tom Needham’s interview with director Craig Renaud and producer Juan Arredondo discussing the powerful HBO Original documentary short, ARMED ONLY WITH A CAMERA: THE LIFE AND DEATH OF BRENT RENAUD. The film tells the remarkable and heartbreaking story of filmmaker and journalist Brent Renaud, who was killed by Russian soldiers while covering the war in Ukraine—becoming the first America...

On this episode of The Sounds of Film, host Tom Needham talks with Swiss filmmaker Barbara Miller about her documentary Wisdom of Happiness, in which she films an intimate dialogue with the Dalai Lama about compassion, peace, and resilience in times of crisis.

They explore how she captured such candor and warmth, her collaborations, and why kindness is at the heart of lasting transformation.

The Sounds of Film has featured p...

The Sounds of Film presents an inspiring conversation with Perri Peltz, the award-winning filmmaker behind She Runs the World, which is featured at the Port Jefferson Documentary Series.

The film tells the electrifying true story of Allyson Felix, the most decorated track and field athlete in Olympic history, who risked her career to fight for what she knew was right.

At the height of her fame, Felix became pregnant and disc...

The Sounds of Film is spotlighting Richard Ladkani, the award-winning director of YANUNI, a breathtaking new documentary featured at the Hamptons International Film Festival. The film follows Indigenous leader Juma Xipaia from her remote village in the Brazilian Amazon to the political frontlines of climate justice.

After surviving six assassination attempts, Juma becomes Brazil’s first Secretary of Indigenous Rights, while her husb...

The Sounds of Film features an interview with Jeremy Power Regimbal, director of Between the Mountain and the Sky, a powerful new documentary about humanitarian Maggie Doyne. The film follows Doyne’s journey from a young American traveler to the founder of a children’s home, school, and women’s center in Nepal. Her inspiring partnership with Tope, a Nepalese orphan, leads to global recognition when she is named CNN’s 2015 Hero of t...