- 19
- Episodes
- 2023
- First episode
About Down Underground
Down Underground delves into the dynamic world of Aussie film culture, featuring eclectic voices from the local film scene. Hosted by Cristian Speranza and Kevin Ding. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
- Publisher
- Down Underground
- Category
- tv & film · tv & film · tv & film
- Language
- en
- Explicit
- No
- First episode
- 23 Aug 2023
- Latest episode
- 23 Mar 2026
Latest episodes
19 episodes in the feed.
23 Mar 2026
Down Underground's 2026 Academy Awards Recap with Steven Christie
On our second of two Academy Awards focused episodes, we were lucky enough to have entertainment expert and red-carpet aficionado Steven Christie (Channel 10, Hollywood Reporter AU) join us on the show to discuss the awards race, giving us an expert's insight into voting trends, industry gossip and the production of the night itself. If you're looking for an deeper dive into how the Oscars actually works, this episode is not one you want to miss. --- Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
15 Mar 2026
Down Underground's 2026 Academy Awards Predictions
On this first of two Academy Awards dedicated specials, Cristian and Kevin discuss their hard-and-fast thoughts, feelings and predictions on this year's Academy Award nominated films! If you're looking for insights into this year's breakout star, the Hairy Leg, also didn't know that 'Train Dreams' has an original song in it, and want to hear what two guys who just made a podcast series about Jean-Luc Godard think about F1, then Down Underground is the place for you! --- Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
2 Mar 2026
BONUS EPISODE: The New-New Wave - Richard Linklater's 'Nouvelle Vague' (2025)
To cap off our Jean-Luc Godard series, Kevin and Cristian talk about Richard Linklater’s newly released Nouvelle Vague. Linklater tells the story of how a young, maverick Godard made his first film Breathless, all the while alienating everyone who worked with him. It’s a fun, breezy and quirky work, not meant to be taken too seriously. The boys discuss Guillaume Marbeck’s uncanny portrayal of JLG, and how this film fits into the wider filmography of Richard Linklater, who can be rightly described as a maverick himself. --- Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
26 Jan 2026
Goodbye to Cinema - King Lear (1987) | Part 2
Jean-Luc Godard’s biographer Richard Brody calls 1987’s King Lear “the best film of all time”. After its Cannes premiere, the film screened for two weeks in the US, and then disappeared into obscurity for 15 years. A young Quentin Tarantino lied that he acted in the movie, believing that nobody would have watched it to know otherwise. In the season finale to our Godard 80s series, Kevin & Cristian round off their discussion of King Lear by speaking to its reappraisal by champions such as the aformentioned Brody, as well as Criterion's recent remastering and re-release of the film, before some final thoughts on this long, strange trip. We'll be returning soon with some bonus episodes on Richard Linklater's new 'Nouvelle Vague' and an obligatory Oscar's discussion, before we kick off our next season on the great PARK CHAN-WOOK. --- Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
19 Jan 2026
A Film About NO-thing - 'King Lear' (1987) | Part 1
Jean-Luc Godard’s biographer Richard Brody calls 1987’s King Lear “the best film of all time”. After its Cannes premiere, the film screened for two weeks in the US, and then disappeared into obscurity for 15 years. A young Quentin Tarantino lied that he acted in the movie, believing that nobody would have watched it to know otherwise. In the first of our final two episodes of our Godard series, Kevin & Cristian attempt to find meaning within this maddening, fragmented anti-adaptation of Shakespeare. The project began when Godard signed a US$1 million contract on a napkin with Israeli film producer Menahem Golan, whose Cannon Group was known for the Death Wish series, Chuck Norris flicks, and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo. Out of this unlikely partnership, King Lear is born: “A FILM ABOUT NO THING”, which on paper, follows William Shakespeare Jr. the Fifth as he searches for his ancestor’s work in a post-Chernobyl cultural wasteland. Is this all one big troll by Godard? Is it an act of artistic self-immolation? Featuring Norman Mailer, Peter Sellars, Molly Ringwald, Leos Carax, and even Woody Allen, 1987’s King Lear is certainly one of the strangest films ever made. --- Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
12 Jan 2026
One Big Joke - Keep Your Right Up! (1987)
Keep Your Right Up! (1987) is perhaps one of Godard's strangest features, and the subject of this week's episode of Down Underground. The second-last feature in Godard's 80s catalogue, Keep Your Right Up! sees Godard attempt a 'comedy' in the style of Keaton, Tati or Lewis, acting as it's star (sort of) alongside his usual role in the director's chair. As idiotic as it is idiosyncratic (and featuring a cameo from Jane Birkin) Keep Your Right Up! gave Kevin and Cristian plenty to talk about. ... Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
5 Jan 2026
Back to Basics (?) - 'Detective' 1985
On this week's episode of Down Underground, Kevin and Cristian discuss the other film Godard released in 1985, 'Detective'. Made as a means of financing 'Hail Mary', 'Detective' was comissioned by producer Alain Sarde, who had already secured both the script and the film's star, Nathalie Baye, and was likely seeking to cash in on Godard's history with film-noir by offering Godard a simple tale of intrigue and deception. However, Godard, forever dedicated to deconstructing genre and language (or just plain trolling) created a disorienting meta-commentary, no doubt enhanced by the return of familiar faces such as New-Wave darling Jean-Pierre Leaud as well as Claude Brasseur, both of whom had starred in Godard's 60s works. ... Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
8 Dec 2025
jl-GOD-ard: Hail Mary (1985)
On this week's episode of Down Underground, Kevin and Cristian discuss one of Godard's most contentious films, 1985's Hail Mary. Born from Godard's obsession with fatherhood, particularly fathering a daughter, Je vous salue, Marie sees Myriem Roussel finally take centre stage as the titular Mary, who is visited by the angel Gabriel (Philippe Lacoste) and, like the biblical tale, immaculately conceives of a baby boy, a concept her boyfriend Joseph (Thierry Rode) must struggle to come to terms with. The film was heavily protested across Europe, Oceania and the USA by Catholic and Christian groups after the Pope denounced it as blasphemous, an infamy Godard, and the film, took in their stride as a powerful symbol of the aging enfant terrible's ongoing ability to shock audiences (and market pictures). ... Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
3 Dec 2025
A Girl And A Gun - 'First Name: Carmen' (1983)
On this week's episode of Down Underground, Kevin and Cristian discuss one of Jean-Luc Godard's most severely underrated masterpieces, 'First Name: Carmen' (1983). A very loose adaptation of Georges Bizet's classic opera 'Carmen' (1875), Godard returns to the formula he knows best, a 'Bonnie and Clyde' style narrative starring Maruschka Detmers as the titular 'Carmen', and Jacques Bonaffe as 'Joseph', a security guard-turned outlaw. It wouldn't be a Godard 80s film without a parallel narrative, in this instance a string quarter rehearsing for a performance of some late Beethoven works, with Myriem Roussel returning, this time as 'Claire', the youngest and least experienced of the quartet. You won't want to miss this lively discussion of this Golden Lion winning future-classic of not just the 80s, but Godard's entire ouvre! ... Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects, and feel free to rate the show in your listening app of choice! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
24 Nov 2025
The Art of Cinema: 'Godard's Passion' (1982)
After returning to the cinema with Every Man for Himself (1980), Jean Luc Godard was quick at work on his follow up, Passion, often titled Godard's Passion. Isabelle Huppert returns to star alongs Jerzy Radziwiłowicz and Hanna Schygulla, who up until that point had worked almost exclusively with German director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. Godard alumni Michel Piccoli, previously of Contempt (1964), as well as Raoul Coutard, Godard's trusted cinematographer for much of his 60s work, also reunite with the director in this tale of parallel but intertwined narrative threads. Join Kevin and Cristian as they attempt to unpack this dense piece of cinema-obscura, where Godard playfully infuses the worlds of 'low' labour and 'high' art whilst continuing to blow apart the relationship between image and sound. ... Make sure you're following the instragram to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
17 Nov 2025
Return to Cinema: Every Man for Himself (1980)
Jean Luc Godard's first film of the 1980s, Every Man for Himself, marked his return to the cinematic mainstream by kicking off many of the recurring themes and formal motifs that classify this era in the director's ouvré, and featured a number of stars that Godard would collaborate with in this decade, including Isabelle Huppert and Nathalie Baye. Scenes were slowed to the point that individual frames become apparent, the score would shift between diagetic and non-diegetic, or Godard might suddenly throw us a picturesque scene of the Swiss countryside or cars whizzing down a highway at night, whilst two characters discuss their failed romantic relationship. Join Kevin and Cristian as they begin their journey to reappraise this overlooked period in the working life of one of cinema's most idiosyncratic figures. ... Make sure you're following the instragram (https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/) to stay as up to date as possible on this and all other Down Underground projects. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
10 Nov 2025
After the Wave - An Introduction to Godard in the 80s
In this first of eight episodes concerning Jean Luc Godard's return to mainstream cinema in the 1980s, Kevin hosts an exciting look into Godard's whirlwind escape from the cinematic front lines. From his rise as one of France's most exciting new filmmakers and his staunch advocacy for the May '68 protestors, to his political and cinematic exile with the Dziga Vertov group and even near-death experience, Kevin and Cristian discuss the dramatic highs and crushing lows that characterized the first two decades of Jean Luc Godard's career as a filmmaker, and bring us to the 1980s, and to next week's film for discussion, Every Man For Himself. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
3 Nov 2025
Lost Episode 2 - Goran Stolevski Double Bill
On this second of two lost episodes of Down Underground, Cristian and Kevin talk about You Won't Be Alone (2022) and Of an Age (2022), the first two features of Macedonian-Australian filmmaker Goran Stolevski. The pair explore Stolevski's impressive ability to wield wildly different genre conventions in his deeply human explorations of gender, sexuality, love and loss. Up next, something new from the boys. Stay tuned to find out more! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
27 Oct 2025
Lost Episode 1 - Nitram (2021)
On the first of two 'lost' episodes, the Kevin and Cristian discuss Justin Kurzel's 2021 film Nitram, which made waves when it was released in Australia to a slew of both controversy and praise. From Caleb Landry Jones' incredible transformation into a small-town Ausie drifter, to ongoing discourses surrounding gun control and depictions of violence in the media, there's much to discuss on the first of our two 'lost' episodes to keep you busy before something new finally drops... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
5 Oct 2023
Down Underground Episode 5 - Bad Boy Bubby (1993)
In this week's episode, Cristian and Kevin discuss their first viewings of Rolf De Heer's staple piece of Australian cult cinema, 'Bad Boy Bubby' (1993). From its acclaimed international reception at the time of its release to its incredible experiment in style and cinematography, the boys find plenty to discuss in this first of many Aussie cult explorations. Links: Cristian's Letterboxd:https://letterboxd.com/Crispero/ Kevin's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/thehostilegoose/ Down Underground Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
14 Sept 2023
Down Underground Ep 4 - Local and Diaspora Cinema ft. Nicole Cadelina
Down Underground Episode 4 - Local and Diaspora Cinema ft. Nicole Cadelina In this week's episode, the second part of the film festival round up, Kevin and Cristian chat with filmmaker, artist and Letterboxd critic Nicole Cadelina about her experience working for the Sydney Film Festival. We also delve into the cultural specificities of Sydney's local film culture, and discuss issues of poetics and aesthetics of representation in diasporic films. Links: Nicole's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/nimuy/ Cristian's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/crispero/ Kevin's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/thehostilegoose/ Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/ (https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
7 Sept 2023
Down Underground Ep 3 - Cannes and Sydney Film Festival
Down Underground Episode 3 - Cannes and Sydney Film Festival This week's episode is the first of a two-parter film festival round up, where the boys report their viewing experience at both the Sydney Film Festival, and the prestigious Cannes Film Festival where Kevin was able to spend time at. We discuss some of the most acclaimed and anticipated films of 2023 so far, including deep dives into Todd Haynes' 'May December', Hirokazu Kore-eda's 'Monster'. Links: Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/ (https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
31 Aug 2023
Down Underground Ep 2 - Parish Malfitano
Down Underground Episode 2 - An Interview w/ Parish Malfitano On this week's episode, Kevin and Cristian are joined by director and friend Parish Malfitano to discuss his debut feature 'Bloodshot Heart', as well as his upcoming sophomore effort 'Salt Along the Tongue'. Additionally, the boys discuss Parish's affinity for classical music, his experiences with distributing an independent feature (amidst a pandemic), the influence of his Italian heritage on his filmmaking and the films that inspired him. Whether you're a fan, an aspiring filmmaker, or both, this is a discussion you won't want to miss! 'Bloodshot Heart' is available to stream for FREE for Australian viewers at SBS On Demand! Links: Parish's Website: https://www.parishmalfitano.com (https://www.parishmalfitano.com) Parish's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/parishmalfitano/ (https://www.instagram.com/parishmalfitano/) Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/ (https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
23 Aug 2023
Down Underground Ep 1 - Our Favourites
Down Underground Episode 1 - Letterboxd Four Favourites Welcome to Down Underground, a new podcast delving into the dynamic world of Aussie film culture, featuring eclectic voices from the local film scene. In this inaugural episode, your hosts Cristian and Kevin outline their aims for the show and share their Four Favourites on Letterboxd. We are lifelong cinephiles, and endeavour to bring listeners along as we explore and discover all that’s going on in Australian film circles through discussions, interviews and debates. What defines Australia cinema, and how does it define our society? Who are the emerging creatives that are shaping the culture? And why is our country’s film industry relegated into a corner, often forced to exist underground? NOTE: Due to real-life disruptions, ‘Bad Boy Bubby’ will no longer be the topic of discussion for Episode 2, but Episode 5. Get keen! ‘Senses of Cinema’ Documentary (John Hughes and Tom Zubrycki, 2022): https://sensesofcinemafilm.com.au/ (https://sensesofcinemafilm.com.au/) Socials: Cristian - https://letterboxd.com/crispero/ (https://letterboxd.com/crispero/) Kevin - https://letterboxd.com/thehostilegoose/ (https://letterboxd.com/thehostilegoose/) Podcast Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/ (https://www.instagram.com/down.underground/) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.
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