The Garden Cinema Film Talk

Climate-conscious storytelling - how to create a sustainable and greener industry?

Crosspollinating with our Planting Seeds strand, as we are joined by Danusia Samal from Green Rider, a movement of artists and productions shifting the TV & film industry towards a fairer and healthier way of working, and by Josh Cockcroft from Climate Spring, a global organisation dedicated to shifting our cultural response to the climate crisis by championing storytelling that transforms how it is represented in film, TV, and popular culture.

Fiume o Morte: Igor Bezinović on his film about Gabriele D’Annunzio's short-lived rogue state

In defiance of the Paris Peace Conference Italian poet and military officer Gabriele D’Annunzio led a rogue, short-lived, and ultranationalist occupation of Fiume (now Rijeka, Croatia) in 1919. Over a century later, filmmaker Igor Bezinović revisits this strange historical episode, blending archive, reenactment and interviews with residents in the present, interrogating how a city remembers and forgets, and the enduring presence of European fascism.
 
A stark and peculiar lesson in the history that is not past, Fiume o morte! (Fiume or death!) won the Tiger Award at the International Film Festival Rotterdam 2025 and is Croatia’s submission for the Oscars.
Film writer Savina Petkova discusses the film with director Igor. 

Sweet Sixteen Q&A with Rebecca O'Brien

Ken Loach's longtime collaborator Rebecca O'Brien joins Gareth Evans for a discussion following Sweet Sixteen, showing as part of Ken Loach: A Retrospective at the Garden Cinema.
 
This Q&A was also filmed. You can watch it on our YouTube channel. 

Dragonfly Q&A with Paul Andrew Williams, Andrea Riseborough, Brenda Blethyn

Have we become a nation of strangers? In Dragonfly, neglected pensioner Elsie (Brenda Blethyn) finds an unexpected ally in her younger neighbour Colleen (Andrea Riseborough). Over time, Elsie gains a friend and the troubled Colleen finds a fresh purpose in life as she shops, cleans and cares for her. It brings brighter days for both of them. 
Dragonfly is a well-crafted slow burner anchored by outstanding performances from Andrea Riseborough, Brenda Blethyn, and Jason Watkins.
Though firmly grounded in reality and echoing social realist traditions, the film also functions as a thriller through its consistent high tension and effective misdirection. There's an abstract danger lurking, and we're never sure from where or how it will manifest.
The Garden Cinema's Joe Miller talks to Paul Andrew Williams, Andrea Riseborough, and Brenda Blethyn to discuss the the film.

Ken Loach in Conversation: The Films They Tried to Silence

Join us for an evening of screenings and a live Zoom conversation with Ken Loach as he discusses some of his most controversial and suppressed films - works that TV networks and other institutions have tried to keep from the public. We will discuss The Gamekeeper, The Navigators, The Save The Children Fund Film, Which Side Are You On?, and A Question of Leadership. Films that revealed the complicity of union bosses, the creativity and solidarity of striking miners, the problematic attitude of large aid organisations, police brutality and a lot more...Discover the untold stories behind these banned and buried films, as well as first-hand accounts of the battles Loach fought to bring them to the general public.

Lebanon in the UK: Diaspora - Panel with Lebanese filmmakers in the UK

Lebanon in the UK: Diaspora Shorts was a programme of short films by 5 (women) Lebanese filmmakers based in the UK, part of our season: New Lebanese Cinema: Reclaiming Storytelling. The season is focused on contemporary filmmaking in Lebanon which sees a new generation of directors telling authentic stories of life on the ground, eschewing as much as possible some of the constraints of European financing bodies and co-productions. 
The five filmmakers discuss filmmaking in Lebanon today and what it means to be part of the diaspora. The films discussed are: 
Neo Nahda, dir. by May Ziade
A Tempo the 3rd Act, dir. by Maria Abdel Karim
The Sun Sets on Beirut, dir. by Daniela Stephan
Three Centimeters, dir. by Lara Zeidan
Submarine, dir. by Mounia Akl
https://www.thegardencinema.co.uk/film/lebanon-in-the-uk-diaspora-shorts/

Angeliki Papoulia on Matchbox, Lanthimos and contemporary Greek cinema

The Greek actress, best known for Yorgos Lanthimos' Alps, Dogtooth, and The Lobster, and currently to be seen in Mahdi Fleifel's To A Land Unknown, discusses Yannis Oukonomides' Matchbox and Greek cinema with Erifili Missiou, the curator of the Garden Cinema's Contemporary Greek Cinema: Beyond the Weird Wave season. 

Jess Chandler and Gareth Evans on Jarman's life and poetry, readings by CAConrad and Declan Wiffen.

A special event to mark the re-publication by leading London independent press Prototype of a facsimile edition of Derek Jarman’s early, extremely rare and only poetry book A Finger in the Fishes Mouth, originally published in 1972
Joining publisher Jess Chandler and editor Gareth Evans are poet and writer CAConrad and scholar Declan Wiffen. With thanks to James Mackay.
More podcast episodes can also be found at:https://thegardencinemafilmtalk.podbean.com/
Recorded 30th November 2024 at The Garden Cinema39-41 Parker Street London WC2B 5PQ
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Mark Cousins and Wendy Mitchell on A Sudden Glimpse to Deeper Things

A creative biography of the Scottish artist Wilhelmina Barns-Graham. One of the most important women in British modern art, the painter Wilhelmina Barns-Graham was a highly inspirational figure, whose work was deeply impacted by a pivotal event in her life.  
 
A Sudden Glimpse into Deeper Things feature documentary is Mark Cousins' love letter to Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, a significant yet often overlooked British modernist painter.
True to Cousins' unique style, the film takes different angles to investigate her legacy, combining an account of Barns-Graham's climb to the top of a glacier in Switzerland that was pivotal to her art, a lengthy contemplation over one of her photographs as an elderly woman, and a documentation of his acquisition of a Barns-Graham-inspired tattoo. As with all love letters, Cousins' exploration of Barns-Graham's innovative mind is deeply personal and idiosyncratic, weaving together fragments of her life and art in a complex tapestry.
Writer and director Mark Cousins joins us for a post-screening Q&A about the film.

Naqqash Khalid and Nabhaan Rizwan on In Camera

Director Khalid and lead actor Rizwan joined us for a post-film Q&A to discuss researching and shooting In Camera with host Fatima Serghini and the Garden Cinema audience.