Mydylarama Podcast
40 episodes - English - Latest episode: 12 months ago - ★★★★★ - 1 ratingThis new podcast is hosted by two of the all-female team of academics, film programmers & social researchers behind website myDylarama, Abla Kandalaft and Coco Green. We’ll discuss films/TV series/screen-related matters in relation to social, racial and economic issues with occasional guests, and good indie international films. You can support us at https://ko-fi.com/mydy and subscribe at mydy.link/subscribe for offers, discounts and goodies from our partners.
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Episodes
Leila Latif on Capernaum and contemporary Arab film
May 10, 2023 16:49 - 30 minutes - 20.2 MBIn this episode, journalist and film critic Leila Latif talks about her coup de coeur pick from a season of Arab women filmmakers season at the Garden Cinema in London - Nadine Labaki's Capernaum. We talk about the importance of the film, its sensitive and sober depiction of poverty, its positive reviews and those that called it overblown or manipulative, and what this says about Western stereotypes of the Arab world. We also talk about Sudanese film, Saleh Bakri's always charismatic turns in...
Indy Film Library’s Jack Brindelli on the politics of zombie films, horror and top picks from Amsterdam 2023
April 20, 2023 12:34 - 39 minutes - 30.1 MBIn the spirit of shedding light on all the great (and not-so great), imaginative and impressive films being made by the independent sector the world over, I spoke to Jack Brindelli from Indy Film Library, a platform that supports and reviews independent, under-celebrated or little-known films. The Indy Film Library is now a member of the Independent Media Association and they have an online and live mini-fest coming up end of April. The live element will be in Amsterdam. Jack wanted to flag t...
”A Lana Del Rey video as directed by the press manager for the Coalition for Families”- Animator Nadia Barbu on Blonde.
March 31, 2023 13:59 - 26 minutes - 36.6 MB"A Lana Del Rey video as directed by the press manager for the Coalition for Families". Animator Nadia Barbu joins us for scathing review of Blonde. Nadia is an award winning animation filmmaker and illustrator. You can see her work here. *Trigger warning* We discuss the film's depiction of abortion and miscarriage.
Fragments of a dream - Latin America, the spirit of resistance and music
January 21, 2023 14:48 - 28 minutes - 39.5 MBThis is the recording of the discussion and some music following the screening of Fragments of a Dream at Rich Mix on 19 January 2023. Dr Francisco Dominguez talks to us about the current situation in Chile and what we can do to counter the various far right movements around the world and imperialism, musician Phaxsi Coca treats us to some entrancing live music and the film's co-directors tell us about their work, the Dream Lives On festival in Wales that celebrates Latin American music and p...
Nana Mensah on her work, African American directors & the Duplass school of filmmaking &
November 17, 2022 21:40 - 16 minutes - 23.1 MBWe were delighted to chat with Nana Mensah, director, writer and actress. Her first feature film Queen Of Glory, in which she also stars, met with much critical acclaim and was praised for its astute, unsentimental and at times downright hilarious portrayal of a Ghanian family in the US and high achieving academic daughter. We chat about her foray into filmmaking, how she made use of available resources, recent work by emerging filmmakers and artists of African origin(s) in and she shares her...
Nina Turner, Operation Varsity Blues & Black Student Debt
September 25, 2022 19:26 - 30 minutes - 41.4 MB"What unites these documentaries is that they both believe in a meritocracy" Summer break is officially over... In this episode, we discuss the problem of student debt in the US, the very specific ways it affects Black Americans and the elitism of higher education, through: - The Intercept documentary Freedom Dreams: Black Women and the Student Debt Crisis, narrated by former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a longtime ally of the growing debt abolition movement, which looks at the crippling st...
Q&A with Philip Ilson, director of the London Short Film Festival
May 14, 2022 19:09 - 29 minutes - 41.1 MBMore Q&As! As Coco Green gets stuck in the final chapters of her PhD, we take a break from our usual format to publish Q&As and whatever audio output we fancy. To mark our partnership with the Clermont-Ferrand International Film Festival and celebrate short films, we had a chat with Philip Ilson, founder and director of the London Short Film Festival, and film programmer (for the BFI, amongst others) . We talk about film clubs in the 1990s, the festival's early days, programming freedom an...
Q&A with Rich Lucano, aka Phondupe
April 29, 2022 14:57 - 22 minutes - 30.5 MBAs we take a short break from our usual, very long-form format, we decided to post audio interviews and content via our podcast channel. Abla and Mydy contributor and chillout music expert Eddy Durnan sent a series of questions to ambient music maestro Phondupe, whose transportative sounds have provided much-needed escapism to many in the last couple of years. The musician, whose wider known titles include Ama and Silo, tells us more about his work, inspiration, travels and ambitions. We're ...
Our Picks + Crooklyn
March 01, 2022 11:05 - 1 hour - 84.7 MBWe're back!! We took a couple of months' break for me to get over the chaos of the first few weeks of having a newborn (my second - still chaotic!). We're delighted to have Akua Gyamfi join us this week to discuss her work and her top picks. Akua is the founder of The British Blacklist . She's also the creator of the TBB Talks & Your Aunties Could Never Podcasts, as well as co-creator of The Circle Podcast & Web series. Akua's top picks include the Prince Of Bel-Air reboot and the film she ch...
Our Picks + LuLaRich
December 14, 2021 18:19 - 49 minutes - 67.4 MB*MIC ISSUES* Apologies for the less than stellar quality of sound in this week's podcast. We had a minor missing mic issue which has been resolved. Also to look forward to, in the new year, we'll finally have a jingle! This time, we focus on Amazon Prime doc LuLaRich, which follows the trials and tribulations of MLM empire LuLaRoe, a supposed garish legging selling business that operates as a pyramid scheme in all but name. We discuss the doc itself of course and the problematic nature of mul...
Our Picks + The Closer and Passing
November 23, 2021 13:54 - 57 minutes - 79.6 MBWe jumped straight into this week's picks: Dave Chappelle's Netflix show The Closer - we discuss the various contentious issues that had been raised, the concept of punching down - or up - , taking offence, who holds power and critiques of whiteness. Passing - Does Rebecca Hall's adaptation live up to the book? We discuss casting choices, the American specificity of the phenomenon of passing and the director's perspective on it. 🎙️ mydy.link/podcast Support us: 💷 ko-fi.com/mydy Subscribe ...
Our Picks + Malignant: in praise of creature features
October 27, 2021 16:18 - 48 minutes - 66.6 MBAfter a couple of weeks' break for LFF, we are joined by guest Eddy Durnan, a Mydy subscriber, supporter, and a film buff with a long-standing career in visual effects to talk about (the somewhat maligned) Malignant. A trip down memory lane brings up discussions around Dirty Dancing and Pretty Woman... 🎙️ mydy.link/podcast Support us: 💷 ko-fi.com/mydy Subscribe for offers at: mydy.link/subscribe 🎧 mydy.link/apple
Our Picks + Little Fires Everywhere
September 25, 2021 10:12 - 1 hour - 83.1 MBThis week, our focus is the series Little Fires Everywhere. Based on the book by Celeste Ng, the miniseries tells the intertwined stories of Black single mother artist Mia and White suburban housewife Elena and their ramifications. It’s a series that’s rich and complex in perspectives, strands and ideas. We discuss issues it brings up around privilege and motherhood, adoption and abortion, mixed race friendships and the social capital needed to navigate certain systems, like the courts and sc...
Our Picks + Zola
September 05, 2021 16:39 - 47 minutes - 65.1 MBMore Slasher talk! We go back in time to Series 2 this time to discuss gore, twists, popularity and the show's knack for realistic edges. We also highlight Shiny_Flakes: The Teenage Drug Lord, available to watch on Netflix. Our focus this week is Zola, a brash, colourful, ballsy filmic take on a viral Twitter thread by stripper Aziah "Zola" King and the Rolling Stone article based on it "Zola Tells All: The Real Story Behind the Greatest Stripper Saga Ever Tweeted". We discuss the film's ex...
Our Picks + Slasher: Solstice
August 19, 2021 09:21 - 47 minutes - 65.4 MBThis week, we focus mainly on the third season of serial killer anthology Slasher, to mark the release of season 4 on Shudder. We touch on the excesses of social media, lynch mob mentality, accurate socio-economic depictions and plot twists! Our top picks include Palestine Action - A Year Of Direct Action Against Elbit Systems UK by Real Media, a doc which as its title suggests explores the effective tactics of direct action. It's free to watch on their website. As well as 2018 film Trial By...
Our Picks + MLMs and On Becoming A God In Central Florida
July 28, 2021 19:54 - 52 minutes - 72.6 MBWe're back! Our latest episode following our month-long break managed to bring together our regular go to topics: MLMs, cults and skincare. We discuss American series On Becoming a God in Central Florida, starring Kirsten Dunst as a low paid amusement park employee who climbs the rank of a pyramid scheme type marketing company called Fam. We talk about multi-level marketing (MLMs), their legality, their implications for family and society and their history. We briefly mention the series The P...
Our Picks + Being Mortal
June 14, 2021 10:47 - 44 minutes - 60.7 MBThis week, we focus on Frontline documentary Being Mortal, in which Boston surgeon Atul Gawande talks to doctors and patients about end of life care. The film highlights the sometimes woeful like of preparation and emotional intelligence shown by doctors and the issues that arise in that critical period. We also flag Ramin Bahrani's The White Tiger. The film looks at class and caste divide in India as a poor villager rises up to become a successful entrepreneur. 🎙️ mydy.link/podcast Suppor...
Our Picks + Bubblegum Noir & Promising Young Woman
June 02, 2021 22:09 - 53 minutes - 74 MB*We're skipping ep 23 given the relevance of ep 24 to this month's releases - normal service will resume in 2 weeks!* This week, our guest is Anna Smith, leading film critic and broadcaster and host of the popular podcast Girls On Film. Our focus is women as lead characters in sexually-charged noir films from the 90s to the present day - to the new spate of films that belong to what Anna calls Bubblegum Noir, using Emerald Fennell's Promising Young Woman as a starting point. We also discuss n...
Our Picks + We Work: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn
May 12, 2021 08:51 - 54 minutes - 75.4 MBThis week, we discuss the documentary charting the rise and fall of co-working space/real estate scam We Work and its eccentric co-founder Adam Neumann. We cover the ethics of co-working spaces and their implications and the cultish elements of the We Work "experience". We flag John Carpenter's prescient classic They Live and the Line Of Duty finale. 🎙️ mydy.link/podcast Support us: 💷 ko-fi.com/mydy Subscribe for offers at: mydy.link/subscribe 🎧 mydy.link/apple
Our Picks + One Night In Miami
April 25, 2021 10:57 - 58 minutes - 80.4 MBRegina King’s directorial debut starring Kingsley Ben-Adir as Malcolm X, Eli Goree as Cassius Clay, Aldis Hodge as Jim Brown, and Leslie Odom as Jr. Sam Cooke, is a fictionalised account of the four icons’ meeting in Miami, Fl after Clay’s first heavyweight title with Sonny Liston. The film is based on the Kemp Powers play which imagines their one night at the Hampton House, located in Brownsville, outside of Liberty City, due to segregation laws in Miami, which was the base for Miami's black...
Our Picks + Crip Camp
April 07, 2021 21:36 - 44 minutes - 61.7 MBThis week we are joined by psychotherapist Antonella Mercurio to talk about Crip Camp and the issues around activism, aspirational and revolutionary movements and disability rights sparked by the documentary. Crip Camp (Netflix) sheds light on summer camp for teenagers with disabilities and the rights movement borne out of its pioneering set up. Top picks include horror film The Empty Man, a creepy, hugely entertaining feature released to mostly so-so reviews in 2020 but has built a bit of a...
Our Picks + The Obituary Of Tunde Johnson
March 23, 2021 12:25 - 56 minutes - 77.6 MBThis week, we are joined by poet and writer Ryan Ormonde to discuss Ali LeRoi's feature film The Obituary Of Tunde Johnson that was screened as part of the BFI Flare Festival. The "timeloop" film which sees Tunde, a young Black gay man who is shot and killed by a police officer, relive his last day on Earth over and over again. We talk about the relationships, Black masculinity, race and of course drift off topic to talk about ice cream and skincare. Top picks this week include Welsh crime ...
Our Picks + Typical
March 16, 2021 18:10 - 54 minutes - 74.5 MBWe're stretching things a bit this week to include filmed theatre: our guest is director Anastasia Osei-Kuffour whose latest production is Typical at the Soho Theatre (available to stream online). The play stars Richard Blackwood as Christopher Alder, a Black man who died in police custody in 1998. The play, a monologue that's halfway between poetry and rap recounting Christopher's last day and the acts of racism he experiences leading up to his death, highlights issues around racial stereot...
Our Picks + Judas And The Black Messiah
March 01, 2021 09:36 - 46 minutes - 64.3 MBHighlights this week include the Glasgow Film Festival, entirely online, with its usual strong selection and carefully curated programmes, running from 24 February to 7 March and MLK/FBI is a 2020 American documentary directed by Sam Pollard who co-directed the 1987 doc Eyes on the Prize, which traces the FBI's investigation of Martin Luther King. Obviously Eyes on the Prize comes up as we discuss our main film of the evening: Judas And The Black Messiah directed by Shaka King, a powerful and...
Our Picks + Be Kind Rewind
February 11, 2021 14:41 - 57 minutes - 78.7 MBThis week, guest and Mydylarama co-founder Judy Harris joins us to discuss the beauty of amateur cinema, community cohesion, gentrification, colourblind casting and the joys of play in Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind. We also touch on the issues around race and casting choices in Netflix hit show Bridgerton. When she's not doing revisions on a PhD on the utopian film theory of the poet Vachel Lindsay, which the viva panel described as "conceptually ambitious but let down by its organisation"...
Our Picks + Women In Body Horror
January 19, 2021 10:29 - 55 minutes - 76.1 MBThis week, we are joined by Georgina Allan, film editor for the Radical Art Review to talk about women in horror, specifically focusing on Julia Ducournau's Raw and Alice Lowe's Prevenge and their representations of women as complex protagonists and instigators of violence (as opposed to helpless victims or mindless monsters). We mention Jordan Peele's Us, Marina De Van's In My Skin and Don't Look Back and others. Picks of the week include Aaron Moorhead and Justin Benson's mind warping, be...
Our picks + Antebellum & Century Of The Self
December 29, 2020 17:51 - 1 hour - 86.4 MBWe are joined once again by Tom Barlow, chair of The Media Fund and host of the show News Club UK, to discuss the 2002 documentary series The Century of the Self. The Adam Curtis documentary analyses how Freudian theories are used for ideological control by consumer capitalism and governments. We talk about the implications of conceptualising freedom as autonomy and self-expression; and the conditions for building a democracy outside of emotional manipulation. Tom will briefly discuss his ...
Our Picks + The Imposter & Little White Lie
December 14, 2020 14:25 - 52 minutes - 72.3 MBBefore we introduce our picks, we quickly shoehorn in one last point about last week's Three Identical Strangers...This week's top picks include Aaron Sorkin's historical legal drama The Trial Of The Chicago Seven, and Najwa Najjar's Palestinian road trip festival hit Between Heaven And Earth. We discuss the utterly bonkers documentary The Imposter, in which an Algerian-French young man in Spain claims to be a 16-year-old Texan, who'd been missing for 3 years, and Little White Lie, the story...
Our Picks + The Last Blackman in San Francisco & One Man And His Shoes
November 30, 2020 23:02 - 51 minutes - 70.9 MBNew fortnight, new episode. Abla's picks of the week are the brilliant, creepy horror debut Caveat by filmmaker Damian McCarthy and Palestinian film Western Arabs, a chaotic, powerful and very personal look at the impact of displacement, by Omar Shargawi, as both films are reviewed on Mydylarama. Our festival to watch out for is Documenta Madrid, flagged by Film Fest Report. Coco's picks were The Lovers And The Despot - a documentary about an actress and her filmmaker husband who were forc...
Our Picks + His House & The Social Dilemma
November 14, 2020 18:51 - 57 minutes - 78.8 MBThis week, Abla picks Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult, a sort of parallel documentary to the previously discussed The Vow, also about Keith Raniere and NXIVM but more explosive and revelatory and Egyptian horror series Paranormal. She mentions award-winning documentary Tell Spring Not to Come This Year available to watch online all this month here. Coco Green talks about: The China Hustle (2017) Like the 2016 documentary Betting on Zero, about short sellers and their suspicions of frau...
Our Picks + Keenie Meenie: Britain's Private Army
October 26, 2020 11:36 - 48 minutes - 65.9 MBOur guest this week is Phil Miller, investigative journalist and staff reporter at Declassified UK. We discuss the origins of British mercenaries in recent proxy wars and the extent of government culpability in his documentary (and the book it's based on) Keenie Meenie: Britain's Private Army (2020) - available online! We've not been bawled over by any films so we're only highlighting a couple of festivals to watch out for this week: IDFA - the Amsterdam documentary film festival, one of the ...
Our Top Picks + Revolution & Social Change in Sci-Fi
October 12, 2020 14:30 - 1 hour - 99.7 MBA longer episode than usual in which we are joined by Media Fund Strategic Coordinator Thomas Barlow. Among the many other things he does is conducting anti-fascist history tours in his home city of Manchester! Tom chose to focus on themes of revolution and social change in sci-fi, with a particular focus on Elysium, The Expanse and Battlestar Galactica. We discuss how the film and series creators depict the agents of change, the use of a single hero-like protagonist as opposed to the class ...
Our Picks + "Colonial Chic" & Gone With The Wind
September 29, 2020 13:21 - 43 minutes - 60.3 MBThis week's focus is colonial chic in light of the touted and actual removal of Gone with the Wind (1939) from a number of programmes and archives due to its racist outlook. We discuss themes of colonialism and postcolonialism through film, namely the above and Jane Austen's work, and their filmic representations. As the saying goes, it’s not what you're looking at, it’s what you see. Our picks this week are the Encounters Film Festival—GET YOUR PASS—and its expert, sharp-eyed curating—only ...
Our Picks + Waves
September 13, 2020 08:28 - 39 minutes - 54.1 MBThis week we are joined by Matt Howsam, a production coordinator in the VFX industry and a film critic. We mention the hilarious and highly original One Cut of the Dead (2017) by Shin'ichirô Ueda, a Japanese Zombie comedy in the style of some of the best mockumentaries out there and a homage to low budget filmmaking. Depending on where you are you can watch it on Shudder or buy the DVD. Abla also highlights the Netflix series Unwell (2020– ), which looks at the dark side of the wellness indus...
Our Picks + Pablo Navarrete (No Extradition)
September 07, 2020 12:20 - 46 minutes - 64.3 MBThis week, Coco and Abla interview documentary filmmaker and journalist Pablo Navarrete. Pablo's latest film No Extradition is a record of the campaign of support for Julian Assange who is facing extradition to the US. He also follows John Shipton, Assange's father, over several months as he fought to secure his son's release from Belmarsh prison in the UK. The filmmaker, whose first documentary "Inside the Revolution: A Journey into the Heart of Venezuela" dates from 2009, was working for Te...
Our Picks + Black Is King (Special Guest)
August 19, 2020 16:30 - 1 hour - 82.7 MBFor this episode of Mydylarama's Top Picks podcast, we're joined by our guest, academic, film programmer and Japanese Avant-Garde and Experimental Film Festival producer George Crosthwait. George's pick of the week, and also his first trip back to the cinema since February, is Shannon Murphy's debut film Babyteeth (2019), an Australian coming-of-age drama that both impressed and confused him due to it's tonal eccentricities. Abla's picks of the week include Richard Pryor: Omit The Logic (20...
American Horror Story: Apocalypse & Top Picks
August 05, 2020 12:10 - 49 minutes - 67.4 MBAnother fortnight, another episode! We start with our picks and move on to a discussion about American Horror Story: Apocalypse (S8, 2018). As huge horror fans, we'll have other episodes down the line in this genre.... Coco's Top Pick is American Son (2019), performed as a one set straight play, in which an interracial couple waits at the police station for news of their teenage son's whereabouts, revealing the lies a family has told themselves about political race and the limitations of ...
The Staircase (2018) & Our Picks
July 21, 2020 10:39 - 47 minutes - 65.4 MBIn this episode, we discuss our picks of the fortnight and focus on true crime documentary The Staircase and the issues that it brings up. The Dark finale was definitely a highlight, a truly gripping series, with twists and turns as bonkers as those in Lost, with none of the incoherence and sheer wackiness. Palestinian filmmaker Sameer Qumsieh's doc Walled Citizen, in which he explores travelling with the world's lowest ranking passport was screened as part of the Galway FF selection. You ...
Top 5 on Netflix - The Black Middle Classes
July 09, 2020 13:01 - 49 minutes - 67.5 MBFrom Self-Made: Inspired by the Life of Madam C.J. Walker (2020); Strong Island (2017); Skin (2019); I Am Not Your Negro (2016); & Black Privilege (2019), emerges the theme of Black Middle-Class aspiration. While they all hit the mark for entertainment value, some fall short in misrepresenting a fantasy of black life that is more based-on-aspiration than matter-of-fact. In light of the solidarity expressed by the Black Lives Matter movement - and other protesters and campaigners - with Pales...
Top 5 Black Lives Matter Collection on Netflix
July 01, 2020 21:35 - 22 minutes - 30.8 MBThe myDylarama team has decided to launch a podcast, on the back of our Screen Extra section, and our wish to offer an academic/contextual/ socio-political take on film and screen-related matters. It will be hosted by Coco Green, armchair critic and wannabe academic (ABD PhD) and Abla Kandalaft, a film programmer and journalist. We both research and work with issues around race, colonialism, class and culture. Our first myDylarama podcast begins with this top five from Coco Green. She lists h...