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PODCAST

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle

Past Present Feature is a film appreciation podcast hosted by Emmy-winning director Marcus Mizelle, showcasing today’s filmmakers, their latest release, and the past cinema that inspired them.

tv & film film interviews

All Episodes

42:04

E74 • From Prison to Premiere • TAWFIK SABOUNI, dir....

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/04/14

Tawfik Sabouni breaks down his Berlinale-bound documentary Other Side of the Sun and how it grew out of lived experience, from filming protests during the Syrian revolution to imprisonment, exile, and ultimately shaping that reality into his first feature. He doesn’t separate fiction and nonfiction, approaching cinema as one language built around truth and urgency.The film follows survivors returning to the prison where they were held, using reenactment to access memory rather than spectacle. Built

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57:54

E73 • Facing the Future Without Looking Away •...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/04/03

Charlie Tyrell breaks down how The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist, this years SXSW Audience Award winner now in theaters from Focus Features, turns an overwhelming, abstract subject into something personal by grounding it in fatherhood. Instead of approaching AI through pure information or fear, the film frames it through the lens of bringing a child into the world, making the stakes immediate, emotional, and human.Co-directed by Daniel Roher, Academy Award winning director of Navalny,

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59:55

E72 • Feel the Fear, Do it Anyway • FREDERIKE MIGOM,...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/03/31

Belgian filmmaker Frederike Migom breaks down her Berlinale premiere Everyone’s Sorry Nowadays, a coming-of-age story set almost entirely inside a single home and a young girl’s mind. The film explores identity through a tightly contained structure, blending realism with imagined sequences that bring the character’s inner world to life.She talks through her unconventional path into directing, from acting and production work to navigating Europe’s state-funded film system. A key turning point came

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43:55

E71 • Don’t Wait For Perfect Conditions • JEREMY...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/03/17

Jeremy Workman discusses Secret Mall Apartment, his Netflix documentary about a group of Rhode Island artists who secretly built and lived in an apartment inside a busy shopping mall, filming the entire four-year experiment themselves. After a strong self-released theatrical run, the film is now streaming on Netflix.Jeremy traces the project back to a chance meeting in Athens, where he connected with the main subject and slowly earned the trust of the full group after years of other filmmakers being

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79:35

E70 • Build It Small, Release It Smart • GILLE...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/03/03

Gille Klabin discusses Weekend at the End of the World, his follow-up to The Wave, and the deliberate choice to build a second feature that didn’t require waiting for studio permission. Shot in 12 days on a sub-$300K budget, the film was designed around creative, logistical, and financial control. Gille reflects on the lessons he learned from The Wave’s release, where traditional distribution left him frustrated by opaque marketing spends and limited transparency, and how that experience reshaped

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47:02

E69 • When the Story Becomes the Evidence • SHARON...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/02/17

Sharon Liese joins the show after premiering Seized at Sundance to unpack the story behind the Marion, Kansas newspaper raid that ignited a national debate around press freedom, abuse of power, and the fragility of the First Amendment. What begins as an egregious police search of a small-town newsroom expands into a layered portrait of community tension, history, ego, and how something unthinkable can happen in a place that looks quiet on the surface. The film moves beyond headlines into character,

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53:36

E68 • Finding the Frame in a Shared Landscape • GABBY...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/02/10

Gabby Osio Vanden and Jack Weisman join the show after winning Sundance’s Grand Jury Prize to unpack the ten-year road behind Nuisance Bear, a polar bear’s journey through two connected worlds: tourist-heavy Churchill, Manitoba, and the Inuit community of Arviat, where the stakes are far more complex and far less welcoming. The film becomes a meditation on coexistence, control, and who gets labeled a “nuisance” in a shared landscape.We dig into craft and access: finding the right position for the

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0:32

BeastGrip - Proud Sponsor of the Past Present Feature...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/01/29

Proud to welcome BEASTGRIP as a new sponsor of the Past Present Feature Podcast 🎙️ Head over to Beastgrip.com and use code PASTPRESENTFEATURE for 10% offWhen you're filming on your phone and need something solid, modular, and built for real productions - including 28 Years Later and Left Handed Girl - BeastGrip's rigs, lenses, and accessories are designed to hold up without slowing you down. If you’re ready to level up your mobile workflow, head to Beastgrip.com and use code

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35:20

E67 • Taking the Scary Road on Purpose • STEPHANIE...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/01/27

Stephanie Ahn discusses Bedford Park, (Special Jury Award) her Sundance U.S. Dramatic Competition debut about a Korean American woman in her 30s pulled back into her parents’ home after her mother’s car accident, where she meets the man responsible and an unexpected connection begins to form. Ahn shares why she needed to make this film, how growing up Korean American left her hungry for stories that felt real beyond familiar clichés, and why writing Bedford Park meant finally walking straight into

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50:32

E66 • Finding the Soul of Your Film • J.M. HARPER,...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2026/01/20

Documentary filmmaker and editor J.M. Harper discusses Soul Patrol (Best Director Winner at Sundance ‘26), his six-year journey telling the story of the first Black special operations unit in Vietnam. What began with reading Eddie Manuel’s book grew into years of weekly conversations, slow trust-building, and eventual access to never-before-seen Super 8 footage and photographs shot by the soldiers themselves. Harper also reflects on how his work editing Jeen‑Yuhs: A Kanye Trilogy sharpened his

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46:38

E65 • Curation as Craft, Responsibility, Intuition •...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/12/30

Sundance feature programmer Ania Trzebiatowska joins the show to talk about curation as craft, responsibility, and intuition. From her roots in Poland to running Krakow’s Off Camera festival, working in acquisitions at Visit Films, and programming U.S. and world documentary features at Sundance, Ania reflects on how taste is formed and why being pleasantly surprised when viewing submissions still matters most.We discuss the realities filmmakers obsess over, including who you know, timing,

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53:38

E64 • Make The Struggle Worth It • PARSIFAL REPARATO,...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/12/09

Italian documentarian Parsifal Reparato discusses She, his five-year journey inside Vietnam’s electronics manufacturing world, where young migrant women work 12-hour shifts producing devices for the global market. What began as labor-rights research grew into a portrait of fear, capitalism, and survival, earned through slow trust-building with workers afraid to speak openly.We unpack creative influences like Lars Von Trier’s Dogville, Joshua Oppenheimer’s The Act of Killing, and the observational

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33:03

E63 • More With Less Through Technique and Resilience...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/12/02

Taiwanese filmmaker Shih-Ching Tsou traces her path from a strict upbringing in Taipei to directing Left-Handed Girl, Taiwan’s 2025 Oscar submission for Best International Film, and now streaming on Netflix. After years working alongside Sean Baker, the four-time Academy Award winner known for Anora, Tangerine, and The Florida Project, and her creative partner since they co-directed their first feature Take Out, Shih-Ching steps forward with her solo directorial debut.Shih-Ching and Baker wrote the

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3:50

Past Present Feature Film Festival (Nov. 19-21) in...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/11/10

12 films. 3 nights. 1 Collective.The Past Present Feature Film Festival is a curated, three-day showcase of cinematic storytelling across time, highlighting overlooked gems, current festival hits, and future feature films in the making. Sponsored by The Past Present Feature Podcast and Leica Camera, all screenings take place November 19 – 21 in Hollywood, CA, at the Eastwood Performing Arts Center (1089 N OXFORD AVE, 90029)Tickets @ pastpresentfeature.eventive.org🎟️ ALL ACCESS PASSES Now Available

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49:35

E62 • From Lockdown to Locarno • JANICKE ASKEVOLD,...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/10/14

Janicke Askevold unpacks her journey from shooting Together Alone with friends during COVID to premiering her new feature Solomamma at the Locarno Film Festival. The Norwegian actor-turned-director traces how a one-page pitch led to full Norwegian Film Institute backing and a 25-day Oslo shoot that balanced long summer daylight, short 8-hour workdays, and a five-year-old co-star.Solomamma follows Edith, a journalist and single mother who secretly seeks out her sperm donor - an encounter that evolves

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44:45

E61 • From Mini-DV Kid to Popcorn Provocateur •...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/09/30

Mercedes Bryce Morgan unpacks the whirlwind making of Bone Lake, an 18-day Atlanta shoot that battled storms, injuries, and lost gear before completing its night-boat climax on a Los Angeles soundstage. After a Fantastic Fest premiere and Deadline-breaking international sales, the erotic survival thriller heads to U.S. theaters with buzzy audience reactions and a proudly “fun, commercial, popcorn” spirit.Mercedes traces her path from mini DV Star Wars shorts and USC to festival features, describing

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47:06

E60 • From Stroke Survivor to Digital Age Storyteller...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/09/02

Norwegian filmmaker Audun Amundsen, director of Click the Link Below, which premiered at Doc Edge in Auckland, follows online gurus like Akbar Sheikh and Tai Lopez to show how engagement algorithms reward extremes and blur value with hype. Audun traces an unlikely path from renewable energy engineer and backpacker to documentarian, surviving a stroke at 23 before returning to Indonesia that resulted in his previous documentary Newtopia, a 15-year chronicle of a community’s shift from barter to

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52:46

E59 • Breaking Taboos and Crafting The Anti-Heroine •...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/08/19

Nina Knag’s debut feature, Don’t Call Me Mama, which marks her arrival as a bold new voice in cinema, just premiered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Crystal Globe competition. She tackles the taboo subject of relationships between older women and younger asylum seekers through the lens of complex, unapologetic female anti-heroes. Drawing from personal insight and the influence of trailblazing female filmmakers, Knag crafts a story where the setting becomes an active force in

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54:39

E58 • Inside the Mind of a Festival Gatekeeper • Thom...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/08/05

Thom Powers, a renowned documentary programmer for the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), former artistic director of DocNYC, and host of the “Pure Nonfiction” podcast, delves into his journey from filmmaker to influential festival curator. Thom shares behind-the-scenes details about programming films like “The Bibi Files,” directed by Alexis Bloom, and Rebecca Huntt’s “Beba,” highlighting the unique power of documentaries to engage audiences. Thom emphasizes the importance of community

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52:23

E57 • From Collab’ing With Coppola to Creating ‘The...

Past Present Feature with Marcus Mizelle ·

2025/07/22

In this conversation, filmmaker James DeMonaco discusses his journey from writing the comedy “Jack” and working with Francis Ford Coppola and Luc Besson, to creating the successful “Purge” franchise. Up next is his latest, a psychological horror film, “The Home” starring Pete Davidson, which is releasing theatrically July 25th via Roadside Attractions. DeMonaco shares insights on genre forms in screenwriting - and a 30 year career as a Hollywood screenwriter, the challenges of production, and the

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77 results

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