Hard Truths - an Animus film podcast

Recording together in Paris, Elena and Manuela discuss two of the buzziest films of the year: Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime stars Robert Pattinson as Chris Hansen, infamous host of the reality TV show To Catch a Predator; while Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Digger stars Tom Cruise as the living manifestation of destiny I mean as oil magnate Digger. The conversation features spoilers for both films. 
Hard Truths is an ⁠⁠Animus⁠⁠ film podcast. As often as they can, Animus founder and editor Elena Lazic catches up from London, UK, with her twin Manuela, who can usually be found across the pond in Paris. Expect animated conversations about cinema, digressions into unrelated topics, and trivial facts from our personal lives. Do NOT expect to immediately be able to tell us apart.

In this catch up episode, Elena and Manuela discuss Dolly Parton and the fantasies of 9 to 5 (Colin Higgins, 1980), the undeniably dystopian One Night Only (Will Gluck, 2026), the butt of the joke in Nathan Fielder’s The Rehearsal (2022-), trust in Oasis of Fear (Umberto Lenzi, 1971), stifling social codes in La Règle du jeu (Jean Renoir, 1939), identity and choices in At Close Range (James Foley, 1986), and much more. 
Hard Truths is an ⁠⁠Animus⁠⁠ film podcast. As often as they can, Animus founder and editor Elena Lazic catches up from London, UK, with her twin Manuela, who can usually be found across the pond in Paris. Expect animated conversations about cinema, digressions into unrelated topics, and trivial facts from our personal lives. Do NOT expect to immediately be able to tell us apart.

When Curry Barker’s Obsession (2025) came out in cinemas a few months ago, a small debate emerged online about audience reactions and the director’s intentions. Was this a film about dating a “crazy” girlfriend, or about misogynistic fantasies of domination and control? Although most online discourse could do with more nuance, in this case it is important to be categorical: Obsession is unambiguously a film about a r*pist. 
A few weeks after the film came out, Elena happened to organise a screening of Nicolas Roeg’s masterpiece Bad Timing (1980), and she noticed a parallel with Obsession: here too, the male protagonist thinks he is the good guy, even as he psychologically and physically tortures the woman he is with. But even more striking was a Letterboxd review from a user who seemed to misunderstand Roeg’s film in the same way that some people missed the point of Obsession: Bad Timing, to this viewer, was highly relatable as a film about the horrendous experience of… dating a “crazy” girl. 
In this episode, Elena and Manuela discuss the ways in which Barker’s and Roeg’s films approach a painful topic, wrongfoot their audience, and progressively give viewers the information they need to understand what is really going on. 
Hard Truths is an ⁠⁠Animus⁠⁠ film podcast. As often as they can, Animus founder and editor Elena Lazic catches up from London, UK, with her twin Manuela, who can usually be found across the pond in Paris. Expect animated conversations about cinema, digressions into unrelated topics, and trivial facts from our personal lives. Do NOT expect to immediately be able to tell us apart.

Elena and Manuela try on a looser podcasting style in Bologna, at Il Cinema Ritrovato. Among the topics they cover are: Curry Barker’s Obsession and Kane Parsons’ Backrooms, libraries, file sharing, budding cinephiles, Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid, F.W. Murnau’s Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans, and much more.
Hard Truths is an ⁠⁠Animus⁠⁠ film podcast. Every other week, Animus founder and editor Elena Lazic catches up from London, UK, with her twin Manuela, who can usually be found across the pond in Paris. Expect animated conversations about cinema, digressions into unrelated topics, and trivial facts from our personal lives. Do NOT expect to immediately be able to tell us apart.

As Elena’s season Finding Your Way: The Films of Peter Weir was winding down at the BFI Southbank in London, she joined Manuela to talk some more about the cinema of this fascinating Australian filmmaker, from Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, to Fearless, Witness to Gallipoli, Dead Poets Society to The Truman Show and more. 
Hard Truths is an ⁠⁠Animus⁠⁠ film podcast. Every other week, Animus founder and editor Elena Lazic catches up from London, UK, with her twin Manuela, who can usually be found across the pond in Paris. Expect animated conversations about cinema, digressions into unrelated topics, and trivial facts from our personal lives. Do NOT expect to immediately be able to tell us apart. 
Hard Truths is made possible by ⁠⁠True Cinephile⁠⁠ paying members who support all things Animus by paying £3.50/month or £35/year.