Edinburgh Film Podcast

The University of Edinburgh

Dr Pasquale Iannone (Lecturer in Film Studies) is joined by staff and students from across the University of Edinburgh as well as guests from the world of film and TV to discuss all aspects of screen media.

  1. FEB 10 · VIDEO

    EFP 74: Professor Jennifer Coates on Nagisa Oshima

    On this episode of the podcast, host Dr Pasquale Iannone goes back to Japan in 1969 to discuss a lesser-known film from the iconoclastic New Wave filmmaker Nagisa Oshima. Oshima is best-known for subversive, controversial works such as the erotic drama In The Realm of the Senses (1976) and the David Bowie-starring war film Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence (1983) The episode focuses on Boy (1969) an earlier picture from Oshima which is based on a remarkable true story. The film follows a con artist couple who travel across Japan with their two young sons. Their main money making scheme involves provoking minor car accidents and feigning injury to claim compensation from befuddled drivers. The eldest boy, 10-year-old Toshio, is trained up by his parents to take part in the scams. Boy was recently released on Blu-Ray by Radiance as part of a box set of Oshima films titled Radical Japan. Joining Pasquale to discuss Boy is Professor Jennifer Coates. Jennifer is Professor of Japanese Studies at the University of Sheffield. Her many publications include books such as Film Viewing in Postwar Japan, 1945-1968: An Ethnographic Study (2022) and Making Icons: Repetition and the Female Image in Japanese Cinema, 1945-1964 (2016). Jennifer and Pasquale explore the landscape of postwar Japanese cinema and Oshima’s beginnings as a critic. They then turn to Boy, first placing the film in the context of Oshima’s broader career and then discussing key scenes, commenting on elements such as use of location, voiceover as well as the director’s masterful use of widescreen.

    35 min
  2. JAN 26 · VIDEO

    EFP 73: Leith Kino

    On this episode of the podcast, host Dr Pasquale Iannone reports from Leith Kino, a micro cinema initiative set up by a veritable supergroup of film professionals and enthusiasts. The initiative - which is hosted by bar, restaurant and event space Leith Depot on Edinburgh’s Leith Walk - aims to provide a space for engagement with avant-garde, experimental, arthouse and trash film.Since September 2025, the Leith Kino team have hosted an eclectic series of events, with members taking it in turn to programme screenings. Pasquale went along to their screening of Kim's Video (2024), a documentary centring on a legendary New York video store run by an enigmatic Korean businessman who one day decides to donate his entire collection, not to a University or a museum, but to a small Sicilian town more than 4000 miles away. This is just the start of a stranger-than-fiction story which is crying out for the Hollywood treatment. Before the sold-out screening of Kim's Video, Pasquale sat down with members of the Leith Kino collective. You’ll hear from Tom Johnson, Liam Schell, Morvern Cunningham, Camilla Baier, Soraya Mamiche, Josh Booker, Gosia Bugaj and Fraser Elliott. After the discussion, you'll also hear an extract from the evening's introduction to Kim's Video, provided by Emma Jamieson of Cinetopia, followed by the trailer for the film.If you'd like to keep up-to-date with Leith Kino's events, please see their Instagram or Substack accounts. Their February events include screenings of The Bride Wore Black (François Truffaut, 1968) and Freaks (Tod Browning, 1932).

    25 min
  3. JAN 12 · VIDEO

    EFP 72: Michael Brooke on Zoltán Huszárik

    The first episode of 2026 is dedicated to extraordinary films of Hungarian filmmaker Zoltán Huszárik (1931 - 1981). Huszarik’s shorts and two feature films are dazzling in their formal experimentation and their attention to detail and texture. His work has gone on to influence contemporary filmmakers such as Peter Strickland (The Duke of Burgundy, Flux Gourmet). Huszárik’s small but remarkable filmography has been beautifully restored and released in a box set by Second Run. The set includes the director’s most famous feature, Szindbád, a 1971 adaptation of stories by Hungarian author Gyula Krúdy which centre on the adventures of the titular character, a middle aged dandy and bon viveur played by Zoltán Latinovits. Joining host Dr Pasquale Iannone to talk about Szindbád as well as some of the other films in the Second Run set is Michael Brooke. Michael is a film historian and a prolific author and critic who specialises in central and Eastern European cinema. In the discussion, Michael and Pasquale place Huszárik in the context of other notable Hungarian filmmakers such as Miklós Jancsó and Béla Tarr. They then discuss Szindbád in detail, exploring key scenes from the film such as the memorable restaurant sequence. Michael also provides some fascinating insight into his work on audio commentaries, including his tracks for Polish filmmaker Andrzej Wajda’s War Trilogy (also for Second Run).

    50 min
  4. 12/03/2025 · VIDEO

    EFP 70: Professor Sue Harris on Bertrand Blier

    On this episode of the podcast, host Dr Pasquale Iannone is joined by Professor Sue Harris. Sue is Professor Emerita of Film Studies at Queen Mary University of London and an internationally-renowned specialist in French cinema. She has also published noted volumes on the Hollywood film musical, film stardom and production design. Sue is a trustee and collaborator of the long-running, UK-wide French Film Festival. During this year’s Festival, Sue sat down with Pasquale to discuss the controversial Oscar-winning French filmmaker Bertrand Blier who sadly passed away in January at the age of 85 and who was the subject of a special tribute. Sue is a foundational Blier scholar, one of the first writers anywhere to take the director’s work seriously. Her first solo authored monograph was a ground-breaking study of his films which was based on her PhD thesis. Blier is perhaps best known for his scandalous 1974 satire Les Valseuses, the story of two young drifters (Gerard Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere) who offend and terrorise those they encounter on their wanderings across France. Sue tells Pasquale about the background to Les Valseuses, its reception and its unprecedented box office success in France. They then turn their attention to Blier’s breakthrough film, the offbeat crime picture Buffet Froid (1979) which reunited the director with Depardieu and also featured Blier’s actor father Bernard.

    38 min

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Dr Pasquale Iannone (Lecturer in Film Studies) is joined by staff and students from across the University of Edinburgh as well as guests from the world of film and TV to discuss all aspects of screen media.

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