The Film Programme

Cate Blanchett talks to Francine Stock about her well-received performance as banker's wife and socialite in Blue Jasmine. Directed by Woody Allen, it tells the story of a corrupt financier, played by Alec Baldwin, and his wife who fall from high society when he is arrested for fraud.The Quebecois director Denis Villeneuve, who made Incendies and Polytechnique, is back with a new film, Prisoners, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Hugh Jackman. The plot follows two families whose daughters mysteriously disappear and explores how grief and desperation can corrupt.As biopics dominate the award season releases, the director Margarethe von Trotta discusses her new film about the German Jewish political theorist Hannah Arendt. It focuses on the period around 1961 when Arendt caused great controversy in her essays about the trial of the Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Israel. The trial inspired her famous phrase "the banality of evil".Plus director Michael Roemer looks back at his ground-breaking film Nothing But A Man, released

Francine Stock talks to Downfall director Oliver Birschbiegel about his controversial new film Diana, which dramatises the last two years of Princess Diana's life including her relationship with a heart surgeon. Naomi Watts takes the title role.Tony Gilroy who penned the Bourne films and Hossein Amini, whose credits include The Wings of the Dove and Jude, discuss the art of screenwriting and adaptations, as BAFTA and the BFI open their Screenwriters lecture series.The director Sean Ellis discusses his new thriller Metro Manila, set in the Philippines, which follows a rural family on their increasingly fraught journey to survive in the city. His film, inspired by a holiday in Manila where he witnessed an argument between two armed guards, has now been picked up to be remade around the world.And film historian Melanie Williams marks the centenary of Trevor Howard's birth with a look back at his career including lesser known works like Outcast of the Islands from 1953 as well as classics such as Brief Encounter.

Francine Stock explores the hits and misses from this year's Toronto International Film Festival with Tim Robey of the Daily Telegraph and Claire Binns, director of Programming and Acquisitions at the Picturehouse Group. They discuss their tips for the critical hits in the months ahead including 12 Years a Slave, August: Osage County and Under The Skin.Frost/Nixon director Ron Howard and writer Peter Morgan are back together, this time for Rush, the story of Formula One rivals Niki Lauda and James Hunt. They explain why they were so intrigued by the men's relationship. Rush is a British independent film and its producer Andrew Eaton looks at how the world of film funding is changing.Plus actor Phil Davis on Borrowed Time, a micro budget film about a pensioner's friendship with a teenage burglar. He describes how working with Mike Leigh on films such as Vera Drake has proved so inspirational for his technique.

Richard Curtis, the writer-director of Love Actually, is back with About Time, a time travel rom-com about life, love and avoiding regrets. Francine Stock talks to Richard, along with Bill Nighy who plays a time-travelling father passing on his gift to his son.As the autumn film festival season gets underway, Cameron Bailey, artistic director of the Toronto International Film Festival, brings us the highlights among the world premieres and gives his tips for the awards season.Director Paolo Sorrentino discusses the dangers of beauty and distraction, themes of his new film The Great Beauty, which portrays Rome through the eyes of an ageing writer, mourning his youth.And composer Neil Brand gives us a preview of his new BBC Four series, Sound of Cinema, which explores film scores and found music as used in films by the great directors, from Alfred Hitchcock to Martin Scorsese and Quentin Tarantino.

Francine Stock talks to Shane Carruth about his new, complex film Upstream Colour which explores the theme of interconnectedness involving an organism that mutates via various hosts from a nematode worm to a vivid orchid. The director Shane Carruth was already known for an earlier experimental film, Primer, which won the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance back in 2004.Whilst Shane Carruth did NOT go to film school, but learnt his craft by doing, the Director of the National Film and Television School Nik Powell, and film maker Asif Kapadia - director of features including The Warrior and Far North and the documentary Senna - discuss how film schools prepare aspiring film makers for a career in the film industry. Thousands of students go to more than 1200 film schools each year around the world and CILECT, which represents the top 160 schools across 90 countries, has judged the UK's National Film and Television School as the winning school across three award categories; fiction, animation and documentary.This announ

Hollywood heavyweight talks to Francine Stock about his new sci-fi film Elysium and laments that 'grown up' movies are no longer properly funded or made for the over 35's.Physics professor James Kakalios is an unlikely star but consults big budget superhero adventures on the science of being superhuman. He explains how his love of comic books led him down this unlikely path.With the biopic of 70's porn star Linda Lovelace released this week, Julian Petley and Anna Smith discuss the pitfalls of trying to bring the story of porn to a mainstream audience.Author and film buff Scott Jordan Harris discusses the importance of iconic objects on the big screen and how they have seeped in to every moviegoer's consciousness.Producer: Ruth Sanderson.

With the autumn film festival circuit about to get underway, Robbie Collin talks to Notting Hill director Roger Michell about who really benefits from the peripatetic circus. And why this director said 'non' to Cannes. And the critic Jason Solomons gives the reviewer's perspective of the scene, from the thrill of the first glimpse of a masterpiece to fisticuffs at dawn.Marina Warner and Nick Bradshaw explore the work of the influential German animator Lotte Reiniger as The Adventures of Prince Achmed, once thought destroyed in World War II, is restored and released. The 1920s groundbreaking shadow film, handcut and manipulated, draws on the Arabian Nights for its tale of exotic lands, kidnapped princesses and flying horses.Terri Hooley the Belfast DJ and record label entrepreneur gives his reaction to Good Vibrations, a film based on his life during the 1970s punk scene. As the man who gave The Undertones their first big break, he reflects on why it was important that this story was told by local screenwriter

Robbie Collin talks to Johnny Depp about The Lone Ranger and why he wanted his Tonto to be more than just a sidekick to the cowboy. And as the less than flattering reviews come in, Depp hits back saying the critics had doomed the film before it ever hit the big screen.Radio host Alan Partridge returns with Alpha Papa in which the Norwich DJ becomes a hostage negotiator. Co writer Armando Iannucci explains why they waited so long to take Alan to the cinema.As the British Film Institute looks back at the career of Indian film maker Satyajit Ray, the biographer Andrew Robinson and the director Sangeeta Datta explore his work, in particular the Apu Trilogy and The Big City which is re-released later this month.The Irish documentary maker Pat Collins has made his first fictional feature, Silence, in which a sound recordist travels around Donegal trying to record a landscape free of man-made noise. He debates our relationship with sound and silence in life and in the cinema.Producer: Elaine Lester.

Robbie Collin talks to the director Nicolas Winding Refn about his new film Only God Forgives, a violent revenge thriller set in Bangkok, starring Ryan Gosling and Kristen Scott Thomas. As a follow up to the very successful Drive, this film has split the critics with many appalled by the on screen violence. He explains what made him choose such a controversial project just as his career is crossing out of the arthouse and into the mainstream. Bridesmaids director Paul Feig discusses his new cop buddy comedy The Heat, with Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy as an unlikely police partnership. He explains why he remains wedded to comedy and wants to see more roles for older women in Hollywood.. As haunted house horror flick The Conjuring beats off the blockbusters like Pacific Rim and The Lone Ranger at the US box offices, film journalists Catherine Bray and Rob Mitchell discuss the economics of the horror film. And Jonathan Holiff explores the life and secrets of his father Saul Holiff, manager of Johnny Cash.

Matthew Sweet talks to the writer and star of Frances Ha, Greta Gerwig. Directed by Noah Baumbach it tells the story of a friendship between two women as their lives begin to take different paths. Greta ponders why female friendship isn't often seen as worthy of the big screen treatment. As the hot weather continues, how are cinema takings holding up? Number cruncher Charles Gant and independent cinema owner Kevin Markwick chew over the trends, hits, misses and surprises at the box office so far this year and look ahead to what the rest of 2013 has in store. The writer and comedian Mark Gatiss is back with the last of his cinema spin offs from 1970s sitcoms. This week it's Porridge, an altogether subtler affair, he argues, than the previously discussed movies of On The Buses and Are You Being Served. The silent epic The Birth of a Nation was released in 1915 and has been controversial ever since, particularly for its depiction of race. It portrays the Civil War and has been described as a recruitment tool for

Matthew Sweet talks dangerous nostalgia with Edgar Wright, director of the comedy The World's End. Starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost, the plot follows the group of friends as they return to their home town to complete a pub crawl from their youth. Their mission is thrown off course by aliens. Edgar Wright reveals an autobiographical bent to the tale. The Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer has written scores for countless films from The Lion King to Driving Miss Daisy to Gladiator. He describes the moment he got his big break, composing the music for Rain Man. Felicity Jones and director Drake Doremus are back with a new film Breathe In, about an English exchange student whose arrival in upstate New York throws the perfect lives of her host family into chaos. The pair previously made Like Crazy together and explain their love of improvisation and risk-taking with performance. Mark Gatiss is also dabbling in nostalgia. As part of his series on 70s sitcom cinema spin offs, he looks back at Holiday On The Buses,

The Mexican director Guillermo Del Toro tells Matthew Sweet about the joyful creative experience of making his summer blockbuster Pacific Rim, a film about sea monsters and super robots. After his Oscar-winning animation Pan's Labyrinth, he explains the attraction of CGI and big budgets. As Alex Gibney's new documentary Wikileaks: We Sell Secrets is released, the film maker Roger Graef compares how the genre works on the big and small screen. Can contemporary films on events still very much unfolding really work at the movies? And a beautiful silent film in black and white reworks Snow White. Blancanieves sets the fairytale in 1920s Seville. The director Pablo Berger and film historian Ian Christie discuss the rise of the new silent genre. Mark Gatiss continues his series of cinema spin offs from British TV of the 70s with Are You Being Served? The sales team go on holiday to Costa Plonka...Producer: Elaine Lester.

Sightseers director Ben Wheatley talks to Matthew Sweet about his new civil war film, A Field in England which is the first UK film to be available in the cinema, on DVD and Blu Ray, on television and download simultaneously. He describes his fascination with periods of revolution and the European sense of history. Sofia Coppola explores celebrity emulation that leads to house-breaking in her film The Bling Ring and explains why the designer gear these teenagers steal holds no attraction for her. Almost 40 years after the release of Werner Herzog's The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser, it's back, showing at the British Film Institute and selected cinemas nationwide. It's based on the story of a youth found in 1828 in a German town, barely able to speak or walk having been kept in a cellar since birth. Critics Mike Catto and Leslie Felperin, whose son has autism, look at how this film plays now and assess the figure of the idiot savant and other outsiders in modern cinema. And the writer and comedian Mark Gatiss discus

Director Evan Goldberg talks to Francine Stock about This Is The End, an apocalypse comedy with a diverse range of celebrities playing versions of themselves including James Franco, Rihanna and Jonah Hill as well as co director Seth Rogen. Filmmaker Joshua Oppenheimer explains how he came to make The Act of Killing, a documentary in which Indonesian gangsters re-enact the massacres of the 1960s. He follows their progress as they make movies about their crimes, heavily influenced by Hollywood films, even musicals. Plus further discussion of the ethics of documentary making with Sarah Polley who describes turning the camera on her family secrets. Her film follows her search for her biological father. And as David Cronenberg's 1979 classic The Brood is released on Blu Ray and DVD, critic Kim Newman and biologist Adam Rutherford explore how the contemporary scientific advances informed this psychotherapy horror film. Producer: Elaine Lester.

Ethan Hawke, Julie Delpy and the director Richard Linklater reunite after almost a decade for Before Midnight, the third part of the Jessie and Celine story. In Before Sunrise, they meet on a train and spend all night together exploring Vienna. In Before Sunset, they meet again in Paris and wonder if they can re kindle their initial spark. Before Midnight explores their relationship as they hit their 40s. They talk to Francine Stock about their extraordinary collaboration. As Brad Pitt's troubled project World War Z finally hits the big screen, the film critic Nigel Floyd assesses whether it can escape its torturous genesis to make a decent zombie-style film about a world-wide epidemic. Or has Pitt's production company over-reached itself? Renowned Iranian film maker Abbas Kiarostami is back with another 'international' film, set this time in Japan. Like Someone in Love explores the life of a young university student who goes on paid dates while fending off a jealous fiance. Fari Bradley discusses its take on

Francine Stock talks to Zack Snyder, director of the latest Superman film, Man of Steel, starring Henry Cavill, Amy Adams, Russell Crowe and Kevin Costner. A young boy learns that he has extraordinary powers and is not of this Earth. As a young man, he journeys to discover where he came from and what he was sent here to do. But the hero in him must emerge if he is to save the world from annihilation and become the symbol of hope for all mankind.Hans Zimmer - whose credits include the Batman trilogy - provides Man of Steel's musical score, but how has superhero music evolved over the decades? Film composer Neil Brand tracks the evolution of the superhero soundtrack from the 'positive' Superman of John Williams, to the 'dark' Man of Steel of Hans Zimmer, by way of Poledorous's Robocop and Kamen's X-Men.Moo Man is a low budget British documentary following a year in the life of maverick dairy farmer Steve Hook - and the first British film to be kickstarter funded. If they reach their target, film making duo Andy

Francine Stock talks to Michael Douglas about his role as Liberace in Steven Soderbergh's bio-pic Behind the Candelabra, chronicling the flamboyant entertainer's 5 year relationship with Scott Thorson. The film features a starry cast, including Matt Damon as Scott Thorson and Rob Lowe as the infamous plastic surgeon Dr Startz.Audrey Tautou talks about her eponymous role in François Mauriac's legendary 1927 novel of French provincial life, Therese Desqueyroux, in French film director Claude Miller's final film. But how does a writer face the challenge of adapting a much loved novel for the screen? Byzantium screen writer Moira Buffini, who adapted Jane Eyre for the cinema in 2011, and Deborah Moggach, who adapted Pride and Prejudice in 2005, discuss whether the resulting film reveals much more about current society's values than the age in which the work was originally written.Shane Meadow's new documentary "Stone Roses: Made Of Stone" is about the iconic Manchester band of the late 80's and 90's. Meadows had

Matthew Sweet talks to the director Neil Jordan about his new vampire film, Byzantium starring Gemma Arterton and Saoirse Ronan. He describes how he relished the chance to meddle with vampire stereotypes and rituals. And 50 years after Dr Who appeared on TV, we look at the Dr Who films that took to the big screen in Technicolor. We hear from its stars Bernard Cribbins and Roberta Tovey and from Dr Who writer and comedian Mark Gatiss. Plus trailers - too much information? Tasters or spoilers? We trawl through some of the worst offenders with critic Andrew Pulver and The Creative Partnership trailer-maker Dave Coultas. And as the Japanese director Hirokazu Koreeda wins the Jury Prize at Cannes Film Festival with Like Father, Like Son, Peter Bradshaw looks at his last film, I Wish, a tale of two young brothers separated by family breakdown who pin their hopes on the magic of high speed trains. Producer: Elaine Lester.

Cannes Special 2013 with Geoff Andrew and Robbie Collin.

Francine Stock on the hits, misses and surprises of the Cannes Film Festival with Geoff Andrew of the BFI and Robbie Collin, film critic at the Daily Telegraph. Plus the British hope at Cannes, director Clio Barnard on her film The Selfish Giant, a contemporary urban fable following two young boys who collect scrap on a horse and cart. And Stephen Frears discusses his latest project Muhammad Ali's Greatest Fight which is also screening in Cannes and charts the boxer's battle against conscription. Plus Olivier Assayas on nostalgia and radical politics in Something In The Air, set in France in the early 1970s. Producer: Elaine Lester.