Russ: So, one of the headliners at a huge film festival... makes movies that are routinely eight hours long.
Nadia: I'm Nadia.
Russ: And I'm Russ.
Nadia: And this is The Feed for Friday, September 11th. We've got three stories for you today from the business of creating content.
Nadia: A legendary film festival just announced a masterclass lineup featuring some of the most challenging directors working today.
Russ: Jimmy Kimmel's interview with a Senate candidate gets pulled from network TV... so he just drops it on YouTube instead.
Nadia: And CBS is firing back at a writer for the new Matlock reboot who's suing over what he calls a toxic, racist writers' room.
Nadia: The Busan International Film Festival—or BIFF—just announced its Master Class lineup, and it's stacked with major auteur talent.
Russ: Okay, so this includes the guy I mentioned off the top, right? Who are we talking about?
Nadia: We've got four heavy hitters. There's Na Hong-Jin, the Korean director of The Wailing. Lav Diaz from the Philippines. French filmmaker Bertrand Mandico. And for anime fans, the legend himself, Rintaro.
Russ: Okay, Lav Diaz. That's the one. His films are, what, a standard workday in length?
Nadia: [laughs] Some of them are! According to Variety, his 2016 film The Woman Who Left was almost four hours long, and it won the top prize at Venice. And that's not even one of his longest.
Russ: A four-hour movie is one of his short ones? Who is this for, Nadia? Why are we even talking about film festivals?
Nadia: Because these masterclasses are content. They get recorded, they get distributed. It's basically the most high-end podcast interview you can imagine—a world-class director just unpacking their entire philosophy.
Russ: So it's like a live episode of a film podcast, but you have to fly to Busan to hear it?
Nadia: Initially, yeah. But the prestige is the whole point. Landing Rintaro—who directed Galaxy Express 999 and is basically a god in the anime world—is a huge get. It signals BIFF's global ambition, and the content they create from it will have a very long tail.
Russ: Longer than one of Lav Diaz's movies? I can't get past it. Seriously, what does this have to do with someone listening to a true crime podcast?
Nadia: It means the bar for what counts as a 'deep dive' keeps getting higher. These kinds of high-concept discussions create an appetite for more thoughtful analysis everywhere. The ideas trickle down from the festival circuit right into the video essays and analytical podcasts you're already listening to.
Russ: So my favorite YouTuber's breakdown of a Marvel movie owes a debt to an eight-hour Filipino film. [dry] Got it.
Nadia: Alright, let's talk about what happens when old media rules slam into new media realities. Jimmy Kimmel was all set to air an interview with Texas Senate candidate James Talarico...
Russ: —and ABC got cold feet and pulled it. What happened?
Nadia: It all comes down to fear of the FCC, and specifically, the 'equal-time rule.' This rule requires broadcasters to give opposing political candidates equivalent airtime if they ask for it. With the election so close, ABC's lawyers probably just panicked.
Russ: So if they have one candidate on, they have to have his opponent on for the exact same amount of time?
Nadia: Pretty much, if the opponent asks for it. And Variety points out that if ABC doesn't comply, the FCC could punish all of its affiliate stations, not just the ones in Texas. The network just decided it wasn't worth the risk.
Russ: Wait, what? So some station manager in Boston could get fined because of a guest on a late-night show in LA? That's insane.
Nadia: That's the fear. So what does Kimmel do? He just drops the whole, uncut interview on his YouTube channel.
Russ: Which is the perfect move! The internet doesn't have an equal-time rule. And now, thanks to this 'controversy,' way more people are going to see it. Talarico even said, 'They're worried we're going to win this race.' This is a massive win for him.
Nadia: It is a classic Streisand Effect. ABC tried to bury it, which only made it a bigger story. And it really shows how broadcast rules are becoming almost meaningless when YouTube is sitting right there as a global, unregulated alternative.
Russ: So the takeaway is that the most interesting conversations are happening on places like YouTube and podcasts now, not on TV. The old guard is running scared, and honestly, the content is getting better because of it.
Nadia: Okay, finally, things are getting messy over at the new Matlock reboot on CBS.
Russ: There's a new Matlock? And there's already drama?
Nadia: Yep. Variety exclusively reported that CBS Studios has filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit from a former writer, John Lowe. He sued them this summer, alleging he was forced out after complaining about racist and sexist comments in the writers' room.
Russ: Okay, hold on. What kind of comments are we talking about?
Nadia: The lawsuit alleges a whole range of things. It claims showrunner Jennie Urman said she didn't want 'a show about a bunch of old white men,' and that other writers made crude jokes. It's... a messy situation.
Russ: Messy is one word for it. So CBS's response is to... sue him back?
Nadia: Not quite. They're using something called California's anti-SLAPP statute. SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. It's a law meant to stop powerful people from using bogus lawsuits to silence their critics.
Russ: Wait— CBS is claiming they're the victim here? That the writer's lawsuit is trying to silence their free speech? That seems... backwards.
Nadia: It's a legal strategy, Russ. Their argument is that creating a TV show is an act of free speech, and that John Lowe's lawsuit is an attempt to chill that speech. In the filing, CBS says, 'We stand firmly behind our producers and the show.'
Russ: I don't care about the legal gymnastics. Did they create a hostile work environment or not? This move feels like a way to get the case thrown out on a technicality without ever having to answer that question.
Nadia: And that really is the core of it. This is a look behind the curtain at how these shows get made. Writers' rooms are high-pressure environments, and when things go wrong, it's incredibly hard to prove what was said and with what intent. The studio holds almost all the power.
Russ: So even if you have a legitimate complaint, you can get tangled in a legal web designed to protect the billion-dollar corporation. [sighs] Sounds about right.
Nadia: Alright, let's recap the big three.
Russ: The Busan Film Festival is platforming a director who makes eight-hour-long movies—for people with way more stamina than me.
Nadia: Jimmy Kimmel got around broadcast rules by dropping a political interview on YouTube, where it'll probably get way more views anyway.
Russ: And CBS is using a thorny legal maneuver to try and shut down a lawsuit from a Matlock writer who claims the writers' room was toxic.
Nadia: Before we go... speaking of old shows coming back, does it feel like every single classic sitcom now has a rewatch podcast hosted by the cast?
Russ: Oh, absolutely. But what are you actually listening to, Nadia? Not a rewatch podcast, I hope.
Nadia: [laughs] No, definitely not. I've been hooked on a show called 'Fall of Civilizations.' Each episode is a deep-dive documentary on a society that collapsed. It's so well-researched. The one on the Byzantine Empire is fantastic.
Nadia: That's our show. We'll be back with more tomorrow.
Russ: See you then. We promise to keep it under eight hours.
This show is made with AI: the hosts’ voices are synthetic and the scripts are AI-assisted. Every story links to its original source.