Sara Dosa, the director and co-writer of documentary Fire of Love joins Anna Smith in London for a live Q&A following a screening of her film. The extraordinary documentary, from National Geographic Documentary Films, mines the extensive film and image archive of intrepid French volcanologists Katia and Maurice Krafft. The fascinating couple died as explosively as they lived, whilst doing what they loved best: exploring their greatest passion, volcanoes, whilst simultaneously capturing the most spectacular volcano imagery ever recorded.

Fire of Love has been nominated for a 2023 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, a 2023 BAFTA for Best Documentary, and a Girls On Film Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film won many awards in 2022, including a Black Film Critics Circle Awards.

You can listen to the episode here.

This episode of Girls On Film is dedicated to BAFTA-nominated drama Blue Jean, which is set in 1980s Newcastle, at a time when Thatcher’s government was making life very difficult for gay people in the UK. The law ‘Section 28’ forbade “the teaching in schools of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship”. Rosy McEwen puts in a terrific performance as teacher Jean, who has to keep her sexuality a secret, and is put in a difficult position when she meets a pupil of hers in a lesbian bar. 

Anna Smith talks with writer-director Georgia Oakley and producer Hélène Sifre, as well as with lead actor Rosy McEwen and Kerrie Hayes, who plays Jean’s girlfriend Viv.

You can listen to the episode here.

Live from the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), Anna Smith is joined on stage by an international panel of inspiring industry figures. Prolific power-house Christine Vachon chats about how it feels to have produced over 100 films, and the job of using “disruption for opportunity”. She also has valuable advice for would-be producers. Friend of Girls On Film Dutch film critic Dana Linssen co-curated the Critics’ Choice selection at IFFR for the ninth year running. She joins Anna to speak about her love for this year’s female-directed films in the strand, Charlotte Wells’ Aftersun and Nafiss Nia’s That Afternoon (or Die middag). In That Afternoon, which received its world premiere this year at the festival, director Nafiss Nia takes us with refugee Roya, played by Hoda Niku, as her life intersects with Nassim, played by Alin Wishka, one afternoon. Nafiss Nia joins Anna and Dana on-stage to give insight into her film, and the importance in her filmmaking of language in her “father tongue” Dutch, as a poet and native Persian speaker. 

Anna is also joined by Superposition director Karoline Lyngbye and one of the film’s stars, Marie Bach Hansen, who plays Stine. Superposition follows writer Stine and her partner, podcaster Teit (Mikkel Boe Følsgaard) as they retreat off-grid for a year with their son Nemo to save their relationship, until … well, that’s all we can say without spoilers! Karoline and Marie speak about their experience of working in Denmark in film, television and theatre and the discussions they had about gender while making the film.

You can listen to the episode here.

Novelist Emma Donoghue joins writer-director and male ally Sebastián Lelio to talk with Anna Smith about his new film based on Emma’s book, co-written by Alice Birch. The Wonder, which has earned a BAFTA nomination for Outstanding British Film (and Girls On Film Award nominations for Best Feature Film sponsored by EON Productions, The Girls On Film Ally Award sponsored by IMDb for Sebastián Lelio, Best Cinematographer for Ari Wegner, and Best Female Orgasm sponsored by Intimacy on Set for Florence Pugh) is available to watch on Netflix now. This powerful film stars Florence Pugh as Lib, an English nurse who in 1862, following the Great Famine, is called to Ireland and asked to watch over an 11-year-old girl called Anna, who claims not to have eaten for four months, played by brilliant newcomer Kila Lord Cassidy.

In this episode, Emma Donoghue, whose previous novel Room was made into an Oscar-winning film, talks about the thrill of becoming a fan of her own work as brilliant and expert collaborators create films of her stories, and why Sebastián Lelio is a true ally. Also, Sebastián Lelio discusses with Anna the brutality of filmmaking and why creating a precise and delicate set is so important. He also talks about casting the “warrior-like” Florence Pugh, with her unique connection with the audience, and discovering the astonishing Kila Lord Cassidy to star opposite Pugh.

You can listen to the episode here.

Intimacy coordinator Ita O’Brien talked with Girls On Film co-founder Hedda Archbold at last summer’s Latitude Festival about the work of her company, Intimacy On Set. She explains the way their work is transforming on-set working practices, and the kind of intimate scenes we see on screen – as well as how we think about consent in our everyday lives.

You can listen to the episode here.

Naomi Ackie, the British star of Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody, talks to Anna Smith about preparing for her portrayal of the musical icon. Ackie has been longlisted for a BAFTA Film Award for Leading Actress for her extraordinary performance. She explains how important it was to her that the audience was being shown a side of Houston that perhaps they hadn’t seen before, particularly with her same-sex relationship with her girl friend Robyn Crawford. They also discuss the importance of having a female director, Kasi Lemmons, at the helm with the involvement of Whitney Houston’s long-time producer Clive Davis, who is played by Stanley Tucci.

Anna is also joined by Vanja Kaludjercic, the director of the International Film Festival Rotterdam, giving insight into the 2023 programme and what it is that makes this film festival special. Vanja and Anna talk diversity, inclusion and internationalism within film and film festivals, and Vanja also picks out a few of this year’s highlights. Vanja also talks about why she has invited Girls On Film to return for the third time in January 2023 to record a live podcast episode – check back soon for that episode.

You can listen to the episode here.

This week is all about horror as we’re joined by film critic Clarisse Loughrey. She joins Anna to share her thoughts on gender and female identity in the contemporary horror genre, particularly through the new Spanish horror film Piggy.

Piggy stars Laura Galán as Sara, an overweight teen in rural small town Spain, whose bullying at the hands of the ‘in crowd’ takes a turn when a stranger arrives. Piggy’s writer and director, filmmaker Carlota Pereda, speaks to Anna about her motivations behind making the film, as an embodiment of her own personal fears and her filmic inspirations.

You can listen to the episode here.

When Mark Kermode, feminist ally of Girls On Film, and one of the UK’s top film critics, expressed a wish to come on the Girls On Film podcast, Anna Smith asked listeners in an online poll which recent films they would like the two of them to discuss on the show.

They discuss two recent films, beginning with a Don’t Worry Darling review. **SPOILER ALERT** from 11:01 they move into spoiler territory, so skip to 18:36 if you’d like to avoid that. They then discuss The Woman King, as well as the winner of the Sight and Sound poll of the top 100 films of all time, Jeanne Dielman; why awards matter, the sense and nonsense of making lists of favourite films, and whether the film industry is making advances where gender parity is concerned.

You can listen to the episode here.

Gillian Anderson, Kate Hudson & Kathryn Hahn join Anna Smith to talk about their new films hitting Netflix. The always brilliant Gillian Anderson delves into her career in the industry, and the changes she has seen for women. She speaks about her character process and how she approached her distinctive role in the new Netflix mystery The Pale Blue Eye, a murder mystery starring Christian Bale and Harry Melling as a young Edgar Allen Poe. 
Also the hilarious Kate Hudson and

Kathryn Hahn chat to Anna about their full circle of working together, most recently on Glass Onion, the brilliant follow up to Rian Johnson’s Knives Out in which Detective Benoit Blanc, played by Daniel Craig, travels to Greece to peel back the layers of a new whodunnit.

You can listen to the episode here.

Lila Neugebauer, the director of Jennifer Lawrence’s new film Causeway, joins Anna Smith to discuss the film, which is available on AppleTV+ now. Lila chats in-depth about the journey of the characters in the film, and her own from theatre director to film director. She discusses her admiration for the filmmakers who influenced her, who share an economy in their use of cinematic language – and she gives us an “invitation to patience” with her work.

Causeway is a beautifully nuanced film, written by Ottessa Moshfeg, Luke Goebel and Elizabeth Sanders. It features a fantastic central performance by Jennifer Lawrence as Lynsey, a soldier who is recovering after an explosion in Afghanistan. Heading home to New Orleans, she struggles to reconnect with her mother and ends up forming a friendship with a mechanic called James, brilliantly played by Brian Tyree Henry.

You can listen to the episode here.