About Celebrating Cinema
From cult classics to today’s popular movies, Celebrating Cinema explores the films that shape how we see the world.
Each week, Laura Gommans (film journalist), Hugo Emmerzael (film critic), Kiriko Mechanicus (filmmaker), and Tom Ooms (film programmer) take turns diving into movies old and new — revealing what they tell us about ourselves, our culture, and the times we live in. Insightful, nostalgic, and sometimes delightfully absurd, this is a podcast for anyone who loves films.
Produced at LAB111, Amsterdam’s independent cinema. New episodes every week.
The Hosts
Laura Gommans — Film journalist
Laura has been writing about film and culture for longer than she’ll admit to. As an entertainment journalist, she brings a sharp popular culture instinct to the podcast — an eye for the social patterns that a film reveals without meaning to, a genuine love for genre cinema alongside arthouse, and a talent for asking the questions that everyone is thinking but no one wants to say out loud. She’s the host most likely to defend a film you’ve already written off.
Her episodes tend to circle questions about gender, representation, and desire — and the gap between what cinema says it is doing and what it is actually doing to the people watching.
Hugo Emmerzael — Film critic
Hugo is a film critic whose work appears in De Filmkrant, Little White Lies, and across the Dutch and international film press. He attends Cannes annually and has spent his career developing a critical voice that is both formally precise and genuinely curious — the kind of criticism that teaches you how to see rather than telling you what to think.
On the podcast, Hugo brings the depth of someone who has seen everything and is not impressed by the obvious choices. His episodes tend to move between the analytical and the personal — finding the argument inside the feeling, or the feeling inside the argument.
Kiriko Mechanicus — Filmmaker
Kiriko is a filmmaker whose work engages with documentary ethics, representation, and the specific responsibilities of pointing a camera at another person’s life. She is involved in CinemAsia and the Netherlands Film Festival circuit, and brings a practitioner’s perspective to conversations about how films are actually made — the choices that happen before and after the frame.
On the podcast, Kiriko asks the questions that come from having made something: what it costs to tell a story that isn’t yours, what the camera does to the people on both sides of it, and where the line is between necessary discomfort and exploitation.
Tom Ooms — Head of Cinema at LAB111
Tom programmes the films you see at LAB111. As Head of Cinema, he shapes one of Amsterdam’s most distinctive cinema programmes — a selection that reflects genuine aesthetic conviction, a commitment to world cinema, and a belief that independent exhibition is a cultural act, not just a commercial one.
On the podcast, Tom brings the perspective of someone who decides what gets screened and why: who is making what, what is being overlooked, what the festival circuit is actually producing, and what it means to put a film in front of an audience and trust that the encounter will matter.
The Cinema
LAB111 is Amsterdam’s independent cinema, screening independent, world, and arthouse cinema alongside a regular programme of film clubs, Q&As, and events.
Celebrating Cinema grew out of the cinema — from the conversations that happen after a screening, from the questions that don’t get answered in the foyer, from the belief that film can be a way of thinking about everything else.
If you’re in Amsterdam, come and watch something. Programme and tickets at lab111.nl.
Contact & Press
For episode pitches, guest enquiries, and press requests: elliotbloom@proton.me
For LAB111 programme and venue enquiries: lab111.nl/contact