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PODCAST

The Klassiki Podcast

Delve into the wide world of Eastern European film with the Klassiki Podcast. Featuring interviews, roundtable discussions, recorded essays, and more, we take you beyond the headlines to explore the past, present, and future of this fascinating region. Sign up to Klassiki today to gain access to our ever-evolving library of classic and contemporary titles, as well as filmmaker interviews, video essays and introductions, programme notes, and much more.

tv & film film interviews

All Episodes

37:03

Ester Krumbachová: the ghost of the Czech New Wave

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2025/03/03

Artist, guru, witch, muse. The cinematic polymath Ester Krumbachová was an essential figure behind many of the classics of the Czech New Wave. But Krumbachová herself remains an elusive figure, marginalised in histories of female filmmaking.In recent years, this has begun to change. Krumbachová’s sole directorial effort, the romantic parody Murdering the Devil, has been restored and screened worldwide. It’s coming to the UK this month, with three screenings as part of this year’s Borderlines Film

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15:53

The war-haunted world of Larisa Shepitko

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2025/02/24

In this episode, we’re dipping back in to the archive of writing on the Klassiki Journal for an essay on the Soviet-Ukrainian director Larisa Shepitko, written and read by host Sam Goff. One of the most significant female filmmakers to emerge from the Soviet system, Shepitko’s career was cut short at the age of just 41 when she was killed in a car crash while location scouting for her fifth feature. Her surviving work reflects her experiences as a child of war and dislocation and remains vital to

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39:49

Pressburger: the Hungarian heart of British film

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2025/02/17

The films of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger are among the jewels in the crown of British cinema. One half of this national institution, Emeric Pressburger, was a Hungarian Jewish refugee – a background rarely commented on in discussions of the duo’s achievements. He brought Central European sensibilities to the British public – but how do we locate the Hungarian element in the Archers? This week, host Sam Goff welcomes back film historian and curator Ian Christie to the pod. Ian knew

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41:20

In the studio with animation legends the Quay Brothers

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2025/02/10

The Klassiki Podcast is back! To kick off our third season, we're stepping into the studio with Stephen and Timothy Quay, aka the Quay Brothers. The duo’s career spans five decades and has seen them craft features, shorts, music videos, adverts, and installations – all in their unmistakable signature style combining stop motion and live action, surrealist flourishes, and an eye for the macabre. Their new feature film, 20 years in the making, is an adaptation of The Sanatorium under the Sign of the

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18:07

From Cranes to Cuba: how Kalatozov and Urusevsky...

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/12/09

We’ve reached the end of the second season of the show! Thank you to everyone who’s listened along so far. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a five-star review or a comment on your podcast app of choice. We’ll be back in 2025 with a new season, bigger and better than before.For the final episode of the season, we’re dipping back in to the archive of the Klassiki Journal for an essay on the groundbreaking collaboration between director Mikhail Kalatozov and cameraman Sergei Urusevsky. Over just

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33:07

Shooting through tragedy: Shoghakat Vardanyan on 1489

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/12/02

Host Sam Goff speaks to Armenian director Shoghakat Vardanyan about her remarkable debut, 1489. In 2020, Vardanyan’s 21-year-old brother went missing days into the Second Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan. With no prior filmmaking experience, Shoghakat picked up her phone and started recording herself and her parents as they began a gruelling quest for information. The resulting film is a portrait of family grief and resilience, in which we watch a young woman learning to express

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36:48

One hundred years of Sergei Parajanov

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/11/25

2024 marks one hundred years since the birth of the great Sergei Parajanov, who turned Soviet cinema on its head in masterpieces like Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors and The Colour of Pomegranates. Persecuted for his experimental artistic approach and queer identity, his work still provokes vital questions about post-Soviet culture. What exactly does Parajanov mean today? To answer this question, host Sam Goff speaks with Carmen Gray, a critic and programmer specialising in the cinema of eastern

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40:35

Eisenstein and Ivan the Terrible today

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/11/18

2024 marks 80 years since the release of the great Sergei Eisenstein’s final, unfinished masterpiece: Ivan the Terrible. Commissioned by Stalin himself to make a biopic celebrating the bloodthirsty 16th-century tsar, Eisenstein instead produced a complex portrait of paranoia and power that remains relevant to this day. To get to the heart of Eisenstein’s Ivan, host Sam Goff speaks with Joan Neuberger, Professor Emerita at the University of Texas and the author of This Thing of Darkness: Eisenstein’s

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40:01

The lonely voice of Aleksandr Sokurov

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/11/11

This month, audiences in London have been revisiting the works of one of Russian cinema’s grandees, with a retrospective of the films of Aleksandr Sokurov, organised by the cultural institute Pushkin House. Best known in the West for his 2002 epic Russian Ark, Sokurov is arguably the last living embodiment of the classic Russian arthouse director, in all its contradictions. To make sense of Sokurov in 2024, host Sam Goff sits down with film historian and curator Ian Christie, who has been working

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15:11

Poland in the 80s, from Wajda to Kieślowski

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/11/04

In this guide, first published on the Klassiki Journal and written and read by host Sam Goff, we introduce the cinema of Poland in the 1980s. The last decade of communist rule was a period marked by the brutality of martial law, but also the emergence of critical new voices and masterpieces from figures such as Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, and Krzysztof Kieślowski. Read the original piece here and make sure to explore our collection of Polish titles. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at

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27:09

Dea Kulumbegashvili and Petar Valchanov at the London...

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/10/28

This month saw the 68th edition of the London Film Festival hit the capital’s cinemas. Host Sam Goff went down to the festival press circuit to get hold of two of Eastern Europe’s finest: Georgia’s Dea Kulumbegashvili, whose abortion drama April has been turning heads since it won the Special Jury Prize at this year’s Venice Film Festival; and Bulgaria’s Petar Valchanov, whose latest stranger-than-fiction tale recreates a bizarre episode from his nation’s recent history involving psychics and alien

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40:53

The footballing fantasies of Sandro Koberidze

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/10/21

Georgian filmmaker Sandro Koberidze joins host Sam Goff to chat about his forthcoming film Dry Leaf and the hidden connections between his two great passions: cinema and football.Watch Sandro’s award-winning What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? on Klassiki now. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

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34:29

Under the Volcano: Damian Kocur reimagines the...

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/10/14

Host Sam Goff sits down with Polish filmmaker Damian Kocur to discuss his new Ukraine war drama Under the Volcano. The film follows a Ukrainian family who are vacationing in Tenerife when the full-scale war breaks out back home, leaving them stranded on the island. Damian explains how he applied his idiosyncratic filmmaking technique to this story of grief and dislocation, and how the war has affected both Ukrainian filmmakers and their neighbours in eastern Europe. Watch Damian’s debut feature

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44:27

Prefab pictures: cinema of the tower block with Owen...

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/10/07

The Klassiki Podcast is back for our second season. We’re kicking off with an interview with author Owen Hatherley about the history of the tower block on screen. Widely understood in the West as symbolic of the grey monotony of life behind the Iron Curtain, the prefab tower block remains misunderstood more than three decades after the fall of communism. To get past the clichés, host Sam Goff sat down with Owen to discuss five films set in and around these mass housing monoliths, from five

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17:29

Yuliya Solntseva: the forgotten queen of Soviet film

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/07/29

In this profile, written by critic and curator Rachel Pronger and first published on the Klassiki Journal, we introduce you to one of the most consequential and misunderstood figures in Soviet film history: Yuliya Solntseva. A silent star who became one half of Ukraine’s most influential creative marriage but whose place in history has been obscured for too long.Klassiki subscribers can watch Solntseva’s iconic performances in Aelita and Earth now. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at

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27:48

The fight for the future of Georgian film

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/07/22

Host Sam Goff is joined by two representatives of the so-called “film movement” in Georgia – Keti Machavariani of the Georgian Film Institute, and Keto Kipiani of the Documentary Association of Georgia – to discuss cinema’s place in the ongoing protest movement against the increasing authoritarianism of the country’s government. They explain the situation on the ground for filmmakers and how the film world relates to the wider protest movement fighting for Georgia’s future.Klassiki subscribers can

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17:35

Springtime for Soviet cinema: the films of the Thaw

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/07/15

In this guide, first published on the Klassiki Journal and written and read by host Sam Goff, we introduce the cinema of the Soviet Thaw. As a new era of cultural freedom swept the USSR after the death of Stalin, iconic directors like Mikhail Kalatozov and Marlen Khutsiev created a new cinematic language defined by sincerity and stylistic innovation.Read the original piece here and make sure to explore our collections of classic Soviet and cult sixties film. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at

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40:39

Żuławski, Parajanov, and me: adventures in Eastern...

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/07/08

Dan Bird is one of the world’s leading specialists on cult cinema from Eastern Europe. His work in restoration and distribution has played a key role in preserving the legacies of iconic filmmakers like Andrzej Żuławski and Sergei Parajanov. He joins host Sam Goff to discuss a career spent traversing Eastern Europe in search of hidden gems.Klassiki subscribers can watch a cult cinema playlist inspired by Dan’s adventures here. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at klassiki.online.

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18:51

The humanism and surrealism of the Czech New Wave

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/07/01

In this piece, first published on the Klassiki Journal by critic Sonya Vseliubska and read here by host Oliver Hunt, we introduce the wild world of the Czech New Wave, one of the most influential movements in Central and Eastern European cinema. Blending aesthetic and philosophical innovations from France and Italy, the New Wave gave us legendary figures like Věra Chytilová, František Vláčil, and Miloš Forman.Read Sonya’s piece here and make sure to explore our collection of Central European film

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24:06

Agnieszka Holland on her urgent and politically...

The Klassiki Podcast ·

2024/06/24

Legendary Polish director Agnieszka Holland joins host Oliver Hunt to discuss her ripped-from-the-headlines new film, Green Border. Tackling the refugee crisis that unfolded along the Poland-Belarus border in 2021, the film provoked political controversy within Poland, and shows Holland at her humanist best.Green Border is out in the UK from 21 June. Make sure also to check out Holland’s 2017 eco-thriller Spoor, available now to Klassiki subscribers. Sign up for a free 7-day trial at

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45 results

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