Claim OwnershipCelebrating Cinema
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A podcast for the love of cinema!
For more info check out our website: https://celebratingcinema.com.
As always, we want to hear from you so please get in touch at celebratingcinema@lab111.nl
For more info check out our website: https://celebratingcinema.com.
As always, we want to hear from you so please get in touch at celebratingcinema@lab111.nl
131 Episodes
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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 turns of her career as she navigates the weight of single parenthood in Mary Bronstein's If I Had Legs I Would Kick You. Finally, Left Handed Girl from Shih Ching Tsou offers a quietly affecting study of intimacy as it traces the intertwined lives of a mother and her two daughters, shaped through Tsou’s long standing creative partnership with Sean Baker.Get tickets to Sentimental Value @ LAB111Get tickets to Urchin @ LAB111Get tickets to If I Had Legs I'd Kick You @ LAB111Get tickets to Left-Handed Girl @ LAB111
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 tickets to Girly Pop: The Holiday @ LAB111
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 modern living morphed into something more deranged, unhinged and somehow more American than ever. What emerges is a sharp, fast-moving portrait of how over three decades of shifting national fantasies found their reflection in one of pop culture’s most unlikely mirrors.Read Hugo's Article
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 New Wave itself.Laura also speaks with Maxi Meissner, curator of Schmutz Cinema, about what audiences can expect from Schmutz XL: The Birthday Edition on December 6th , a special LAB111 collaboration celebrating queer intimacy and pleasure on screen.Get tickets to Schmutz XL: The Birthday Edition @ LAB111Get tickets to Die My Love @ LAB111Get tickets to Splitsville @ LAB111Get tickets to Nouvelle Vague @ LAB111Get tickets to La Nouvelle Vague de Jean-Luc Godard @ LAB111
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 behind the myth, the craft behind the charisma, and the legacy Nicholson leaves in his graceful retreat from the spotlight.Get tickets to One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest @ LAB111Get tickets to Jack of All Trades: The Best of Jack Nicholson @ LAB111
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 unpack Jafar Panahi’s It Was Just an Accident, the Palme d’Or–winning film made secretly in defiance of the Iranian regime, which continues to censor and punish Panahi for his bold filmmaking.Get tickets to The Smashing Machine @ LAB111Get tickets to Back To The Future @ LAB111Get tickets to It Was Just An Accident @ LAB111
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 Robert Altman and John Cassavetes and overlooked filmmakers such as Barbara Loden and Elaine May. They also ask whether today’s social and political climate in the United States could spark a new wave of radical cinema.Get tickets to New Hollywood: The Films of The American New Wave @ LAB111
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 tickets to Bugonia @ LAB111
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 film endures as a universal language.Get tickets to Caravaggio @ LAB111
Few filmmakers explore desire with as much curiosity and elegance as Luca Guadagnino. His cinema doesn’t just show yearning, it makes us feel it. With After the Hunt now in cinemas, Laura Gommans and Tom Ooms trace how the great films of desire have shaped Guadagnino’s work, from the charged glances to the slow unraveling of restraint. But while Laura revels in the sensuality of his worlds, Tom questions the pretension that can often surround them, avoiding conflict. Together, they ask why cinema remains so obsessed with the ache of wanting, and where exactly the lines of attraction are drawn — both on screen and in ourselves.Get tickets to After The Hunt @ LAB111
Sven Bresser’s debut feature Rietland marks a striking moment for Dutch cinema — the first film in nearly 30 years to be selected for Cannes. This eerie, quietly devastating story follows a reed cutter whose discovery of a murdered girl’s body sets off an introspective search for truth, asking where violence really comes from — the world outside or something buried within. Set against the haunting stillness of the Dutch countryside, the film transforms landscape into witness.Speaking with producer Elliot Bloom, Bresser reflects on why he wanted to tell a story rooted in the land he grew up in, how local truths can hold universal weight, and why casting non-actors brought an essential honesty to the film. Together, they explore what makes Rietland resonate so deeply — both at home and far beyond The Netherlands.Get tickets to Rietland @ LAB111Get tickets to CC Film Club: Challengers @ LAB111
A lot can change in a week at the movies. One Battle After Another—the film we crowned as the year’s best—has stumbled at the box office, but does that tell the full story? Meanwhile, Dutch cinema is making international headlines, though for all the wrong reasons: AI actors. Alongside all this, new films demand our attention: Ari Aster returns with Eddington, a chaotic, unhinged attempt to wrestle with the Covid era, and Sven Bresser’s Rietland might just put The Netherlands back on the cinematic map. Hosts Laura Gommans and Elliot Bloom have plenty to unpack.Get tickets to CC Film Club: Challengers @ LAB111Get tickets to Eddington @ LAB111Get tickets to Rietland @ LAB111Get tickets to Yi Yi @ LAB111Get tickets to One Battle After Another @ LAB111
Paul Thomas Anderson’s $130 million blockbuster might just be the film of the year. In this episode, Laura and Elliot dive into the action-packed, satirical drama while lamenting Leonardo DiCaprio’s phenomenal performance—brilliant on screen, morally dubious off it. They also revel in the timeless elegance of Yi Yi, recently restored and returned to the big screen by Odyssey Classics, and ask why the thriller Him couldn’t live up to the hype, even with Jordan Peele’s name on it.Get tickets to CC Film Club: Challengers @ LAB111Get tickets to One Battle After Another @ LAB111Get tickets to Yi Yi @ LAB111Get tickets to Him @ LAB111
What ever happened to the chick flick? At the turn of the millennium, this fizzy, unabashedly feminine genre ruled the box office and sleepovers alike, but somewhere along the way, it slipped out of fashion. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Clueless, now screening at LAB111, Kiriko Mechanicus and Tom Ooms revisit their favorite titles and try to define what a chick flick really is. From iconic gems to forgotten cult favorites, they explore the pleasures, pitfalls, and cultural baggage of the genre, asking whether we still need chick flicks today, or if they’re better left in the early 2000s with flip phones and frosted lip gloss.Get tickets to Clueless @ LAB111
Coinciding with our Viva Varda retrospective now playing at LAB111 in Amsterdam, Elliot and Kiriko celebrate the life and cinema of French filmmaker and feminist icon Agnès Varda. They discuss why Varda is Kiriko’s ultimate cinematic hero and how her films mirror the warmth, curiosity, and humour of the woman herself. Varda's approach to filmmaking is more than craft, it’s a way of seeing the world, a playful blueprint for us all to live by. Together, they unpack some of her classics and imagine how they might spend a single unforgettable day with Agnès Varda.Get tickets to Viva Varda: The Films of Agnès Varda @ LAB111
Sepideh Farsi’s Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk is a film made in the urgency of the present. Composed through a series of video calls with Palestinian photojournalist Fatima Hassouna, it documents a life confined in Gaza during the current phase of Israel’s genocide. Speaking with producer Elliot Bloom, Sepideh reflects on why the film is essential at a moment when Palestinian voices are being silenced and when the daily struggle to survive is kept at a distance from the world.This conversation honors the remarkable presence of Fatima, the necessity of bearing witness, and the role of cinema and art in confronting horrors that resist comprehension.Get tickets to Put Your Soul on Your Hand and Walk @ LAB111Get tickets to CC Film Club: Charlie's Angels @ LAB111
In honor of its 50th anniversary, Jaws emerges from the depths of the cinematic sea to remind us why it remains the archetype of the summer blockbuster, forever shaping our fear of the ocean and giving sharks a bad rep. Join Laura Gommans and Tom Ooms as they dissect Spielberg’s masterstroke, from its thrilling mechanics to the happy accidents that made it an instant classic.This episode also explores the evolution of creature features, tracing how this genre once thrived on tangible, terrifying creatures—and why such films are rarely made the same way today. Get tickets to Jaws @ LAB111Get tickets to CC Film Club: Charlie's Angels @ LAB111
Back from a summer hiatus, Laura Gommans and Elliot Bloom reunite to trade notes on the hot new releases. Zach Cregger’s hotly anticipated Weapons has horror fans buzzing—though for producer Elliot, he can only manage to watch it through his fingers. They also dive into Sorry, Baby, Eva Victor’s quietly devastating debut, a tender comedy-drama about how life insists on moving forward no matter what.Get your tickets to Weapons @ LAB111Get your tickets to Sorry, Baby @ LAB111
In this episode, Kiriko sits down with Dutch filmmaker Morgan Knibbe to discuss his blistering debut fictional feature The Garden of Earthly Delights—a formally audacious, emotionally harrowing portrait of the post-colonial legacy in the Philippines. Through a fictional lens, Knibbe confronts the ongoing violence of Western capitalism, power, and desire, exposing the devastating asymmetry between those who are seen and those who are never heard.But why has a film this urgent and unflinching been met with near silence? Kiriko and Morgan explore the limits of representation, the discomfort of telling hard truths, and the price artists pay for making the invisible visible.
This week on Review Roundup, host Laura Gommans and Elliot Bloom head south for the summer with a sun-drenched revisit of Plein Soleil—René Clément’s slow-burning 1960 thriller that introduced the world to a dangerously magnetic Alain Delon, as we dip our toes into the Mr. Ripley universe.Alongside Clément’s shimmering noir, they spotlight more scorchers from LAB111’s Heatwave program—including Aftersun, The Parent Trap, and Do the Right Thing—to explore what keeps us coming back to summer cinema: the heat, the heartbreak, and the haze of memory...or just a good old AC system.Get tickets to Heatwave: Sweaty Summer Cinema program @ LAB111Get tickets to Kingdoms of Rain: The Films of Akira Kurosawa @ LAB111
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am i the only one who only hears one voice and not the other speaker?