In this episode, we sit down with Elijah Guess, the cinematographer behind Violent Ends, the 2025 Southern crime-thriller that blends gritty realism with haunting Ozark atmosphere. Elijah shares how he crafted the film’s moody visual language — from capturing the tension of backwoods family feuds to shaping the film’s dark, Gothic tone. We dive into his creative process, the challenges of shooting in the rugged Ozark landscape, and how visual storytelling helps amplify themes of violence, legacy, and redemption. A must-listen for film lovers and anyone curious about the craft behind compelling cinematography.

Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji is an Iraqi-Dutch filmmaker. He completed two master’s degrees in cinematography and directing at the Northern Film School in Leeds.

Set in the heart of post-war Baghdad, Irkalla: Gilgamesh's Dream follows the emotional journey of Chum-Chum, an eight-year-old homeless boy living with diabetes. Orphaned and forgotten by the world, he survives in a crumbling city, clinging to ancient myths for comfort. He believes the Tigris River is a passage to Irkalla - the Mesopotamian underworld - where he hopes to reunite with his lost parents. Guided by dreams, stories, and imagination, Chum-Chum sets out on a quest that mixes myth and reality.

As his only friend begins to fall into the trap of violence and street crime, Chum-Chum chooses a different path. He embarks on a symbolic journey through Baghdad - a city at once real and mythological - searching for hope, memory, and purpose. Along the way, he encounters visions of ancient figures like Gilgamesh and winged bulls. The city transforms into a surreal playground of history, trauma, and dreams, where every alley and ruin carries echoes of forgotten legends.

The film is a powerful blend of magical realism and neorealism. It captures both the physical destruction of modern Iraq and the emotional landscape of its youngest survivors. Through rich visuals and poetic storytelling, director Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji shows how myth can become a lifeline. Chum-Chum is not just a passive victim - he is a storyteller, a seeker, a child-hero recreating the epic of Gilgamesh in his own way.

Irkalla is a meditation on grief, memory, and resilience. It reflects on how children process trauma, and how ancient myths can give shape to unimaginable pain. The film reframes childhood not as something broken by war, but as something brave enough to reimagine the world. Chum-Chum's journey reminds us that even in a city torn apart, a child's dream can light the way forward.

A quiet, black-and-white story set on Christmas Eve, 1998. The film follows a weary taxi driver and the strangers who drift in and out of his cab as he waits for a glimpse of the newly launched International Space Station. Blending gentle humor, melancholy, and cosmic wonder, it’s a meditation on loneliness, connection, and the small moments that hold us together.

On this episode, Director, Daniel Masciari discusses all of the behind the scenes on the making of the film, its characters and creative choices.

Stationed at Home is now available to own or rent on digital download

Lesbian Space Princess is a 2025 Australian adult animated science fiction comedy film written and directed by Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese in their directorial debut. It features the voices of Shabana Azeez, Bernie Van Tiel, Gemma Chua-Tran, Richard Roxburgh, Kween Kong, and comedy troupe Aunty Donna.

The story, inspired by the filmmakers' own lives, includes themes that relate to LGBTQI people, and themes include the importance of self-worth and self-love, feeling free to take up space, and being comfortable with your own company.

This week on the podcast, Directors, Emma Hough Hobbs and Leela Varghese join us for a long format interview in person while in Toronto.

We share lots of laughs and get to play some fun game as well.

Lesbian Space Princess is in theatres now

Andrea Werhun and Nicole Bazuin challenge toxic misconceptions about sex work and sex workers with great audacity and high style.

An impassioned and insightful rebuttal to the assumptions, misconceptions, and faulty representations that surround sex work and sex workers, Modern Whore may also be the most audacious and engaging movie ever made about the oldest profession.

Successfully expanding on their 2020 short film and book of the same name, director Nicole Bazuin and subject and co-writer Andrea Werhun take viewers on a very eventful journey through Werhun’s experiences as an escort and exotic dancer, a career she began when she was a university student in Toronto. As Werhun recounts with great flair and frankness in the film’s stylized, fourth-wall-breaking re-enactments, there were many lessons to be learned and challenges to be faced, including the lack of protection from toxic clients and her own internalized versions of the shame that society associates with female pleasure and the sex industry.

In this mesmerizing film by Kunsang Kyirong, the deepening bond between two young women threatens to have repercussions throughout a community of Tibetan immigrants living in an apartment complex in west Toronto.

Indeed, one of the most impressive aspects of this fully realized first feature is Kyirong’s ability to combine a detailed portrait of this wider network of intersecting lives with a similarly specific and empathetic look at two people resisting the roles they’ve been assigned.

Ten years after moving to Vancouver, struggling visual artist Kana Yamamoto (Mayumi Yoshida) returns to Tokyo to attend the funeral of her beloved grandmother. Arriving in Japan, she rekindles a tentative flame with her bashful ex-boyfriend, Hiro (Ryo Tajima), an aspiring thespian who vanished from her life a decade prior. As Kana digs deeper into her grandmother’s past, she uncovers a family secret that prompts her to reconsider everything she thought she knew about love, duty, and belonging.

A feature adaptation of writer/director/actor Mayumi Yoshida’s autofictional short film of the same name, Akashi’s largely black-and-white cinematography evokes the solemnity of Kana’s grief, with select scenes brought to life in vivid colour. Themes of identity, class struggle, and artistic aspiration coalesce as the film shifts between the past and present to explore contrasting tales of star-crossed romance. Awash in synth soundscapes and driven by emotionally resonant performances, this tender drama asserts love’s ability to bridge any and all distances.

Francesco Sossai’s latest is an effortlessly charming and utterly delightful romp through the Italian countryside from the POV of a passenger in a car with two old-timers reliving their long-gone glory days.

Loosely pulling from their own experiences, co-writers Francesco Sossai and Adriano Candiago brilliantly revive the beloved Commedia all’italiana style. Impeccably shot on film stock by director of photography Massimiliano Kuveiller (who also shot Diciannove, TIFF ’24), The Last One for the Road is director Sossai’s sophomore film. Inspired by filmmakers like Marco Ferreri, Elio Petri, Francesco Rosi, and Carlo Lizzani, his latest is an homage to special places that live in our memories — bars and streets from our youth, now demolished to make way for new development — and a call to redraw our inner maps.