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Who gets to be on the big screen?

Casting director Lucy Pardee lifts the lid on her latest project, Lollipop, and working in the casting industry.

In Rocks, a teenage girl struggles to care for her little brother after being abandoned by her mother; In Bird, a young girl seeks magical adventure away from her unpredictable father; In Aftersun, a young girl’s father-daughter holiday comes to hold melancholy meaning. These moving, character-focused recent films share one thing: they were cast by Lucy Pardee. The BAFTA-winning casting director has worked with some of the UK’s finest directing talent, from Andrea Arnold to Jonathan Glazer to Lynne Ramsay, discovered countless homegrown stars and had decades of industry insight dedicated to widening diversity on the big screen.

Pardee’s careful casting has paid off since her first casting director credit with Arnold’s Wuthering Heights to her most recent film, Daisy-May Hudson’s feature debut, Lollipop. The poignant drama follows single mother Molly (Posey Sterling), fresh out of prison, trying to regain custody of her children but unable to while she’s homeless. It’s a piercing narrative that required a skilled cast. Demystifying the casting process, Pardee notes that finding the right actors is completely different with every project, but with Lollipop, the focus was connection and authenticity. “Because Daisy-May’s a documentary filmmaker, meeting people is really important,” Pardee explains. “She’s rather alternative. She wanted to bring a candle to light, but I said no, so instead she brought scents to neutralise the energy.”

Pardee shares that this interest in actors with lived experience is where street casting comes in. “There’s a real misconception that we just wander up to people,” Pardee clarifies. “Sometimes we do, but street casting is impossible without contacts with organisations because they will help us translate opportunities for the groups of people they work with.” Pardee’s experience working with theatre companies Clean Break (an organisation illuminating the stories of women in prison) and Cardboard Citizens (the UK’s only homeless people’s professional theatre company) informed Lollipop’s outreach. Pardee says the very purpose of this approach is “about making the ramp into the room accessible to people without previous acting experience.”

Lollipop embodies this outreach. For instance, TerriAnn Cousins, who plays Molly’s mother, came through Clean Break when Pardee previously cast her in Silver Haze. Also, Idil Ahmed, who plays Molly’s supportive childhood friend Amina, joined Lollipop through an organisation that works with East African and Somali communities after seeing Kosar Ali, an actor of Somali descent, star in Rocks. “I felt incredibly proud that we could bridge Kosar into the industry with Rocks,” Pardee said. “Idil and her four children are huge fans of Rocks. She was one of the people making a connection; Idil had never acted before, but felt like this was an opportunity she could step into because someone else had.”

Despite these connections and having a slate of exciting projects, Pardee highlights that she remains concerned about the shrinking space for newcomers in the industry. “There’s a real insecurity at the moment in terms of projects being seen,” Pardee shares, adding that there’s added pressure on casting directors to work with actors with profiles, the antithesis of independent film as “a crucible for launching talent.” In response to this industry-wide insecurity in the arts, Pardee co-founded and serves as an advisor for We Are Bridge, an industry body committed to supporting “people who have come into the industry through alternative pathways, bridging to their next opportunities.” It’s not just allowing an actor a first role, but helping them secure a second.

This work surrounding industry access is not just based on anecdotal experience; less than 10% of film and TV workers are from working-class backgrounds, the lowest in a decade, according to Channel 4’s 2024 report. Pardee says progression towards diverse working-class representation is “not a cultural shift to the future, but it’s almost a cultural shift to the past… [the UK] has a tradition of working class representation; we’re not breaking boundaries that haven’t been broken before, we’ve neglected pathways. Austerity kicked the shit out of those pathways which started with dramas in schools and youthclubs and access at community level.”

Pardee cites Adolescence as an interesting example, as much of the young cast came from grassroots drama organisations. However, these programs aren’t free to access. “There’s a whole wave of talent that, as soon as you put a price on it, isn’t able to do it,” Pardee notes. “Privilege does not equal talent.” This barrier to entry is not only harming the industry but also the quality of independent film.

This investment in the next generation is also clear in several recent films Pardee has worked on (Lollipop, Bird and Aftersun), which see her tasked with finding children and young people who can handle emotionally mature scenes. Exemplifying this, Luke Howitt and Tegan-Mia Stanley Rhoads deliver fantastic performances as Molly’s children in Lollipop. Rhoads is particularly impressive as she sobs and pleads for her mother to obey the rules to regain custody of them. Pardee explains that reaching such emotions is built around fictional play and imagination; there’s an end goal, but the journey to that point is up to each actor.

There has been a recent dialogue about social media followers dictating who gets into the casting room when it comes to casting young people. “Not in my world!” Pardee laughs, remarking social media is a double-edged sword: though it has unlocked a door for accessibility, an over-reliance has led to a “generation of people who will send a self-tape based on, I think, how they look.” Pardee emphasises that self-tapes will never replace auditioning in the room, which is a safe space for failure and imperfection: “I don’t know whether it’s COVID or social media, but there’s definitely risk aversion in the younger people coming through. In art, you must be able to take a swing, miss, and feel ok to take another one.”

Pardee’s upcoming slate includes much-anticipated projects, including Lynne Ramsay’s psychological portrait Die, My Love, starring Robert Pattinson and Jennifer Lawrence. “We found Robert in a Greggs,” Pardee laughs. “I’ve been working with [Ramsay] for quite a long time, but this is the first time we’ve cast a feature film together. She creates such a ripe, safe environment. I think that’s why we all do some of our best work with her, because of this safety.” Pardee is also in the “very, very early days” of casting How to Have Sex writer-director Molly Manning Walker’s A24 show about girls’ football. Pardee notes she’s conducting a lot of outreach and that authentic representation is a core focus for this casting. “If you want to represent a story authentically, I believe in: ‘nothing about us without us’. Because Molly is part of this community, it’s so exciting.”

Many stars have passed through Pardee’s casting process, but one of her most memorable was Aftersun’s Francesca Corio. Corio beat out 900 applications to star in Charlotte Wells’ heartbreaking film, opposite Paul Mescal. Pardee remembers auditioning 16 girls in a snow-covered, empty wedding venue in Glasgow in 2021 with Welles and producer Adele Romanski. Pardee recalls the special moment: she acted opposite Corio as her mother, and the young actress had to reach a point of sadness. “She was so genuinely sad, I got this feeling of ‘we’ve found her!’ It was profound,” Pardee recalled. “I asked her, ‘What were you thinking about?’ She said her guinea pig is about to die. The next day we tentatively asked about her guinea pig. Frankie said: ‘My guinea pig died, but it’s ok, my mum brought me a chip supper. So I’m fine… let’s act!’”

The post Who gets to be on the big screen? first appeared on Little White Lies.

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22/07/2025
The queer optimism of My Beautiful Laundrette

My partner and I headed from the suburbs into the city to attend a 40^th anniversary screening of My Beautiful Laundrette, a film neither of us had seen despite always intending to. Directed by Stephen Frears and written by Hanif Kureishi, this TV-movie-turned-sleeper-success is considered by many to be a cult classic and an early paragon of queer representation, meaning it necessarily carries the burden of fixed opinions and critical interpretations. It seemed there was no room to think about it for ourselves, so we put it off until it appeared at the cinematheque.

What surprised me most about the film, which I’d assumed centred around Daniel Day-Lewis’ Johnny Burfoot – who a friend understandably claims as her first cinematic crush – is the taciturn protagonist, Omar. Played by Gordon Warnecke, who the Times critic Vincent Canby called “wonderfully insidious,” Omar, when we first encounter him, is conscientiously washing clothes by hand and hanging them out to dry on the balcony of his father’s “black hole of a flat.” For a long time, he doesn’t speak, but we keenly observe him.

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As we hear, instead, from his perpetually-inebriated father, Nasser (Saeed Jaffrey), his savvy, philosophizing uncle Hussein (Roshan Seth) and his disagreeable cousin Salim (Derrick Branche), Omar is, as Roger Ebert said, “the blank slate,” a sponge, assuming their influence as he stirs out of a stupor– his immature outsiderdom – and transforms into a man of consequence.

“The way the script was written had very…actually no dialogue for Omar in the beginning,” Warnecke told me over email. “That enabled the viewer to see the way I reacted to what was going on around me. Sometimes, a look or non-verbal reaction can say much more than words.” The first time he speaks, at drinks with Hussein and his mistress Rachel (Shirley Ann Field), Omar discloses a personal vision: “If I pick up Papa and squeezed him… I often imagine I’d get a pure bottle of pure vodka.” The word “squeeze” recurs throughout the film, whether from Nasser, who complains Omar’s squeezing of shirts doesn’t stretch him, or Hussein, who says of succeeding in Britain, “You have to know how to squeeze the tits of the system.”

Kureishi’s script thinks in these terms: stretch and squeeze; rub and tug; hard and soft’ screw and unscrew. The world is a tangible, malleable thing, and Omar, who an uncle says is “the future”,is an embodiment of all these sensibilities. “If you take [squeeze] literally,” Warnecke says to me, “it is almost a metaphor of what the government was doing to the people of Britain at the time. Come to think of it, they were ‘squeezing’ them and ‘rinsing’ them. Rather like clothes. It’s about putting pressure and getting something out of something or someone.”

Over time, as he cleans cars at Hussein’s garage, unknowingly traffics drugs for Salim, and inevitably inherits the titular laundrette that he will successfully re-invent and ultimately make his name, he applies the pressure to himself to sharpen his look and learn to speak up for himself. “I’m not going to be beat down by this country,” Omar says to Johnny –and we believe him. Perhaps it is only those who refuse the constraints placed on them, by birth or by circumstance, to make something of themselves, to strive for a sort of life where renovation results in regeneration, that ambitious dreams like Omar’s can become actual possibilities.

Of Omar, Gordon, who played Nasser in a stage adaptation of the film in 2024, told me: “Back then he took stock of what and who was around him. He saw his father was beaten by the system and did not want to make the same mistakes. He was a progressive entrepreneur who wanted to better himself. He had seen how his father had battled the racists and how his father was bitter and angry not only with himself but society as a whole… Omar went the other way.”

The way that Johnny is weaved into Omar’s narrative is that he appears in the film’s prologue, a memory that fades away the longer we don’t return to it. But during a racist attack, accompanied by a gang of fascists in an underpass, his presence causes Omar to exit his car,the same way that working for his uncle gets him “outta the house.” As Omar, grinning, advances towards Johnny, followed in cinematographer Olivier Stapleton’s elegant tracking shot and bathed in a dreamy score produced by Stanley Myers and Hans Zimmer, it is as though he is the antidote to the world trying to do you in, a beacon of hope from the dulling darkness of modern existence.

That juxtaposition – between the tensions of their lives and the pleasures that each other’s presence respectively brings— – is repeated throughout the film as the stakes, and subplots, continue to converge: whether it’s aAfter Omar has been attacked by Salim, while receiving a lecture from his father, and Johnny’s phone call overrides the dread; or their silent, glowing kiss in the shadows, interrupted by an attack on the laundrette; or even on opening day at the laundrette, when their heated, champagne-sodden love-making is contrasted with a classical heterosexual pair, a bond which will soon break, on the other side of the one-way glass (“Daniel improvised the pouring champagne into my mouth,” Gordon said. “A brilliant invention.”).

The intimacy of their bond is expressed in an accumulation of private gestures: the way Omar wants to remove an eyelash from Johnny’s face, or the scene when the men embrace and Johnny sticks his tongue out to lick behind Omar’s ear. Much attention has been paid to the tongue, but how about the nape of the neck, as the wet trace of it dries up? In these brief, blushing instances, Omar manages to get out of his mind and deliver him back into his body.

“Let’s open,” Johnny says after buttoning up their shirts: “The whole world is waiting.”

The most moving scene – and one which I’ve returned to since – is when, after the laundrette opens and Omar stands on the other side of the glass watching the neighbourhood file in. It is only his back that we see, but he seems to be radiating pride, his dream realised. Johnny comes up to the glass and peers in so that, for a moment, their reflections transpose and form a new kind of face: one that is neither white or brown, rich or poor, dirty or clean. It’s optimistic.

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21/07/2025
Episode 203 of “The Cinephile Hissy Fit” Podcast — Every Movie Has a Lesson

PODCAST: Episode 203 of “The Cinephile Hissy Fit” Podcast — Every Movie Has a Lesson

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20/07/2025
Episode 204 of “The Cinephile Hissy Fit” Podcast — Every Movie Has a Lesson

PODCAST: Episode 204 of “The Cinephile Hissy Fit” Podcast — Every Movie Has a Lesson

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19/07/2025
The Rise And Fall Of The Hollywood Studio System – Part 2: Hollywood At WAR! 1939
Introduction

In 1939, Hollywood was basking in an almost mythic glow. It was the year of Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, and Stagecoach—a cinematic apex unmatched in American history. The studio system was operating at full throttle, its stars luminous, its moguls wealthy, its audiences faithful. Then the world changed.

Cinema Scholars looks back on how the outbreak of World War II in Europe and America’s entry into the war after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 shifted the role of the film industry from escapism to engagement. The golden machinery of Hollywood became an arm of the American war effort, voluntarily, zealously, and sometimes self-servingly. From 1939 to 1945, the studio system reached both its peak in patriotism and its structural limits.

John Wayne as The Ringo Kid in John Ford’s “Stagecoach” (1939). Photo courtesy of United Artists.

The Studio System: Still King, But Under Strain

At the heart of the system were still the Big Five—MGM, Warner Bros., Paramount, 20th Century-Fox, and RKO—and the Little Three—Columbia, Universal, and United Artists. These vertically integrated studios controlled the flow of content from the soundstage to the theater marquee. The stars were bound by contract, and the films rolled out on a strict schedule.

In the early 1940s, despite material shortages and labor tensions, the studios remained profitable. War was good for business. Audiences flooded theaters for both newsreels and narrative films. By 1943, weekly movie attendance in the U.S. reached a staggering 90 million—more than half the country’s population. Yet the pressure to support the war effort, maintain public morale, and adhere to federal messaging introduced unprecedented constraints—and opportunities.

Washington and Hollywood: A New Alliance

The U.S. government quickly recognized film’s potential as a propaganda tool. In 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt established the Office of War Information (OWI), which coordinated with Hollywood to ensure that films aligned with national interests. The OWI issued guidelines: portray Allied unity, avoid excessive gore or defeatism, include women in the workforce narrative, and never glorify the enemy.

Studios collaborated—sometimes reluctantly, often eagerly. Frank Capra, fresh off his Oscar wins, joined the Army and produced the Why We Fight documentary series. John Ford and John Huston also enlisted, making powerful wartime documentaries like The Battle of Midway (1942) and Report from the Aleutians (1943).

Still from the 1942 film “The Battle of Midway” shot by John Ford. Photo courtesy of the U.S. Navy, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Even fictional narratives carried messages. Warner Bros., known for its hard-hitting social dramas, led the charge. Casablanca (1942), though not conceived as propaganda, became a powerful allegory for resistance and sacrifice. Mrs. Miniver (1942), a British-American co-production from MGM, was lauded by Churchill as “worth six divisions.”

Stars in Uniform—and Bond Drives

Many of Hollywood’s leading men exchanged tuxedos for uniforms. Jimmy Stewart flew combat missions in Europe. Clark Gable, devastated by his wife Carole Lombard’s death in a war bond flight crash, enlisted in the Army Air Forces. Tyrone Power joined the Marines. Meanwhile, female stars like Bette Davis, Marlene Dietrich, and Hedy Lamarr toured the country raising millions in war bonds.

The Hollywood Canteen, co-founded in 1942 by Davis and actor John Garfield, served as a star-studded morale booster where servicemen could dance with movie stars and eat for free. Studios encouraged their stars to appear humble, patriotic, and accessible—a vital part of the war machine’s emotional arsenal.

Films as War Weapons—and Cultural Mirrors

From 1939 to 1945, genres evolved. War films surged in popularity, but so did musicals, screwball comedies, and noir. Films like Yankee Doodle Dandy (1942) wrapped patriotism in razzle-dazzle. The More the Merrier (1943) explored the housing shortages caused by wartime mobilization, blending social commentary with romantic comedy.

Meanwhile, the shadow of darkness grew. The trauma of war and global instability helped birth film noir—cynical, morally ambiguous stories often featuring returning soldiers and broken dreams. Films like Double Indemnity (1944) and Laura (1944) spoke to a restless, more jaded America.

Barbara Stanwyck and Fred MacMurray star in “Double Indemnity” (1944). Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures.

Cracks in the System

The war years were profitable, but the old studio machinery was beginning to creak. Labor strikes erupted at Disney and Warner Bros., challenging the studios’ treatment of workers. Independent producers like David O. Selznick and Samuel Goldwyn pushed for greater creative control outside the traditional studio hierarchy. The OWI’s influence, while significant during the war, also opened the door for federal scrutiny. As the Cold War dawned, the alliance between Washington and Hollywood would take a darker turn.

And looming in the distance was a legal storm: the 1948 Paramount Decree, a Supreme Court ruling that would end the studios’ monopolistic grip over theaters. But the roots of that decision stretched back into the war years, as independent theaters began to question the fairness of the studio stranglehold.

Curtain Call for an Era

By 1945, the war had ended, but the world—and Hollywood—had changed irrevocably. The studios were still powerful, but they were no longer unquestioned emperors. Stars wanted autonomy. Directors demanded creative freedom. And audiences, exposed to the harsh realities of war, were growing more sophisticated.

The studio system would stagger into the 1950s, still producing hits, but its golden age was over. Between 1939 and 1945, Hollywood had become more than entertainment. It had become a national institution—and a battlefield of ideas.

Key Films and Events, 1939–1945
- 1939 – Gone with the Wind, The Wizard of Oz, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington were released. Considered the apex of studio-era filmmaking.
- 1941 – Citizen Kane challenges traditional narrative structures.
- Dec 7, 1941 – Pearl Harbor attack; U.S. enters WWII.
- 1942 – Office of War Information created; Capra begins Why We Fight series; Casablanca released.
- 1943 – Hollywood Canteen opens; record-high movie attendance.
- 1944 – Noir classic Double Indemnity released; war themes deepen.
- 1945 – WWII ends; studios begin facing postwar identity
Join for the third and final part of our Rise and Fall of the Hollywood Studio System series: The Unmaking of the Dream Machine 1946 – 1950.

If You Enjoyed This Article, We Recommend:

The Rise and Fall of the Brown Derby (Click Here)

Agua Caliente: Old Hollywood’s Mexican Monte Carlo (Click Here)

The Celebrity-Owned Restaurants of Old Hollywood (Click Here)

Keep up with Cinema Scholars on social media. Like us on Facebook, subscribe on YouTube, and follow us on Twitter, Threads, Instagram, and Bluesky

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18/07/2025
Friendship review – The Wario to I Love You Man’s…

Making friends is hard. It’s even harder as an adult – while the media laments the ongoing “male loneliness epidemic”, many men and women are still reckoning with hard truths unveiled during the sudden solitude of the Covid pandemic. The destruction of third spaces, widening gaps in lifestyle exacerbated by lack of disposable income and increasingly unsociable working hours, and the increasing inability to detach ourselves from screens have culminated in a cross-generational crisis whereby plenty of adults – from eighteen to eighty – are realising they just…don’t have friends. The protagonist of Andrew DeYoung’s Friendship is one such case: Craig Waterman (Tim Robinson) is a marketing executive with a beautiful wife (Kate Mara), nice house and affable teenage son (Jack Dylan Grazer) but no social circle beyond the occupants of his house, who seem distant from him.

This all changes when the Watermans mistakenly receive a package intended for their new neighbour. Craig drops it off and meets Austin: a handsome, charismatic TV weatherman with a fully-realised sense of self. (Naturally he’s played by Paul Rudd.) Craig is instantly smitten, and despite being the new guy, it’s Austin who welcomes his neighbour into his life, showing him his fossil collection, sharing his love of punk music, and confiding that he secretly yearns to do the morning weather instead of occupying the evening slot. A bromance is born – Craig seems to come alive, a better husband and father while basking in Austin’s light. Then a tragic reality comes to light: Craig can’t hang.

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This middle-aged middle American, who wants so desperately to be part of something, moves out of step with his peers. He’s assimilated a personality (liking Marvel movies, making crass jokes often at the expense of his wife) but can’t quite cover up the Travis Bickle-level entitled rot that lurks at his core. He parrots humanity but doesn’t exhibit it. There’s something deeply pathetic about Craig Waterman, but also something unfortunately true. This is Robinson’s great gift as a comedian – those familiar with his Netflix sketch show I Think You Should Leave will recognise his full-body-cringe-inducing style of comedy, which is, admittedly, something of an acquired taste. (Connor O’Malley, a similar cult breakout, delivers the film’s most baffling, brilliant non-sequitur during his short cameo in the film.) That’s not to say Friendship is punching down; Craig is an entirely ordinary villain who is absolutely convinced he’s the good guy. A nice guy, even. It’s evident from the film’s first scene, where – during her cancer survivors support group – he expresses confusion when his wife admits she hasn’t orgasmed since before treatment. “Plenty of orgasms over here!” he declares cheerily.

The same wildcard energy that made Robinson’s sketch series a cult classic is threaded through Friendship (DeYoung wrote the part with Robinson in mind). There’s a feeling that anything could happen at any moment, a strange pedestrian volatility to Craig that makes him just as likely to stew silently as to blow up in spectacular fashion, and the off-kilter sensation of something being not quite right is exacerbated by Keegan DeWitt’s oscillating score, which ramps up the tension with choral arrangements more typical of a horror film than a comedy. But Friendship arguably is a horror movie, evident in more than just its score and high wire tension between characters. The excruciating act of being vulnerable with another human being and the sweaty discomfort of realising a new friend is a bit off are mundane but relatable terrors, after all.

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16/07/2025
A report from the bleeding edge of non-fiction…

Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz has a diary entry that I think about frequently – one of my favorites in literature. On a Wednesday in 1953, pertaining to a peculiar curiosity he felt developing, Gombrowicz asks: “Around the corner… what will be there? A man? A dog? If it is a dog, what size of dog? What breed? I am sitting at the table and soon from now a soup will appear… but what soup?”. He adds: “This fundamental experience has to this day not been adequately studied by art”. This was, of course, several decades before the CNFW, but it was meaningful for me to recognise, guided by the festival’s programme, just how filming one’s life or endeavour can propose to resolve the phenomenon described by Gombrowicz, that assignment of meaning to the void of possibility.

That’s what happens in the 2004 film Kings & Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image by Azza El-Hassan who asks in Jordan, in Syria and in Lebanon, “Where is the missing archive?”, referring to the films in the PLO Media Unit that went missing during the Israeli invasion of Beirut in 1982. The material is not present, so the film is built around this negative space.

It’s what happens in MS Slavic 7 by Sofia Bohdanowicz and Deragh Campbell, where we follow Audrey, an amalgam of the two directors, as she investigates the letters between her great-grandmother, Zofia Bohdanowiczowa, and fellow Polish poet Józef Wittlin. Like Gombrowicz, Zofia and Józef were also displaced by WW2. Here the box of letters is present, but the material is impassive and monolithic: the filmmakers attempt to find its meaning.

In Shared Resources, the 1PM Sunday screening, filmmaker Jordan Lord procures meaning in their parents’ domestic life, health and financial debt, the devastation of Hurricane Katrina still a stark piece of the past. The film is brilliant. Lord and their parents narrate, comment and discuss over the footage and after the fact, often describing things so minute as hand or face movements, building something like a painting or diorama of their relationship, every detail recognized and cared for as a family.

Finally, L.A. based filmmaker Julian Castronovo offered a wholly different approach in his fascinating film Debut, or, Objects of the Field of Debris as Currently Catalogued, also a UK Première. It’s a dense, thrilling, slightly terrifying autofiction about a missing filmmaker called Julian Castronovo and his attempt to locate an enigmatic art forger known as Fawn Ma. The film is peppered with meta-commentary, as the protagonist is struggling to find financing for his first feature, and Castronovo has some pretty amazing answers to my questions, claiming that the things he made happen to his character “demanded that a film was made about them”. A clear budding master of the personal film, he equates his method to existence in society; pretending to be a given person has always been a fundamental approach to being that given person.

Things got intensely meta as the festival team themselves appeared to grapple hands-on with these notions, in recursive fashion. At a certain point there was an impromptu showing of personal documentaries that Smith, Ipakchi, and Technical Director Nick Bush filmed about their friendship during the Caveh Zahedi UK Tour they organized this past March, as well as short films made by applicants of the workshop they hosted then. After watching the pieces, a kind of personal-life Q&A slash group therapy session with the co-directors ensued – I remember thinking, can other festivals claim that they have something like this?

We vacate the mysteriously furnished room and the organization resets the placement of things. A single rug lies on the floor. This is the setup for the CNFW’s final surprise: a work-in-progress, brand-new interactive piece by film editor Joe Bini (All the Beauty and the Bloodshed, You Were Never Really Here, and 27 films with Werner Herzog). A tablet is set up on a table, and I pick it up for reading. One-person only, this session. It gets really peaceful. A narrator in the book begins to describe a scene in San Francisco. At a certain point, things move to a TV, as I am seeing on screen the results of what I have been imagining. I faintly hear Howard Shore through the basement walls. It’s David Cronenberg’s The Shrouds playing in the other room: the festival’s stay at the Rio is coming to an end.

Bini’s piece is around 45 minutes long. It’s about the interpolating psychologies of being an author and being a reader. We have tea the following morning at the Bar Italia in Soho: this is not autofiction – it really happened. The weekend is over, and the effects of CNFW’s dedication to its world are beginning to be felt; everyone who came out for the festival is already reaping the rewards of a grassroots programme truly dedicated to its craft and audience. If a voiceover played somewhere at that point it would be about my return, camera in hand and all, coming to document the documenters in whatever plans they had next.

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15/07/2025
When the Orchestra Becomes the Narrator — Every Movie Has a Lesson
Imagine sitting in a grand hall as the lights dim and the opening scene of a beloved film flickers to life on a giant screen. Suddenly, a live orchestra strikes the first note of the score in perfect sync with the action. In that moment, the music isn’t just background sound – it’s telling the story right alongside the characters. Welcome to the world of live film concerts, where the orchestra becomes the narrator of the cinematic tale. Music has long been “the emotional backbone of any film,” amplifying each scene’s drama, romance, or suspense. Now, audiences are discovering that experiencing those melodies performed live can transform a familiar movie into something profoundly new.

A Tradition Reborn in Symphony Halls

This fusion of cinema and concert hall might sound like a novel trend, but it actually revives a tradition as old as movies themselves. In the silent film era, before movies had recorded dialogue or sound, theaters hired pianists, organists, even full orchestras to “give voice” to the on-screen story. Back then, music literally narrated the film’s emotions and action. Today’s live film concerts carry that legacy forward using modern technology: the film plays with dialogue and effects, but the musical score is performed live by an orchestra, synced meticulously to each scene.

What started as a niche experiment has now “become a global phenomenon,” embraced by major orchestras around the world. From Star Wars to The Lord of the Rings, screenings with live orchestras routinely sell out concert halls. Far from just a gimmick, these events have given a boost to symphonies by drawing in new audiences. “Every orchestra is participating in these programs… a tremendous way to engage new fans,” notes composer-conductor David Newman, a pioneer of the format. In other words, film concerts are a win-win: movie lovers get to hear their favorite scores in full fidelity, and orchestras get to showcase their art to a broader, often younger crowd.

Music as Storyteller: The Power of Live Soundtrack

Why is hearing a film score live so impactful? For one, film music has always told a story in its own right – sometimes more than we realize. As David Newman explains, a movie’s score “tells the story in a different language, a language we all intuitively understand”. The swelling strings, triumphant brass, or haunting choir inform our emotions moment by moment, essentially narrating what the characters feel when no words are spoken. When those musical storytellers are performing live in front of us, their narrative power is at its peak.

According to conductor Anthony Parnther, experiencing a score live is “a whole different element that you just don’t get in a theatre” with the standard recorded soundtrack. The synergy of live musicians with on-screen drama creates an immediacy and energy that even the best surround-sound system can’t replicate. Below are a few key ways this live orchestra experience can reshape how we perceive a film:
- Emotional Amplification: In a concert hall, you don’t just hear the music – you feel it. The vibrations of a live orchestra can literally move through your body, intensifying the emotional highs and lows of the story. A tense chase feels more urgent with the orchestra racing along, and a poignant farewell can draw tears when the strings cry out in real time.
- New Dimensions to the Story: Live music can reveal details in the score that might have been missed before. You begin to notice musical motifs tied to characters and themes, and how they recur to foreshadow events or recall memories. Audiences often find that the live music adds a new dimension to a beloved story they thought they knew by heart. By watching the orchestra, you might even catch which instrument carries a melody at a crucial moment, gaining fresh appreciation for the composer’s craft.
- Shared Experience and Energy: Unlike a typical night at the movies, film concerts are communal and interactive. You’re enjoying the film with an audience of fellow fans and an entire orchestra on stage. The crowd might cheer when Indiana Jones heroically swings into action, laugh at a witty line, or boo when a villain like Snape appears – all spontaneous reactions that feed the excitement. Some superfans even attend in cosplay or dress up to match the movie’s theme, turning the event into a celebration. This lively atmosphere transforms movie-watching into a collective adventure, where everyone is tuned in to the musical storytelling together.
All of these elements deepen our engagement with the film. The live orchestra doesn’t replace the on-screen narrative; it enhances it, guiding our hearts through the journey in a way that feels immediate and alive.

Barbie The Movie: In Concert – A Soundtrack Spectacle

One of the most talked-about new film concert events brings Barbie from the big screen to the stage in style. Barbie The Movie: In Concert invites fans to re-enter the vibrant world of Barbie (2023) with a unique twist: an all-female ensemble called the Barbie Land Sinfonietta performs the film’s music live as the movie plays. The record-breaking blockbuster’s score and its pop hits are all delivered by this orchestra in real time – from the sweeping instrumental themes to the catchy songs that had everyone dancing last summer. This means you might hear a rich string arrangement of Billie Eilish’s soulful ballad or a powerhouse orchestral rendition of “Dance the Night” as Barbie and Ken dazzle on screen.

What does this hybrid experience achieve? For one, it turns a film known for its music into an even more immersive concert-like party. The audience isn’t just watching Barbie and Ken’s adventure; they’re also responding to the groove of a live band, effectively living in Barbie Land for the night. Hearing those familiar songs backed by a full orchestra can send chills down your spine one moment and get your toes tapping the next. It highlights the emotional beats of the story – the wonder, the humor, the girl-power triumphs – by letting the music lead the celebration. Barbie The Movie: In Concert exemplifies how a live orchestra can narrate a modern film’s story in a fresh way, elevating its most memorable moments through sound. And judging by the enthusiastic multi-generational audiences (little kids in pink dresses and nostalgic adults alike), it succeeds in deepening fans’ connection to a film they already love, making the experience feel brand new.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child – Magic of Stage and Score

Meanwhile, on the theatrical side, the world of Harry Potter has found a different kind of live storytelling magic. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is not a film concert but a Tony Award-winning stage play – yet it deserves a spot in this conversation for how it uses live performance and music to expand a beloved narrative. As a sequel to J.K. Rowling’s saga set years after the books, Cursed Child has been enchanting audiences in London, New York, and beyond. The show became a phenomenon in its own right, winning a record-breaking nine Olivier Awards in London and selling out shows internationally. Part of its spell comes from the staging and special effects (you’ll swear you’ve seen real magic happen live), but another powerful ingredient is the original score and sound design that accompany the drama.

Unlike film-to-concert events that bring familiar movie music to life, Cursed Child does the opposite – it introduces an entirely new musical experience for the Harry Potter universe. In fact, the play’s creators intentionally avoided using John Williams’ iconic movie themes. Composer Imogen Heap crafted a modern, otherworldly soundscape from scratch, aiming to distinguish the stage experience from the films. They “didn’t want any reference to the music in the films” so that the play would offer “a completely different experience,” Heap has explained. This bold choice means that as an audience member, you aren’t triggered to simply recall the movie scenes; instead, you’re drawn into uncharted emotional territory with Harry, Hermione, and their children. The music, whether it’s a subtle ambient hum or a swelling motif in a duel scene, becomes an unseen character on stage – guiding your feelings and building suspense just as a traditional narrator might, but through melody and rhythm.

The result is an even deeper engagement with the story. Without the comfort of the old film score, viewers find themselves leaning in, hanging on the new notes to sense the mood. Every flourish in the orchestra pit (or from the speakers in the auditorium) is telling part of the tale – from the nostalgic warmth of returning to Hogwarts, to the eerie tension of dark magic unfolding. By the end of Cursed Child, many fans report that they have not only witnessed a thrilling new chapter of the Potter story, but also gained a richer appreciation for how sound shapes the experience of storytelling. It’s a testament to what live music and theater can do: reshape our perception of a world we thought we knew, making the magic feel as real as ever.

Bringing the Magic to the Audience

As these hybrid film-concert and stage experiences grow in popularity, fans have more opportunities than ever to step into these story worlds. Securing a ticket to a high-demand show, however, can sometimes feel like its own adventure. This is where having a reliable, transparent source for tickets matters. Platforms like tickethold make it easier to find and book seats for special events – whether you’re chasing the next big concert tickets in your city or a must-see theater tickets production. With a user-friendly interface and clear pricing (no hidden sorcery or surprise fees), tickethold allows you to focus on anticipating the experience itself. For shows like Barbie The Movie: In Concert or Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, knowing you have your tickets secured through a trusted outlet means you can sit back and look forward to the moment the orchestra tunes up or the curtain rises – the moment the magic truly begins.

(Above: Reliable ticket platforms ensure you’re all set for the show, so you can immerse yourself in the experience when the time comes.)

The Lasting Echo: Sound, Memory, and Meaning

When the final triumphant chord echoes and the screen fades to black, you may find that a live film concert or theatrical performance lingers in your heart far longer than a typical trip to the movies. The reason is simple: you haven’t just watched a story, you’ve felt it unfold through music. The orchestra’s narration – those lush strings, bold brass, and ethereal choral notes – etches the emotions of each scene into your memory. In the hush that follows the encore, we’re left reflecting on just how profoundly sound shapes our memories and the meaning we draw from them.

Think about it: would the **shark in **Jaws strike the same fear without John Williams’ two-note motif? Would the triumph of your favorite hero feel as sweet without the swell of an orchestra behind it? Live concerts like these remind us that music and story are inextricably linked. They invite us to cherish not just what we see on screen, but what we hear and feel in the experience.

So next time you find yourself humming a film tune on the way home – heart still thumping from the excitement of a live crescendo – take a moment to ponder the lesson in that melody. Why did that particular swell of sound move you? How has it colored your memory of the story? In this thoughtful pause, every movie becomes a lesson and every concert a classroom, teaching us to listen closely to the narratives that live in the music. The orchestra has spoken; now it’s our turn to reflect on what its story means to us.

Let the music play on in your mind, and you’ll discover that the notes of these experiences continue to shape your memories, long after the final bow. ?
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14/07/2025
Long Hot Summer: The mythos of the pool on screen

Later on, we see Ned teaching a little boy to swim in an empty pool, the water having been drained over safety concerns. Upon witnessing the boy’s skepticism, Neddy says, “If you make believe hard enough that something is true, then it is true for you,” because, “when I was a kid people used to believe in things.” This scene effectively summarises Neddy’s own delusion, with his attempts to revert to a state of childhood innocence shattered in the film’s final pool scene. Unlike Odysseus, Ned’s ending is not one of triumph. For the first time, we see him outside of the pool setting; having finally reached his own home, he finds the property overgrown with weeds, the tennis court unusable, and his family long gone. Back on dry land, Neddy’s childish illusion and dream of his “all-American family” is no longer contained in a pool-shaped fantasy.

If The Swimmer is considered the pinnacle of the swimming pool canon, then 1967’s The Graduate is a worthy companion. The film follows Benjamin Braddock (Dustin Hoffman), who has just graduated from university. Upon moving back into his parents’ house, as he desperately tries to figure out what he wants to do with his life, he soon finds himself pulled into an affair with bored housewife Mrs Robinson (Anne Bancroft).

Benjamin’s feelings of uncertainty and loss of freedom are best summarised in an extended sequence depicting a bronzed Benjamin floating at the bottom of a pool after being forced into a scuba suit on his birthday for the amusement of his parents and their friends. By shooting the scene from Benjamin’s submerged perspective – through narrow goggles, completely surrounded by water – director Mike Nichols invites us to view the world as Benjamin does. The camera pans to take in the suffocating blue abyss, emphasising Benjamin’s feelings of isolation in his own home.

In this moment, the film also masterfully utilises sound, with the only noise being Benjamin’s exaggerated breathing as he drowns out the sound of the party and therefore the expectations and responsibilities of adulthood. Later, we see Benjamin lounging on a lilo, after sleeping with Mrs Robinson for the first time. He remarks to his father upon his questions about whether he will be attending graduate school, that “it’s very comfortable just to drift here”, perfectly summarising his feelings towards this shift. Lying on the lilo, he doesn’t have to choose between swimming or not swimming; the pool is a liminal space representing his awkward transition from boy to man.

Elsewhere, Alfonso Cuarón’s 2001 road movie Y tu mamá también, charts the transition of late teenagers with similar intensity, at a time of sociopolitical upheaval in Mexico. In a recent interview with Movie Maker, Cuarón revealed the film’s intrinsic link to youth: “For us, this movie is about identity. Two young men seeking their identity as adults…together with that is an observation of a country that in our opinion is a teenage country looking for its identity as a grown-up country.”

Both Julio (Gael García Bernal) and Tenoch (Diego Luna) have finished school and are seduced by the allure of being by the water during the long hot days of summer, free from their highschool girlfriends and as fluid as the element they inhabit. In a demonstration of their infantile energy, we see these two boys compete against each other in swimming and masturbating contests in the Olympic-size pool at the country club where Tenoch’s father is a member, while fantasising about Salma Hayek and Luisa (Maribel Verdú), “la españolita”, the wife of Tenoch’s cousin. A high-angle long shot shows the boys side by side lying on adjacent springboards, engaged in simultaneous masturbation, before an underwater shot shows a squirt of semen entering the water, foreshadowing their journey of sexual discovery.

As their relationship with Luisa intensifies, the boys once again swim together, this time in a distinctly less well-kept motel pool overflowing with leaves. This change in setting embodies the boy’s evolving relationship, which is now entirely symbolic of their competition for Luisa’s affection. Julio has seen Tenoch and Luisa having sex and walks out to sit at the edge of the pool. The narrator says that Julio has only ever felt anger like this when he saw his mother with a man when he was a child. Instead of talking, they decide to race again. A victorious Julio reveals that he slept with Tenoch’s girlfriend; the narrator states that Tenoch had only ever felt like that when, as a child, he read an article about his father selling contaminated corn to the poor. It is critical that the boys’ ambivalent relationship with one another is backdropped by swimming pools because it allows us to understand how they each construct their concept of sexual identity in relation to their own youthful experiences. They are not yet mature enough to express certain emotions which continue to bubble under the surface.

At the end of the film, a significant shift occurs when the constrictive, self-contained pool is exchanged for the vast expanse and unknown of the ocean. Choosing to stay in rural Mexico alone, Luisa submerges herself in the ocean, and so enacts a kind of symbolic death. Tenoch and Julio were drawn to Luisa just as they are drawn to water, yet their eventual return home signals their acceptance of meeting their parents’ expectations. As both the boys and country open themselves to the unknown, Cuarón leaves us with a final message: “Life is like the surf. Give yourself away like the sea.”

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14/07/2025
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele review Disapproving Swede Great
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele (Das Verschwinden des Josef Mengele) is the latest film directed by Kirill Serebrennikov. The director has become a staple at the Cannes Film Festival, with his last five films being presented there, including the previous four that competed for the Palme d’Or, among them Tchaikovsky’s Wife and Limonov: The Ballad. Surprisingly enough, the new work only made it to Cannes Première. Given its compelling narrative, visual flair, and other qualities, the story about the “Angel of Death” would have placed it in the higher echelon among the competition films. The film is an adaptation of a non-fiction novel by Olivier Guez, published in 2017, which won the Prix Renaudot.

The opening scene, set in 2023, depicts medical students analysing Josef Mengele’s skeleton. From there, the film follows Josef Mengele (August Diehl) as he evades justice after World War II, starting with his 1949 escape from Europe through the “ratlines”—networks of Nazi supporters and Catholic clergy aiding war criminals. Spanning three decades, the narrative highlights pivotal stages of his fugitive life in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil, culminating in his 1979 drowning. The film employs a jigsaw narrative structure, effectively juggling timelines and locations. One thread follows Mengele’s son, Rolf (Max Bretschneider), as he travels to São Paulo in 1977.

The Disappearance of Josef Mengele

August Diehl in The Disappearance of Josef Mengele.

A Hidden Life of a different kind

The framing to present times might make the film sound like The Secret Agent. However, very little unites the two films, apart from their respective cinematic mastery. Serebrennikov has reunited with Vladislav Opelyants, and the stark, monochrome images, combined with his signature long takes, create a spellbinding effect. A much-discussed colour sequence is bound to be divisive, but it provides context in a manner that is less obvious than it might appear to be. August Diehl played a decisively different character in Terrence Malick’s masterful A Hidden Life (2019), and he is a towering presence in this role, bringing the proper qualities to the part. The Disappearance of Josef Mengele offers an impressively objective view of its main character.

However, that kind of perception doesn’t impress everyone. A bizarre, emotional review (I use the term loosely) in The Hollywood Reporter by someone called Jordan Mintzer, already in the first paragraph, spouts the question, “Why am I watching this?” Even more incomprehensibly, he claims that the film embellishes Mengele’s ignoble reputation. This is yet another sad yet illuminating example of what passes for film criticism nowadays. In my Sound of Falling review, I mentioned the podcast from an outlet that used to be one of the best in the world, but now has been toppled by DEI hiring. The THR review also rehashes the tired thought that “fascism is on the rise” today.

The titular character is caught from behind in The Disappearance of Josef Mengele.

The host of the aforementioned podcast initially sat down at my table. While trying to discuss the film, I posited that the cinematic aspects alone would make Sound of Falling worthwhile. The notion was harshly dismissed with the comment, “How would cinematic expression be enough?” Meanwhile, she refuted the notion that she was looking for a straight-out statement, even though that was literally what she said.

A comparison between The Disappearance of Josef Mengele and The Zone of Interest clearly results in the former’s favour. Not only because Ilya Demutsky’s score is vastly superior to Mica Levi’s soundscape, but more crucially, for the intellectual rigour missing in Glazer’s film, which clearly bit off more than it could chew.

Whether Mengele is hiding at a farm protected by a Hungarian couple or outsmarting people trying to catch him to bring him to justice, he is always a mesmerising personality, and even his most egregious statements manage to make a certain sense. The producer, Felix von Boehm, noted in a press release that the film aims to “precisely depict ideological narrowness”. That is, unfortunately, all too topical today and clearly visible in current conflicts, where people struggle to distinguish between democracy and dictatorship. With that in mind, the meaning of the word disappearance might not merely be about how seemingly effortless it was for Mengele to hide, but more wide-ranging current disappearances as well.
The Disappearance of Josef Mengele

Director:
Kirill Serebrennikov

Date Created:
2025-07-13 18:08

Pros

Stunning cinematography

Great performances

An objective view of the topic.
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14/07/2025