Not for the faint of heart, Marina de Van’s film In My Skin challenges our stomachs, hearts and minds. While Wilson squirms, Ben gets to the heart of why Eli loves sicko mode movies. Can one of the most underrated New French Extremism films secretly be deeply empathetic?

Links:

The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning by Maggie Nelson

“The Goon Squad” by Daniel Kolitz (Harpers Magazine, 2025)

Night Vision: Seeing Ourselves Through Dark Moods by Mariana Alessandri

Interviews with & articles on Marina de Van:

• Rotterdam, 2019

• Screenslate, 2022

• Dread Central, 2022

• The French Review, 2010

• The Guardian, 2004

• Pinnland Empire, 2012

Get in our skin (ew?) at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:03:23 Introducing In My Skin

00:06:13 General reactions

00:11:29 Body fascination

00:14:37 Is it horror?

00:18:34 Eli goes sicko mode

00:26:04 Director background

00:32:12 Addiction / self-discovery

00:40:38 Characters

00:46:08 Female horror

00:49:45 Splitscreens and artmaking

00:55:12 The ending

01:00:28 g00ning

01:04:44 Dinner scene

01:12:16 Additional crew on In My Skin

01:16:31 Closing ideas

哈囉 from Hong Kong! Wilson recaps a busy edition of the Hong Kong International Film Festival, including meeting and interviewing the one and only Tony Leung Chiu Wai for SILENT FRIEND. Wilson also chats about the seven(!) soon to come director interviews he conducted for the podcast, and some interesting classic films shown at this year’s edition of HKIFF. The trio also discuss some exciting new releases including new films from Hong Sang-soo, Carla Simon, and Anthony Chen.

Links:

Tony Leung Interview

The Blade Video Essay

Radu Jude on Hong reel

Take the MTR to our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00:00: Intro

00:07:34 Meeting Tony Leung

00:14:23 Silent Friend (2025) dir. Ildiko Enyedi

00:16:27 Sleep No More (2026) dir. Edwin

00:20:04 Ah Girl (2026) dir. Ang Geck Geck

00:23:33 Memory (2025) dir. Vladlena Sandu

00:30:48 Palimpsest: The Story of a Name (2025) dir. Mary Stephen

00:36:37 Mare’s Nest (2025) dir. Ben Rivers

00:39:40 Vive L’amour (1994) dir. Tsai Ming Liang

00:43:48 Panelstory or Birth of a Community (1981) dir. Věra Chytilová

00:45:54 Ah Ying (1983) dir. Allen Fong

00:49:13 The Horse Thief (1986)dir. Tian Zhuangzhuang

00:51:03 Unknown Pleasures (2002) dir. Jia Zhangke

00:53:30 Days and Nights in the Forest (1970) dir. Satyajit Ray

00:54:55 Final Victory (1987) dir. Patrick Tam

00:59:20 We Are All Strangers (2026) dir. Anthony Chen

01:06:37 We’re Nothing at All (2026) dir. Herman Yau

01:10:40 My Father’s Shadow (2025) dir. Akinola Davies Jr.

01:11:45 The Day She Returns (2026) dir. Hong Sang Soo

01:18:20 Magellan (2025) dir. Lav Diaz

01:22:15 Romeria (2025) dir. Carla Simon

01:24:40 The Voice of Hind Rijab (2025) dir. Kaouther Ben Hania

01:27:50 Writing Life – Annie Ernaux Through the Eyes of High School Students (2025) dir. Claire Simon

01:31:00 Blue Heron (2025) dir. Sophy Romvari

01:36:00 The Drama (2026) dir. Kristoffer Borgli

01:40:15 Outro

“[Reichardt] makes you love these dicks.” – Wilson

How on earth does she do that? Does she have the mind of a master? Join us as we find out how Reichardt’s idiosyncratic style in The Mastermind helps you love this one dick despite all the hairy situations he’s entangled in. We debate the film’s reception during the AMC secret screening debacle, Reichardt's constantly zagging career, and her place in the American cinema landscape amidst dwindling cultural literacy.

Links:

Filmstage interviewMind of a master video

Master your mind at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

05:18 General reactions

13:55 The ending

19:28 Reichardt films and public reactions

28:19 Parts we liked about the movie

32:24 Josh O’Connor

36:03 More on the public’s reaction

44:16 Alana Haim

49:51 Outro

After an 8-year hiatus, Lynne Ramsay has returned with her latest feature, Die My Love, and we're here to keep up with the Scottish auteur!

After an 8-year hiatus, Lynne Ramsay has returned with her latest feature, Die My Love, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Robert Pattinson. On this Deep Cut Upkeep episode, we find out if it was worth the wait and consider what’s next for the Scottish auteur. Eli helps define the subgenre of “mommy horror,” Ben questions the depth of the movie’s characters, and Wilson draws comparisons to Marielle Heller’s Nightbitch and Darren Aronofsky’s Mother!.

Links:

Kelsey E. Henry, “Monstrous Motherhood” from The Point

Don’t die, my love, at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:30 General reactions
14:03 Maternal madness pictures
19:14 Linearity
22:19 Why Ramsay for this film
26:02 Comparing with Ramsay's other works
28:31 A good trailer
29:58 The ending
32:07 Mommy horror
40:34 "A crazy love story"
44:26 Last words / outro

Wilson takes a trip to Peng Chau to visit Ariel and Pearl of Kani Releasing, a North American film distribution company specializing in Asian cinema, to chat about their work, the films in their catalog and the changing film landscape for theatrical/physical media distribution.

Wilson takes a trip to Peng Chau to visit Ariel and Pearl of Kani Releasing, a North American film distribution company specializing in Asian cinema, to chat about their work, the films in their catalog and the changing film landscape for theatrical/physical media distribution. The chat about select titles in the Kani library, including Deep Cut favorite Marilou Diaz Abaya’s Moral (Ep 71) and Karnal, Patrick Tam’s My Heart is That Eternal Rose, and Nao Yoshigai’s Shari.

Links:

Kani Releasing

Crabwalk over to our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:42 Introducing Kani Releasing

00:10:37 Path to Kani Releasing

00:20:01 Karnal / Moral (dir. Marilou Diaz-Abaya)

00:30:06 Archiving in the Philippines

00:33:19 Bona (dir. Lino Brocka)

00:38:17 Kisapmata (dir. Mike de Leon)

00:44:13 Changing Filipino film culture

00:50:07 Kani's geography

00:53:07 Shari (dir. Nao Yoshigai)

01:02:21 My Heart is That Eternal Rose (dir. Patrick Tam)

01:11:47 Bye Bye Love (dir. Isao Fujisawa)

01:14:16 Looking for an Angel (dir. Akihiro Suzuki)

01:15:46 Amiko / Desert of Namibia (dir. Yoko Yamanaka)

01:21:00 Batang West Side (dir. Lav Diaz)

01:22:48 What's next for Kani Releasing

Flowers bloom at night… it’s not scary. With our first of presumably many Deep Cut Upkeeps on prolific South Korean auteur Hong Sang-soo, we explore What Does That Nature Say to You? We flesh out our theory of how Hong achieves authenticity and immediacy while eliding simple meaning, unpack the latest Hong male lead, and catch Hong’s reference to 6-7.

Bow at our grandmothers’ trees at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

05:12 General reactions

12:20 Glazing the boyfriend

14:30 Context

20:50 Dong-hwa as a Hong man

29:50 Girlfriend's family

38:58 Hong surrogacy: where is he in WDTNSTY?

44:12 Hong's image quality (or lack thereof)

51:22 Other notable scenes

57:35 Last words on Hong for now

Film critic and Events Chair of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association Ryan Swen joins us to discuss his Hong Sang-soo Deep Cut Pick, Hill of Freedom. Swen has had a huge hand in shaping our Hong series through his ongoing criticism project, Hong Sang-soo Notarized. We all take a look at the non-chronological narrative of Hong’s meditation on misogyny, Japan and Korea, and the unsurprising consequences of drinking too much.

Drop your letters at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00:00 Intro

00:01:40 Ryan Swen introduction

00:04:29 Hong Sang Soo Notarized Project

00:12:21 Hill of Freedom introduction and general reactions

00:21:29 Lost (and Found) in translation

00:27:21 Japan and Korea

00:32:53 Narrative structure

00:39:41 Mori and Misogyny

00:45:47 Hongisms

00:52:57 The ending

01:00:40 Actors

01:03:11 Outro

Writer, film curator, and leading Hong Sang-soo scholar Dennis Lim brings a personal favorite from Hong’s oeuvre–– 2022’s The Novelist’s Film–– to Deep Cut. As the DC trio and their esteemed guest enjoy the luxuriate in Hong’s complex, joyous depiction of collaborating artists-in-exile, Dennis shares his background with Hong, this film’s shape, and the model Hong sets for young, independent filmmakers.

Film your novel at our FREE patreon, discord server, and our socials @ www.deepcutpod.com

Timestamps:

00:00 Intro

02:08 Introducing guest

03:47 Lim's background with Hong

11:15 DC trio's current thoughts on Hong

15:41 Why the Novelist's Film / general reactions

26:13 Hong's regular actors

28:04 Formal discussion

38:33 Shapes

41:16 Lee Hye-young

46:25 Ha song-guk

47:06 Waste, exile, potential

50:19 Hong's business, life, and art model (good for young filmmakers)

55:53 Outro