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Cold War Cinema: Daily Summaries Delivered
by Jason Christian, Anthony Ballas, & Paul T. Klein
Cold War Cinema is a podcast about movies made during the first few decades of the Cold War (1947–1991). Each episode primarily focuses on one film, and the hosts, Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas, discuss the director's life and work, the historical context of the film, and examine its themes that relate to the turbulent politics of the era. Theme music and editing on the first 14 episodes by Tim Jones; theme music from then on by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt), and editing by Jason Christian. Logo by Jason Christian
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- Aug 30, 20262h 0m
S2 Ep. 15: I Am Cuba (1964, Mikhail Kalatozov)
In this episode, Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas are joined by guest Silas Nathan to discuss Mikhail Kalatozov's iconic film, I Am Cuba (1964), a Soviet-Cuban collaboration about the years just before and during the revolution. Silas Nathan is a Latin Americanist, translator, and photographer whose work focuses on US-Latin America relations. He wrote his undergraduate thesis about Cuban cinema. He has a BA in Spanish Studies and a master's degree in teaching, both from Bard College. In this episode we discuss: The recent US State Department Cuba report, its implications for political organizing, and its connection to Cold War history. The Cuban Institute of Cinematographic Art and Industry, or ICAIC, the state-funded filmmaking organization established in March of 1959, just three months after the Revolutionary victory. The organization is still making films to this day. The historical and political context of I Am Cuba Kalatov's dialectical aesthetic vision The incredible production and cinematography of I Am Cuba The misunderstood legacy of I Am Cuba and its orginal reception in Cuba. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Silas's recommendations: the books Cuban Cinema by Michael Chanan and Cuba: A New History by Richard Gott; the news organization Belly of the Beast; and the 1968 film Memories of Underdevelopment, directed by Tomás Gutiérrez Alea. Tony's recommendations: the 1944 Haitian novel Gouverneurs de la rosée, by Jacques Roumain, and the 1968 Soviet novel The Foundation Pit, by Andrei Platonov. Jason's recommendations: the Cuba Analysis podcast, especially the recent episode with Prof. Isaac Saney; the book We Are Cuba! How a Revolutionary People Have Survived in a Post-Soviet World by Helen Yaffe; and the 1977 film De cierta manera (One Way or Another), directed by Sara Gómez. _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. For more from your hosts: Follow Silas on X (Twitter) here: @jsnathan03, and check out Concrete Conditions, Silas's Substack on history and culture. Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
- Aug 1, 20261h 46m
Bonus: Getting to Know Your Hosts
In this bonus episode we thought we'd do something different and chat about our personal backgrounds, our early cinema memories, and our scholarly interests today. We had fun with this conversation and we hope you enjoy it! _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Jason Christian recommends the book-length essay The Devil Finds Work by James Baldwin Tony Ballas recommends the book The Antinomies of Realism by Fredric Jameson and the movie Toy Story 5 (2026) Paul T. Klein recommends the books The Monster Show by David J. Skal and Anatomy of a Robot: Literature, Cinema, and the Cultural Work of Artificial People by Despina Kakoudaki, as well as the film Intruder in the Dust (1949) _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. For more from your hosts: Follow Taylor uses the handle @trgenovese on X, Instagram, and Letterboxd. Information on his scholarship and visual art can be found on his website at taylorgenovese.com. Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
- Jul 1, 20261h 51m
Bonus: Robert Kramer's Radical Cinema w/ guest Whitney Strub
In this bonus episode, Jason interviews the historian Whitney Strub about his scholarship and his new book Films That Explode Like Grenades: Robert Kramer and the Search for a Radical Cinema, just published by University of Chicago Press. The book examines the New Left and its underground cinema through the life and films of one its most important participants, Robert Kramer (1939-1999). Whitney Strub is associate professor of History at Rutgers University–Newark. He is the author of Perversion for Profit: The Politics of Pornography and the Rise of the New Right (Columbia University Press, 2011) and Obscenity Rules: Roth v. United States and the Long Struggle over Sexual Expression (University Press of Kansas, 2013), co-editor of ReFocus: The Films of Roberta Findlay (Edinburgh University Press, 2023), and editor of Queer Newark: Stories of Resistance, Love, and Community (Rutgers University Press, 2024). His work has also appeared in Radical History Review, Journal of the History of Sexuality, The Nation, and Temple of Schlock, among other venues. He is a longtime member and former chair of North New Jersey Democratic Socialists of America. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Whitney recommends Roberta Findlay's 1975 adult film Anyone But My Husband and the new book Baltimore's Black Arts Then & Now: Behind the Scenes of a Collaborative Public Humanities Project by Mary Rizzo Jason recommends the book Revolution in 35mm: Political Violence and Resistance in Cinema from the Arthouse to
- Jun 24, 20261h 42m
S2 Ep. 14: Fail Safe (1964, Sidney Lumet)
The Cold War Cinema team returns to discuss Sidney Lumet's 1964 film Fail Safe, a powerful (and bold) independent Hollywood production that paints a horrific picture of a potential nuclear war. The film was released the same year as Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove and has remained in its shadow, unfairly, ever since. In this episode we discuss: Sidney Lumut's fascinating and underrated cinematic career The political and historical context of Fail Safe (1964), a film that captures the paranoia of nuclear proliferation The film's critique of war technology and how that maps onto our current era of AI-assisted warfare. The limits of Hollywood storrytelling for a truly radical critique of US imperialism _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Jason recommends the 1992 book Signatures of the Visible by Fredric Jameson. Paul recommends the novel Advise and Consent by Allen Drury and Otto Preminger's 1962 film adaptiion Avise & Consent. Tony recommends the book Raymond Chandler: The Detections of Totality by Fredric Jameson and W.E.B. Du Bois's book Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil. _____________________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. For more from your hosts: Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. Jason also writes an infrequent newletter on left-wing cinema at Notes on Radical Cinema. Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed at @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
- May 30, 20261h 48m
S2 Ep. 13: Ivan's Childhood (1962, Andrei Tarkovsky) w/ guest Taylor R. Genovese
"I want to underline my own belief that art must carry man's craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist's version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition to it—otherwise life would become impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence." ― Andrei Tarkovsky, Sculpting in Time (1986) The Cold War Cinema team is joined by guest Taylor R. Genovese to discuss Andrei Tarkovsky's debut feature film, Ivan's Childhood (1962), a Soviet masterpiece about the Great Patriotic War and prime example of Thaw–era cinema. Taylor R. Genovese is an assistant professor of philosophy at Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York. He has also been a filmmaker and photographer for over a decade. His multimodal and transdisciplinary research focuses on Marxism, historical memory, and borderlands. He is also an editor and board member at Iskra Books, a nonprofit scholarly publisher that releases original works of revolutionary theory, history, ecology, and art. In this episode we discuss: Andrei Tarkovsky's life and career The historical and political context of Ivan's Childhood Tarkovsky's aesthetic vision and theological concerns How the concept of "toska" shapes the sensibilities of the literary and cinematic arts in the Slavic world, including in Tarkovsky's films. The moving image representation of trauma and transcendence in Ivan's Childhood. The poetry of Andrei's father, Arseny Tarkovsky, and its influence on the filmmaker. The Soviet astethetics of Alexander Bogdanov (1873–1928), as articulated in his book Art and the Working Class, which Genovese translated from the Russian in 2022. To purchase the book (or download a free PDF), click this link. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Taylor recommends the films Come and See (1985, dir. Elem Klimov) and Dead Man's Letters (1986, dir. Konstantin Lopushanskiy). Paul recommends a film and a record: Sergei Eisenstein's Strike (1925) and U2's War (1983). Tony recommends the book Freudianism: A Marxist Critique, by Valentin Voloshinov, and the new essay "The Enchanted Biopolitics of Dark Cosmism" by our guest Taylor R. Genovese. Jason recommends the film Kes (1969, dir. Ken Loach) _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. For more from your hosts: Follow Taylor uses the handle @trgenovese on X, Instagram, and Letterboxd. Information on his scholarship and visual art can be found on his website at taylorgenovese.com. Follow Jason on Bluesky at @JasonChristian.bsky.social, on X at @JasonAChristian, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. Follow Anthony on Bluesky at @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X at @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky at @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed at @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com _____________________ Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
- Apr 27, 20261h 54m
Bonus: New German Cinema and the Red Army Faction w/ guest Ryan Ruby
In this bonus episode, cohosts Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas speak with the literary critic Ryan Ruby about New German Cinema, particularly the directors Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Alexander Kluge, and the film movement's fascination with the Red Army Faction (Rote Armee Fraktion) A.K.A. the Baader–Meinhof Gang, an ultra-left militant group in West Germany that existed in various forms from 1970 to 1998. Ryan Ruby is the author of Context Collapse: A Poem Containing a History of Poetry (Seven Stories Press, 2024) and The Zero and the One: A Novel (Twelve Books, 2017). For his essays and reviews, which have recently appeared in such venues as Harper's, Bookforum, and the New Left Review, he has received the Silvers Prize in Literary Criticism. He lives in Berlin, where he is working on a book of creative nonfiction about the city's mass transit system, tentatively titled Ringbahn: On Berlin Time, which will be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in late 2027. _____________________ Ryan Ruby's forthcoming book on the cultural history of Berlin, with particular interest in the music scene and cinema of the 1970s The films Germany in Autumn (1978) and The Third Generation (1979) The Red Army Faction and 1960s/'70s militancy The political climate in Berlin today V.I. Lenin's critique of "adventurism" _____________________ We love to give recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Tony recommends the two-volume book The Magic of Robert-Houdin An Artist's Life The Watchmaker, Mechanician and Conjurer by Christian Fechner <span style=
- Mar 24, 20261h 15m
Bonus: Interview w/ Dr. Alice Lovejoy
In this bonus episode, cohosts Jason Christian and Paul T. Klein interview the film historian Dr. Alice Lovejoy about her scholarship and her new book, Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War. The book examines the long and storied histories of the film manufacturing giants Kodak and Agfa and provides a materailst analysis of their involved in US and Germany imperialism around the world. Alice Lovejoy is a media and cultural historian and comparatist whose research examines governmental and institutional media, and media technologies, in transnational perspective. Her book Tales of Militant Chemistry: The Film Factory in a Century of War (University of California Press, August 2025) is a history of film and the factories where it was made. Shifting focus between the United States, Germany, the Belgian Congo, and the Soviet Union, the book considers the military, colonial, and environmental implications of film's entanglement with the chemical industry. Lovejoy's first book, Army Film and the Avant Garde: Cinema and Experiment in the Czechoslovak Military (Indiana University Press, 2015), was named co-winner of the Modern Language Association's 2018 Aldo and Jeanne Scaglione Prize for Studies in Slavic Languages and Literatures. It was also awarded Honorable Mention for the 2016 University of Southern California Book Prize in Literary and Cultural Studies (ASEEES) and the 2017 Czechoslovak Studies Association Book Prize, and longlisted for the 2016 Kraszna-Krausz Moving Image Book Award. This book traces the emergence of an experimental film culture in the Czechoslovak Army's film studio (1929-1969), and includes a DVD of thirteen short films produced by the Czechoslovak Ministry of Defense. Lovejoy is also at work on a project studying the intertwined histories of postwar children's television and film institutions—among them, Yugoslavia's "Film and Child" Commission, Iran's Institute for the Intellectual Development of Children and Young Adults (Kanoon), East Germany's National Center for Children's Film and Television, Czechoslovakia's Center for Films for Children and Youth, and UNESCO's International Centre for Films for Children and Young People. With Mari Pajala, she co-edited Remapping Cold War Media: Institutions, Infrastructures, Translations (Indiana University Press, 2022), and she has published widely on East European, particularly Czech and Slovak, film and literature. Lovejoy has worked as a film critic, curator, and filmmaker, including as an editor at Film Comment magazine. _____________________ We love to give recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Alice recommends the Norwegian television series Occupied (2015–2020), created by Jo Nesbø Paul recommends the 2016 documentary Dawson City: Frozen Time, directed by Bill Morrison Jason recommends Walter Rodney's 1972 book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. For more from your hosts and guest: Follow Alice on Instagram @alice__lovejoy, or on Bluesky @alicelovejoy.bsky.social, Follow Jason on Bluesky @JasonAChristian.bsky.social, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. Follow Anthony on Bluesky @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at <a href="http://www.howotreadmovies.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopen
- Feb 19, 20261h 28m
S2 Ep. 12: Seconds (1966, John Frankenheimer) w/ guest Adam McKay
On this episode, the Cold War Cinema crew is joined by director, writer, and producer Adam McKay to discuss John Frankenheimer's paranoid, psychological thriller Seconds (1966). McKay has written and directed many celebrated feature films such as Anchorman (2004), Talladega Nights (2006), Step Brothers (2008), The Big Short (2015), Vice (2018), Don't Look Up (2021), and numerous others. Prior to this, McKay was a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade in the early 1990s, and head writer for Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2001. In 2019, McKay founded Hyperobject Industries, and has served as the executive producer of HBO's Succession (2019–2023), Game Theory with Bomani Jones (2022–2023), and, most recently, The Chair Company (2025) starring Tim Robinson. Synopsis of the film: Middle-aged banker Arthur Hamilton (John Randolph) feels trapped in a life that has calcified into routine and regret. When he receives a phone call from an old friend who he thought was long dead, and a shadowy organization known simply as "the Company" offers him the ultimate second chance, he fakes his death, and undergoes radical surgery to assume a new identity. Reborn as artist Tony Wilson (Rock Hudson), he's given youth, wealth, and access to a new bohemian lifestyle on a seaside in Malibu. While his transformation at first feels intoxicating, the promise of freedom begins to fray and ultimately fracture. As Tony struggles to inhabit his new self, paranoia creeps in and the illusion of choice gives way to something far more unsettling. Shot in stark black-and-white with disorienting lenses and claustrophobic compositions, Seconds is less a sci-fi fantasy than an existential nightmare—an unsettling meditation on identity, conformity, and the seductive lie that starting over can save us from who we are. On this episode we discuss: McKay's work as a comedian, comedy writer, and filmmaker, his political and cinematic influences, the paranoid style of filmmaking in the 1960s, satire, the looming specter of climate apocalypse, why the world needs a Ho Chi Minh biopic, and much more. _____________________ We love to give book or film recommendations on the podcast, so here are ours for this episode: Adam: Jafar Panahi's It Was Just an Accident (2025) and Andrey Zvyagintsev's Leviathan (2014) Paul: A Little Solitaire: John Frankenheimer and American Film by Murray Pomerance and R. Barton Palmer Anthony Ballas: The Black Race by Ho Chi Minh by Dai Trang Nguyen and "Ho Chi Minh and Black Liberation" by Gerald Horne and Anthony Ballas. Jason: John Frankenheimer's Seven Days in May (1964). _____________________ Like and subscribe to Cold War Cinema, and don't forget to leave us a review! Want to continue the conversation? Drop us a line at any time at coldwarcinemapod@gmail.com. To stay up to date on Cold War Cinema, follow along at coldwarcinema.com, or find us online on Bluesky @coldwarcinema.com or on X at @Cold_War_Cinema. For more from your hosts and guest: Follow Adam on Instagram @mr.ghostpanther, or on Bluesky @ghostpanther.bsky.social, Follow Jason on Bluesky @JasonAChristian.bsky.social, or on Letterboxed at @exilemagic. Follow Anthony on Bluesky @tonyjballas.bsky.social, on X @tonyjballas, or on Letterboxed @tonyjballas. Follow Paul on Bluesky @ptklein.com, or on Letterboxed @ptklein. Paul also writes about movies at www.howotreadmovies.com Logo by Jason Christian Theme music by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt). Happy listening!
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About Cold War Cinema
Cold War Cinema is a podcast about movies made during the first few decades of the Cold War (1947–1991). Each episode primarily focuses on one film, and the hosts, Jason Christian and Anthony Ballas, discuss the director's life and work, the historical context of the film, and examine its themes that relate to the turbulent politics of the era. Theme music and editing on the first 14 episodes by Tim Jones; theme music from then on by DYAD (Charles Ballas and Jeremy Averitt), and editing by Jason Christian. Logo by Jason Christian
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