This is Play It Forward. Real people. Real stories. The struggle to Play It Forward. Episode 376 with actress Gina Gershon from the Woody Allen movie Ripkin’s Festival
Woody Allen taps into his deep appreciation for cinema history for this adventurous tale of a onetime film devotee who miraculously rediscovers his love for the art form.
Mort Rifkin (Wallace Shawn), a retired film studies professor, accompanies his publicist wife Sue (Gina Gershon) to the San Sebastian Film Festival in Spain. He goes not for the films but because he's worried that Sue's fascination with her young buzzed-about film director client, Philippe (Louis Garrel), might be more than professional. In addition, Mort hopes the change of scenery will provide a respite from his struggle to write a first novel that lives up to his impossibly exacting standards.

Turned off by the lavish praise showered on Philippe's film, which he considers banal, Mort becomes preoccupied with the cinema classics he once taught, by masters like Bergman, Fellini, Godard, Truffaut and Buñuel. His relentlessly dismissive opinions of Philippe, and Sue's sharp focus on her career as well as Philippe, strain their already frayed relationship. Mort's mood lightens when he meets Dr. Jo Rojas (Elena Anaya), a kindred spirit whose marriage to tempestuous painter Paco (Sergi López) is causing her pain as well. While Mort's personal tastes have sometimes pushed people away, Jo's intellect and shared sensibility draw them together. While Sue spends her days with Philippe, Mort's relationship with Jo deepens and he rekindles his love for classic films. Reflecting on the events of his life through the prism of those great movies, Mort finds renewed hope for his future.

Written and directed by Allen, the wistful comedy stars Elena Anaya, Louis Garrel, Gina Gershon, Sergi López, Wallace Shawn, and Christoph Waltz.