Creative Nonfiction #5: Penny Lane on Confessions of a Good Samaritan and making a self-portrait
Release Date: 07/12/2023
137. Luca Guadagnino's Challengers with Andrew Kendall
Seventh Row Podcast
In this episode, we discuss Luca Guadagnino’s new film Challengers (2024), which stars Zendaya, Mike Faist, and Seventh Row favourite Josh O’Connor as competitive tennis players and romantic rivals. Film critic and Katherine Hepburn obsessive Andrew Kendall joins host Alex Heeney for the episode. We are both Josh O’Connor super-fans and liked the film. But we had a lot of issues with it. We discuss why we can’t stop thinking about it and where it disappoints. which stars Josh O’Connor in his breakout role. Get both books with our For detailed show notes, There is also...
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Nowhere Special with James Norton and Uberto Pasolini
Seventh Row Podcast
Director Uberto Pasolini and James Norton discuss avoiding sentimentality and collaborating on their film Nowhere Special (2020). Seventh Row Host Alex Heeney interviews them and offers her take on why this heartwarming and heartbreaking tearjerker is worth your time. James Norton plays John, a 35-year-old window cleaner and single dad who is dying of an unspecified disease. To prepare for the future, he searches for adoptive parents to care for his three-year-old son Michael after he dies. The film is about the relationship between father and son and its mundanities, how we care for and...
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Promising Young Woman + The Assistant: Rape culture on film in 2020 (Redux)
Seventh Row Podcast
Emerald Fennell's new film, Saltburn, comes out today, so we're re-releasing our 2021 episode about two very different depictions of rape culture from 2020: Fennell's revenge thriller Promising Young Woman and Kitty Green's The Assistant, a portrait of a young woman working in a misogynistic office environment. This is a landmark episode of the podcast, which kickstarted a series of . This episode features Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney, Executive Editor Orla Smith, and special guest Lindsay Pugh. Want to support the podcast? today, and access our entire archive of 150+ episodes. It...
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Creative Nonfiction #5: Penny Lane on Confessions of a Good Samaritan and making a self-portrait
Seventh Row Podcast
In the fifth and final episode of our , Alex Heeney talks to Penny Lane about her experimentations with documentary form in Confessions of a Good Samaritan. The film is a trip inside Penny’s brain as she goes through the stressful process of anonymously donating her kidney and investigates why kidney donations are necessary. Lane weaves almost all of the techniques from her previous films (and a few more!) into Confessions of a Good Samaritan, offering a thoughtful, educational, and funny look at the complicated feelings that come with doing good in the world at some personal expense. ...
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Creative Nonfiction #4: Sam Green on 32 Sounds and live documentary
Seventh Row Podcast
In the fourth episode of our , Alex Heeney talks to Sam Green about 32 Sounds and his work exploring the possibilities of his work that he describes as "live documentaries". These are part locked footage, part live performance, usually including a live band on stage performing the film's music. On this episode, we give some background on Sam Green's work in live documentary, talk about how A Thousand Thoughts (2018), co-directed with Joe Bini, felt like a turning point for his work in the form, and discuss what makes 32 Sounds such a wonderful and innovative film. Finally, Alex talks...
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Creative Nonfiction #3: Philippe Falardeau on Lac-Mégantic: This Is Not An Accident and rethinking the true crime doc
Seventh Row Podcast
In the third episode of our , Philippe Falardeau discusses Lac-Mégantic: This is Not An Accident is a four-part documentary series about the catastrophic 2013 trainwreck in Lac-Mégantic, its inevitability, the aftermath, and the government failure to change safety requirements to avoid another "accident" in future. Lac-Mégantic had its world premiere at the HotDocs Film Festival where all four episodes were screened back-to-back. The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster was the fourth-deadliest rail accident in Canadian history (47 people died) and the deadliest involving a non-passenger train. The...
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Creative Nonfiction #2: Sophie Fiennes on Four Quartets and documenting live theatre
Seventh Row Podcast
In the second episode of our , Sophie Fiennes discusses The Four Quartets and how she approaches documenting live performance on screen. In The Four Quartets, she captures the stage play of the same name, directed by and starring her brother, actor Ralph Fiennes. For the production, Ralph Fiennes adapted the T.S. Eliot poem for the stage — which was never originally intended to be performed that way — and then toured this production around the UK in 2021. Sophie Fiennes’s film of The Four Quartets is neither live capture nor a full adaptation of the play. Instead, Fiennes remarkably...
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Creative Nonfiction #1: An introduction
Seventh Row Podcast
In the first episode of our , Alex Heeney previews what to expect in this five-episode season and discusses what is creative nonfiction film. You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes. with the Céline Sciamma quote "Cinema is the only art form ever where you share somebody else's lonelines" More on creative nonfiction Download a . Get your copy of Get your copy of Become a Member All of our episodes that are over 6 months old are available to members only. We also regularly record members only episodes. To get full access to the podcast, including episodes from...
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134: Justine Triet's Women on the Verge: In Bed With Victoria and Sibyl
Seventh Row Podcast
In honour of Justine Triet's historic Palme d'Or win, we are republishing our in-depth discussion of her two most recent films for free. This episode was originally released on September 8, 2020 as episode 56. This week on the podcast we look at two of Justine Triet's feature films, In Bed With Victoria (2016) and Sibyl (2019). Both films are non-judgemental character studies of career women in their thirties who are falling apart in various ways. We discuss how Triet's blending of multiple genres emphasizes the multiple facets of a character's life, and more. In Bed With...
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133: Berlinale 2023: Here, Delegation, The Teachers' Lounge, Le Paradis, and more
Seventh Row Podcast
On this episode, Editor-in-Chief Alex Heeney talks about several highlights of the 2023 Berlinale from the festival's sidebars. 0:00 Intro to the Berlinale & the episode 4:12 Here (Belgium, dir. Bas Devos) 12:20 The Teacher’s Lounge (Germany, dir. İlker Çatak) 16:59 The Quiet Migration / Stille Liv (Denmark, dir. Malene Choi) 23:17 Intro to the Generation sidebar 25:30 Delegation (Israel/Poland/Germany, dir. Asaf Savan) 30:15 Le Paradis / The Lost Boys (Belgium/France, dir. Zeno Gratan) 37:20 Wrap up First, Alex discusses the best film of the festival she saw, Here (dir. Bas...
info_outlineIn the fifth and final episode of our Creative Nonfiction Film podcast season, Alex Heeney talks to Penny Lane about her experimentations with documentary form in Confessions of a Good Samaritan. The film is a trip inside Penny’s brain as she goes through the stressful process of anonymously donating her kidney and investigates why kidney donations are necessary. Lane weaves almost all of the techniques from her previous films (and a few more!) into Confessions of a Good Samaritan, offering a thoughtful, educational, and funny look at the complicated feelings that come with doing good in the world at some personal expense.
Click here to read the episode show notes.
You will also find an AI-generated transcript in the show notes.
Useful links
- Visit the Creative Nonfiction Podcast homepage
- Discover all of our resources on the films of Joachim Trier
- Pre-order Existential detours: Joachim Trier's cinema of indecisions and revisions
More on creative nonfiction
Download a FREE excerpt from Subjective Realities here.
Get your copy of the ebook Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film here.
Get your copy of the ebook In their own words: Documentary Masters vol. 1
Listen to the podcast on the ebook Subjective realities: The art of creative nonfiction film
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Related Episodes
Members Only Episodes
- Ep. 12: Penny Lane on Hail Satan? (Members' Exclusive): Penny Lane discusses her 2019 film Hail Satan
- Ep. 40: Dead Mothers (Members' Exclusive): We discuss Joachim Trier's Louder Than Bombs, a film that expertly gets inside the head of its thoughtful characters. We also compare it to Mouthpiece and Stories We Tell.
- Ep. 122: Joachim Trier's The Worst Person in the World (Free): Joachim Trier's breakout hit is also a film that is very good at getting us inside the protagonist's mind amidst an existential crisis.
Free Episodes
- Ep. 105: Subjective Realities: The art of creative nonfiction film: We discuss the making of the ebook Subjective Realities and what you can expect from the book
- Ep. 99: Creative Nonfiction with Penny Lane and Carol Nguyen
- Ep. 123: Sundance 2022: Creative Nonfiction
Credits
Host Alex Heeney is the Editor-in-Chief of Seventh Row. Find her on Twitter @bwestcineaste.
Email us at contact <at> seventh <dash> row <dot> com.
This episode was edited, produced, and recorded by Alex Heeney.