The Cinematologists

Since 2015, The Cinematologists has forged a unique space in the film podcasting landscape. Described as “consistently one of the finest film podcasts around” by Sight and Sound, the show, founded and hosted by Dr. Dario Llinares and Prof. Neil Fox, has developed partnerships with BFI, MUBI and others, through its singular blend of academic, critic, fan and practitioner discussion of cinema culture, history and industry.  

Over 100 episodes and 17 seasons (as of spring 2023), the podcast has hosted conversations and talks by illustrious guests from all areas of film culture including filmmakers such as Peter Bogdanovich and Steve McQueen, critics such as B.Ruby Rich and Pamela Hutchinson, academics such as Richard Dyer and those who fall in between the cracks such as Mark Cousins and Laura Mulvey. 

The podcast’s form is as flexible as its critical tones. It started life as a live event screening show, with wrap-around contextual chat. Early screenings including Alex Cox’s Repo Man (1984), Nicolas Winding Refn’s Bronson (2008), Orson Welles’s The Trial (1962), Tsai Ming-liang’s Goodbye, Dragon Inn (2003), Kelly Reichardt’s Old Joy (2006) and Elaine May’s A New Leaf (1971). From there, there were invitations to screen and discuss films all over the country.  

The podcast has headed to UWE in Bristol for Dead of Night (1945) at the invitation of Auteur Publishing, Curzon Bloomsbury for Almodovar’s Broken Embraces (2009), HOME in Manchester for Jonah Who Will Be 25 in the Year 2000 (1976) [with filmmaker Caroline Catz], The Tyneside Cinema in Newcastle for Plan 75 (2022) with the Dead Good Film Club. The podcast has collaborated with the BFI on several occasions; for their national seasons on Comedy and Musicals, for the 2022 edition of the Greatest Films of All Time poll, and for their extensive season dedicated to Akira Kurosawa, for which co-curator Asif Kapadia came on the show.  

Nowadays, the podcast is just as likely to be an in-depth, rigorously researched academic output such as Dario’s Demons of the Mind episode, produced as part of the AHRC funded project of the same name, as it is an intimate conversation between Neil and Dario about recent releases of note. The podcast remains deeply rooted in conversation, curiosity and criticality, seeking always to cultivate a space for what Dario has defines as the ‘audio-cinematic’ imagination. There have been articles for MUBI Notebook, festival coverage from Berlinale, London and Cannes, and the gamut of films under the spotlight from the experimental and underground; John Akomfrah’s The Nine Muses (2010), Scott Barley’s Sleep Has Her House (2017), to the mainstream of the mainstream; Speed (1994), Clueless (1995), and all points in between.  

The Cinematologists is presented by Professor Neil Fox and Dr Dario Llinares. Neil is a Senior Lecturer within the School of Film & Television at Falmouth University. Dario is a Principle Lecturer in Contemporary Screen Media at the University of Brighton.

The podcast episodes are produced bi-monthly, usually focused around a cinema screening where Neil and Dario record an introduction to the film as well as the post-screening audience discussion. These 'live' sections are complimented with guest interviews featuring filmmakers, academics, actors and critics all of whom bring unique and fascinating insights to the specific films and questions of cinema culture.

Alongside recording the podcast, the project has been a vehicle for Neil and Dario to explore how podcasting can be used for academic research, which evolved in them publishing the first ever book on academic podcasting in 2018, leading them to being seen as the pioneers of podcast studies.

Plans for the future are to keep growing the podcast and establish more partnerships. In terms of podcasting itself, Neil and Dario want to continue exploring what academic podcasting is and set up a network of academic podcasters. They believe podcasting has the potential to make academia and knowledge sharing more accessible alongside curating different voices and giving them a platform where they can be heard.

Associated published research:

• Fox, Neil (2018) Podcasting: New Aural Cultures and Digital Media. Palgrave Macmillan, palgrave.com/gb/book/9783319900551. ISBN 978-3-319-90055-1
• Neil Fox, Dario Llinares, Cinematologists: Knowing Sounds (2018)
• Neil Fox, Dario Llinares, and Kingsley Marshall, The Cinematologists (2015)