About the podcast

Altmania is hosted by artist and musician Ryan E. Torgeson and writer / filmmaker Esteban Hernandez. Every week we discuss one film, with further discussions of politics, art, and director Robert Altman.

"Friends of Bob"

After going through every single Robert Altman film in our main series (with a ton of reading and research to provide context around the making of these films, seeing them in their context and in the current moment) we're now examining Altman's overall philosophy as an artist - the "Altmanian Mindset" - and how that extends into the greater filmmaking world through his wider circle of proteges and influences. We've covered the films of Paul Thomas Anderson and Alan Rudolph, two protégés and "friends of Bob", and soon we'll be turning our focus to the films of Jonathan Demme.

Supporting the show

Altmania is entirely supported via listener contributions through our Patreon - where we record an additional two bonus episodes per month looking deeper into specific eras of film, productions relating to Altman / Rudolph / PTA, and other deep-dive mini series that we wouldn't otherwise be able to do.

We have no advertisements on the show, and we intend to maintain that independent structure to be completely powered by our own community.

Consider supporting the show to gain access to all of our bonus episodes and to support our efforts, we put a lot of work into our research and preparation for each episode!