Film screening & live podcast recording.

Rope (1948): Directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring James Stewart, this psychological thriller explores crime as an intellectual exercise. Based on the notorious real-life case of Leopold and Loeb, it raises the question of whether the most brutal crimes could be inspired by a warped reading of Nietzsche’s philosophy.

Nicci Gerrard & Sean French: Best-selling husband-and-wife writers of psychological thrillers under the pseudonym Nicci French; Sean French is also the biographer of playwright Patrick Hamilton, the author of Rope.

Film screening & live podcast recording.

My Dinner With Andre (1981): Directed by Louis Malle and staring Wallace Shawn and the eponymous Andre Gregory, this is a film about the power of conversation and the challenge of new ideas. Somehow it turns two men talking over dinner into a great adventure story.

Lee Hall: Playwright and screenwriter, best known for Billy Elliott – the stage musical and the film – and Elton John’s Rocketman.

Film screening & live podcast recording.

Rosa Luxemburg (1986): Margarethe von Trotta’s biopic of the great Marxist revolutionary and intellectual Rosa Luxemburg explores the relationship between radical politics and radical ideas and the tension between political emancipation and personal emancipation. Does a revolution require the leading of a revolutionary life?

Lea Ypi: Philosopher and best-selling author of the award-winning memoir Free: Coming of Age at the End of History. Lea Ypi’s new book is Indignity: A Life Reimagined.

Film screening & live podcast recording.

Wittgenstein (1993): Derek Jarman’s comedy drama loosely based on the life and ideas of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, starring Michael Gough and Tilda Swinton. A deeply unconventional biopic about a truly exceptional human being.

Nikhil Krishnan: Philosopher and writer whose recent book A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy at Oxford 1900-1960 tells the story of the friendships and rivalries that helped shape twentieth-century philosophy.

Film screening & live podcast recording.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004): Winner of the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay and starring Kate Winslet and Jim Carrey, this psychological drama explores the possibilities and pitfalls of memory erasure. A prescient vision not just of the promise and danger of mind-altering technology but also of the threat posed by the companies that sell it.

Beeban Kidron: Politician and film-maker known for the Bafta-award-winning Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, Beeban Kidron now campaigns against the abuse of power by big tech companies and for the rights of children online.

Film screening & live podcast recording.

A Dangerous Method (2011): David Cronenberg and Christopher Hampton’s exploration of the turbulent relationships between Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Sabina Spielrein, one of the first female psychoanalysts. A film about the power of new ideas and the old power relationships between men and women that run alongside them.

Guest TBC