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PODCAST

Celebrating Cinema

From cult classics to today’s popular movies, Celebrating Cinema, from Amsterdam’s LAB111, explores the films that shape how we see the world. Each week, Laura Gommans (film journalist), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic), Kiriko Mechanicus (filmmaker), and Tom Ooms (film programmer) take turns diving into movies old and new — revealing what they tell us about ourselves, our culture, and the times we live in. Insightful, nostalgic, and sometimes delightfully absurd, this is a podcast for anyone who loves

tv & film

All Episodes

00:43:20

From Mary Shelley to The Bride: Why Is Frankenstein's...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/03/05

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein at nineteen. Cinema has been retelling it ever since - and mainly getting it wrong.Hosts Laura Gommans and Tom Ooms dig into the big question: is Frankenstein the story of a misunderstood outcast, an abandoned child who never asked to exist, or a cautionary tale about scientists who should really know better? More importantly, why is Frankenstein always so ugly?They trace the monster on screen through James Whale's Universal original in 1931, Hammer Horror's

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00:46:12

Wim Wenders Says Cinema Isn't Political. These Films...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/02/27

At this year's Berlinale Film Festival, Wim Wenders declared that cinema is not political — so hosts Elliot Bloom and Kiriko Mechanicus, both speaking from their own diasporic experiences, decided to put that to the test. Moving through Persepolis, Incendies, Bend It Like Beckham, Girlhood, and Chantal Akerman's News from Home, they explore how diaspora cinema transforms the politics of borders and belonging into something deeply, unavoidably human. Because for anyone who has ever lived

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00:25:43

The DJ Who Turned Sirāt Into a Rave Experience w/...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/02/24

Hugo Emmerzael speaks with DJ and composer Kangding Ray about Sirat — a punishing, bass-driven plunge into the borderlands of rave culture. The film follows a father searching for his missing daughter amid sound systems and stateless horizons, unfolding less as conventional narrative than as sensory immersion.Kangding Ray reflects on his journey from underground club DJ to film composer, and on what it means to carry the ethos of the dancefloor into cinema. Rather than sanitising rave culture, he

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00:42:11

How To Market A Movie: Are Marty Supreme and...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/02/19

With social media hype swirling around Marty Supreme and Wuthering Heights, hosts Laura Gommans and Hugo Emmerzael unpack the marketing machinery behind both releases—and whether the films can live up to the discourse they’ve generated.Hugo questions whether the outrage over Emerald Fennell’s reimagining of Heathcliff is worth our energy, suggesting we might be better off taking the film at face value instead of getting caught up in manufactured controversy. Meanwhile, Laura traces the evolution of

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00:30:29

How Brokeback Mountain Changed Queer Storytelling—and...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/02/12

Host Laura Gommans chats with cultural critic Esje Seigfried about the lasting impact of Brokeback Mountain 20 years on, and how queer cinema has expanded since. They dig into the genre’s history of tragedy and grief—and ask: can queer stories also be fun, messy and steamy, like Heated Rivalry and Heartstopper? From the melancholia of Happy Together to the risks queer filmmakers take today, they explore the queer stories we want to see more of, and whether it really matters if a straight actor plays

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00:39:36

Park Chan-wook’s No Other Choice Is A Brutal Take On...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/02/05

In this episode, Laura Gommans and Hugo Emmerzael dive into what might be Park Chan-wook’s masterpiece, No Other Choice, breaking down how it tackles capitalism and the fragile middle-class experience in ways that feel all too real.They also chat about the recent Oscar nominations and the 45th anniversary of Kubrick’s The Shining—exploring why the true horror of this classic, how it clashed with Stephen King’s vision, and why Kubrick would have loved TikTok film debates.Get tickets to No Other

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00:39:46

Can We Still Watch Films by Bad People?

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/01/29

The death of French cinema icon Brigitte Bardot has reignited a familiar and uncomfortable question: can we separate art from the artist? Long celebrated as a screen legend, Bardot’s legacy is also inseparable from her openly expressed far-right views—forcing a renewed reckoning with how we engage with culturally significant work made by morally compromised figures.In this episode of Celebrating Cinema, hosts Laura Gommans and Hugo Emmerzael reflect on their own responsibilities as viewers and

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00:40:53

Hamnet and Movies That Are Secret Shakespeare Plays

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/01/22

Hosts Laura Gommans and Hugo Emmerzael explore Chloé Zhao’s Hamnet (yes, a movie about Shakespeare and his family), alongside a range of movies that are, in one way or another, really just adaptations of Shakespeare's plays.Laura and Hugo also discuss Richard Linklater’s Blue Moon, a film that may have slipped under the radar this awards season, though Ethan Hawke’s magnetic performance is not to be missed, as well as the endearing documentary Tale of Sylian.Get tickets to Hamnet @ LAB111Get tickets

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00:48:48

2000 Metres To Andriivka And Why We Need Documentary...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/01/15

2000 Metres to Andriivka is an extraordinary and deeply immersive war documentary. The latest film from Ukrainian director Mstyslav Chernov gets hosts Kiriko and Hugo thinking about why we watch documentaries in the first place and what makes them so powerful right now.They talk about how documentary cinema can respond to the urgency of the world around us, while also finding beauty in raw, unfiltered reality. As they unpack Chernov’s almost video game–like sense of movement and immersion, the

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00:32:59

Why Children Of Men Is The Most Realistic Dystopian Film

Celebrating Cinema ·

2026/01/08

This week, Laura and Hugo dive into films chosen by you. Drawing from our LAB Suggestions programme, where audiences select their favourite films to be shown on the big screen in Amsterdam, they share their standout picks. From the chilling plausibility of Children of Men to a friendly (but pointed) debate over whether Christopher Nolan’s Inception owes more than a little to Satoshi Kon’s Paprika.Along the way, they share tidbits from conversations with Colin Farrell and Alfonso Cuarón, plus a voice

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00:31:58

Ranking the Most Talked About Films of 2025

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/12/30

As the year comes to a close, hosts Laura Gommans and Elliot Bloom look back on the films that defined 2025. They revisit their standout favourites, unexpected discoveries, and the releases that missed the mark. They also explore why so many films from major directors felt surprisingly average this year and spotlight a handful of remarkable titles that never reached Dutch cinemas but deserve far more attention. Share your own favourite films of 2025 and join the conversation.

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00:34:05

The Winter Films Everyone Is Talking About

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/12/18

In this final review roundup before the festive season, hosts Laura Gommans and Elliot Bloom take a look at some new releases that should be on your radar this winter. Joachim Trier returns with Sentimental Value, a film about filmmaking and a tender companion to his celebrated feature The Worst Person in the World. Harris Dickerson steps behind the camera for the first time with Urchin, a striking debut anchored by a magnetic performance from Frank Dillane. Rose Byrne offers one of the most moving

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00:34:43

What Makes a Film Festive?

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/12/12

Host Laura Gommans, an unabashed devotee of festive films, teams up with Kiriko, who prefers her Christmas viewing a little more Eyes Wide Shut than Love Actually. Together they unpack what truly makes a film “festive,” trade beloved classics and oddball alternatives, and dream up which directors should (or absolutely shouldn’t) make a holiday movie. As they share how cinema shapes their own festive traditions.Get tickets to Holiday Classics @ LAB111Get tickets to LAB111 9th Aniversary PartyGet

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00:57:12

How Sex And The City Maps The Rise And Fall Of The...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/12/04

Sex and the City may not be canonical cinema, but as a cultural artefact it charts America’s imperial confidence, and its slow, chaotic unravelling, with uncanny precision. After finally submitting to the franchise this year, host Hugo Emmerzael became obsessed, culminating in his Little White Lies piece “Sex and the City 2 and the End of America.”In this episode, Hugo and Kiriko Mechanicus revisit the original series, the two films, and And Just Like That…, tracing how a once-aspirational guide to

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00:34:05

Die My Love, Splitsville, Nouvelle Vague + The World...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/11/27

In this review roundup, hosts Laura Gommans and producer Elliot Bloom find themselves divided on Lynne Ramsay’s Die My Love, a fierce, unflinching portrait of postpartum collapse starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. Laura and Elliot are also split on Splitsville, a buoyant physical comedy about the messiness of opening up a marriage. But both are fully won over by Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague, a playful reframing of the making of À Bout de Souffle told in the grammar of the French

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00:57:49

Jack of All Trades: How Jack Nicholson Became a...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/11/20

To mark the 50th-anniversary rerelease of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, hosts Hugo Emmerzael and Tom Ooms revisit the career of the man at the center of its enduring power: Jack Nicholson. In this episode, they explore how Nicholson’s performances, volatile and mischievous yet remarkably controlled, forged a style of American screen acting entirely his own.From his countercultural rise in the late ’60s to the defining roles that secured his place as a cinema icon, Hugo and Tom examine the man

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00:32:55

The Smashing Machine, Back To The Future & It Was...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/11/13

This week, hosts Laura Gommans and Elliot Bloom take on three standout releases. Benny Safdie’s The Smashing Machine, a quirky biopic starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as MMA legend Mark Kerr, prompts the question: did it really deserve a fifteen-minute standing ovation at the Venice Film Festival?To celebrate its 40th anniversary, Robert Zemeckis’s blockbuster classic Back to the Future returns, as Laura and Elliot debate whether Marty McFly’s story is truly as relatable as we think.Finally, they

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00:59:10

How The American New Wave Took Over Hollywood

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/11/06

The American New Wave, or New Hollywood, launched the careers of some of the United States’ most iconic filmmakers, from Steven Spielberg and George Lucas to Francis Ford Coppola and Martin Scorsese. But what was this era, when studios granted directors unprecedented creative freedom, really about, and what did it reveal about 1970s America?Hosts Elliot Bloom and Tom Ooms dive into this transformative period, discussing the quintessential elements of the movement while spotlighting cult heroes like

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00:38:52

What Bugonia Gets Wrong About Conspiracy Theorists +...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/10/30

Yorgos Lanthimos’s Bugonia follows two conspiracy-obsessed men who kidnap a powerful CEO, convinced she’s an alien bent on destroying Earth. Emma Stone and Jesse Plemons shine, but while host Laura Gommans revels in their performances, Elliot Bloom questions whether Lanthimos’s satire lands in the world we live in today.Plus, Kelly Reichardt joins Hugo Emmerzael to discuss The Mastermind — a stripped-down art heist film set in 1970s suburban America — and her collaboration with Josh O’Connor.Get

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00:36:08

Tilda Swinton And The Story Of A Life In Film w/ Mark...

Celebrating Cinema ·

2025/10/23

In collaboration with Eye Filmmuseum’s exhibition Ongoing, celebrating the singular career of Tilda Swinton, Hugo Emmerzael sits down with filmmaker, writer, and lifelong cinephile Mark Cousins — Swinton’s longtime collaborator and one of cinema’s great chroniclers. Best known for The Story of Film and Women Make Film, which he created alongside Swinton, Cousins reflects on his wild years as a critic interviewing Hollywood legends in their homes, his boundless curiosity for the moving image, and how

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143 results

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