The Film Pupil #13
148 x 210 mm, 40 pages
London, UK
Bimonthly
First published in 2024
Editor and illustrator: Oliver Spicer
The Film Pupil is a small but punchy film zine brimming with insightful reflections and commentary on contemporary, cult and classic cinema, communicated through clear and accessible writing and visuals. Each edition boasts five essays, an interview section, insights into film history and industry data, as well as a playfully illustrated cartoon strip.
Issue 13 for August 2026 opens with Niall Mapplebeck’s analysis of the ethics surrounding the depiction of animals on screen, followed by a rundown of the highest rated sports films on IMDb. Connor Wilson draws parallels between Japanese samurai and Western hitmen in action cinema, focusing on Jef Costello (played by Alain Delon) in ‘Le Samouraï’. Elsewhere, the history section traces the rise and fall of ‘Behind the Scenes’ footage; The Film Pupil speaks to directors Megan Rico and Kade Atwood about their coming-of-age feature ‘Edie Arnold is a Loser’, in which a group of misfits from an all-girls Catholic school form a punk band; and Oliver Spicer analyses two cult classics from the Record Store ‘micro-genre’.