#NEWMUSIC: MUBI PODCAST SEASON 12 RETURNS NOVEMBER 12, 2026

The multi-award-winning MUBI Podcast returns for its twelfth season on November 12. Titled UNDER PRESSURE, the new season explores the remarkable stories behind films made in circumstances where filmmakers faced intense political, legal or institutional pressure to compromise, give in, or give up.

Hosted by Rico Gagliano, the series travels across history and around the world to uncover the remarkable circumstances in which these films came to be. Guests include acclaimed filmmakers Alejandro G. Iñárritu (DIGGER, AMORES PERROS), Fatih Akin (IN THE FADE, HEAD-ON), Ali Abbasi (HOLY SPIDER, THE APPRENTICE) and Julia Loktev (MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS, THE LONELIEST PLANET), alongside author Paul Fischer, and more.

From Yilmaz Güney directing his masterpiece YOL while imprisoned by Turkey’s military junta, to two South Korean filmmakers kidnapped and forced to make movies for North Korea’s Kim Jong-il, the season reveals the lengths artists have gone to in order to bring their work to the screen. It also explores Loktev’s MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS, as she documented independent Russian journalists amid an intensifying crackdown on press freedom, and Abbasi reflecting on the very different challenges surrounding HOLY SPIDER and THE APPRENTICE.

Across five episodes, UNDER PRESSURE examines the complicated relationship between cinema and political power, asking what happens when making a film becomes an act of defiance, and what it takes to keep telling stories when the stakes are high.

Host Rico Gagliano says: “At this moment in world history, I’ve been inspired and fascinated by these filmmakers. These are sometimes flawed, sometimes quite ordinary people doing nonetheless unimaginably brave things — something I think we can all take to heart.”

EPISODE LIST:

Episode 1: YOL – Yilmaz Güney breaks free
Release date: November 12

How do you direct a Palm D’or-winning film… from behind bars? The season opens with the incredible tale of Yilmaz Guney, one of Turkish cinema’s most revered and controversial filmmakers, from his early years as a tough-guy movie star nicknamed “The Ugly King,” to his years as a left-wing activist, to his eventual 30-year prison sentence – during which he somehow managed to make his masterpiece, YOL. Rico explores the remarkable story with special guests Alejandro G. Inarritu (DIGGER) and Cannes-winning German-Turkish auteur Fatih Akin (HEAD ON).

Episode 2 & 3: KIDNAPPED BY NORTH KOREA – The long, weird road to PULGASARI
Release date: November 19 & November 26

One of cinema’s most astonishing stories gets the MUBI Podcast’s first-ever two-part treatment. In the 1970s, acclaimed South Korean filmmaker Shin Sang-ok and actor Choi Eun-hee first fell afoul of their own country’s dictator… before being kidnapped by North Korea’s dictator-in-waiting, Kim Jong-il. Held hostage, the pair made seven films for the regime, including PULGASARI — a cult monster movie inspired by the GODZILLA franchise, that some have interpreted as a subtle act of resistance against their captor. Rico tells the surreal, epic tale with the help of Paul Fischer, author of the award-winning A KIM JONG-IL PRODUCTION (published by Flatiron Books),.

Episode 4: MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS – Julia Loktev documents the end of truth in Russia
Release date: December 3

In February 2022, filmmaker Julia Loktev was documenting TV Rain, one of Russia’s last independent news outlets. Many of its journalists had already been declared “foreign agents” by the Putin regime and faced surveillance and possible imprisonment. Then, Russia invaded Ukraine, and the remaining space for independent journalism rapidly disappeared. Loktev tells Rico about witnessing the erosion of press freedom in real time, the journalists forced into exile, and what keeps her subjects going. Part One of MY UNDESIRABLE FRIENDS is now available on MUBI, with Part Two due in 2027.

Episode 5: HOLY SPIDER and THE APPRENTICE – Ali Abbasi gets pushback from East and West
Release date: December 10

The season concludes with Iranian-born writer-director Ali Abbasi, who discusses the complexities of making films in repressive Iran and the very different obstacles he encountered producing HOLY SPIDER — a controversial crime thriller set in Iran — and his Oscar-nominated THE APPRENTICE, about a young Donald J. Trump.

MUBI PODCAST SEASON 12: UNDER PRESSURE LAUNCHES FROM 12 NOVEMBER.

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