The Cinematologists

The Cinematologists is a podcast and film club that aims to bring fans, filmmakers, critics and academics together to watch, discuss and engage with cinema of all forms, genres and eras.

Cinematologists logo

Project details

Project lead Dr Neil Fox
Centre alignment Centre for Heritage, Culture & Society
Start date 2015
End date Ongoing
Project website cinematologists.com

The Cinematologists podcast was started in March 2015 by film scholars Dr Neil Fox and Dr Dario Llinares as a labour of love, combining the singular pleasure of watching films with a passion for debate about cinema as an art-form.

Their aim was to try and combine the live, almost tactile electricity of the film experience with the intimacy of heated post-film social debate, contextualised with an accessible yet scholarly incisiveness.

The podcast is often based on a live event film screening where contributions from the hosts and audience members are recorded and edited together with related interviews and contextual chat from Neil and Dario, but there are also long form interview episodes with academics and filmmakers.

The podcast blends together scholarship, enthusiasm, and fandom and, as such, attracts an audience of academic critics and filmmakers who gravitate towards it as a place that talks about film in a way that nowhere else does.

Project team

The Cinematologists is presented by Dr 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.

Dr Neil Fox seated
Dr Neil Fox

Project lead - Dr Neil Fox


Dr Neil Fox is a Senior Lecturer at Falmouth University and has written and produced a number of short films including Backwoods and It's Natural To Be Afraid. In 2016, Neil wrote and produced his first feature film, Wilderness. Neil's research interests include film education, screenwriting, podcasting, music documentaries and concert films. Find out more about Neil's professional and academic experience, projects and outputs by visiting his staff profile.

Staff profile

Partners

Partners of the Cinematologist research project have included:

  • BFI
  • MUBI
  • Curzon
  • ICA
  • Club Des Femmes
  • Auteur Publishing
  • Right Now Film Festival
  • Film-Philosophy 

The collaborators on this research project can be discovered below and also include:

  • Dr Felicity Gee
  • Dr Sabina Stent
Kingsley Marshall book cover Philosophical Reflections on Black Mirror

Dr Kingsley Marshall

Head of Film & Television

Dr Kingsley Marshall is Head of Film & Television at the CILECT accredited School of Film &a...

Dr Kingsley Marshall

Mark Jenkin

Distinguished Professor of Film Practice at Falmouth University

Distinguished Professor of Film Practice Mark Jenkin is a filmmaker based in West Cornwall. He ha...

Mark Jenkin

Dr Laura Canning

Course Leader, BA(Hons) Film

Laura Canning is Course Leader BA(Hons) Film and currently teaches on core modules in...

Dr Laura Canning

Dr Verena Von Eicken

Lecturer

Verena von Eicken is a lecturer at the School of Film & Television. She was awarded her PhD in T...

Dr Verena Von Eicken

Dr Victoria Byard

Senior Lecturer in Television

Victoria Byard is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Film & Television. She received her BA in E...

Dr Victoria Byard

Outcomes & outputs

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:

Impact & recognition

With more than 100 episodes, 20,000 followers, and fans including top film critic, Mark Kermode, The Cinematologists has become one of the best and critically-acclaimed film interview podcasts in the UK with corporate partners including the British Film Institute.

Reviews

"A podcast and film club that bridges the gap between criticism, academia, film-making, and fandom. It's a terrifically welcome forum for informed film debate." 

- Mark Kermode, The Observer experts' experts, 2020

Project news

Dr Neil Fox seated
Dr Neil Fox

Mark Kermode Cites Falmouth Lecturer as Inspiration!

01 April 2020

Chief film critic for The Observer, Mark Kermode, has named The Cinematologists podcast as a key ins...

Mark Kermode Cites Falmouth Lecturer as Inspiration!
Film Academics Reunite

Film Academics Reunite for Special Screening

01 November 2018

Former Falmouth Lecturer and co-founder of Mark Kermode's favourite podcast, Dr Dario Llinares, visi...

Film Academics Reunite for Special Screening