FRED Film Radio - English Channel

“Maya decided to make a movie about Flannery O’Connor and  I saw in that a possibility to talk about something I really wanted to talk about:  is human creativity an act of faith?”. Director Ethan Hawke describes the spark to start his new film, “Wildcat“, premiered in Toronto International Film festival some weeks ago and now Special screening at the 17th Zurich film festival. The film sees Hawke’s daughter Maya Hawke in the role of American author Flannery O’Connor whose life and works is depicted by the actor/director also as a way to explore how creativity and spirituality can intersect.

The film, as Hawke confirms, has connections with Paul Schrader‘s spiritual life’s film “First Reformed“ as both the protagonist played by Hawke and Flannery are struggling to understand God’s purpose. Hawke looks at O’Connor’s life in a pivotal moment for her, when she’s diagnosed with Lupus, the same disease that killed her father  when she was only 15 years old.

As cinema is a team effort, Ethan Hawke explains how essential it was for him and the film to “share” it with his daughter Maya but also with the other actors such as Laura Linney, playing Regina, Flannery’s mom and Philip Ettinger, whom Hawke worked with on First Reformed.

Following up on what asking Richard Linklater in Venice ( during the “Hit Man“ interview) for a 4th chapter of the Before trilogy, Hawke points out that if they were to do another film with Jessie and Celine (Julie Delpy) it would be its own film, unique and separated from the trilogy that works and has to stay as it is now.

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At Kinótico, on the occasion of the special coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival, in collaboration with FRED Film Radio, we talked with Cristi Puiu who is competing for the Concha de Oro with the film “MMXX“, a deep look into how Romania lived during the Covid 19 pandemic, through intersecting stories.

With Cristi Puiu we also talked about how the film is depicting the lack of communication between people and also about our responsibilities and our cowardice.

Cristi Puiu won the Cannes Un Certain Regard award with “Dommului Lazarescu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu)”, which was included in 2014 in the Eastern Promises retrospective at San Sebastian. In 2010 he returned to Un Certain Regard with “Aurora”, in which he also played the lead character, and in 2016 opened the Official Competition at Cannes Film festival with “Sieranavada”, later screened in Perlak at San Sebastian Film Festival. In 2020, with “Malmkrog”, he won the Best Director Award in the Encounters section of the Berlin Film Festival.

Interview by David Martos.

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At Kinótico, on the occasion of the special coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival, in collaboration with FRED Film Radio, we talked with Robin Campillo and Nadia Tereszkiewicz, director and protagonist of “La isla roja (L’Île Rouge)“. The french director competes for the Concha de oro en San Sebastian for the first time with “L’Île Rouge”. The  director and scriptwriter won the Gran Jury Prize at the Festival de Cannes in 2017 when Pedro Almodóvar was president of the Jury.

For the first time in Zinemaldia in the section Perlak, also winning the Sebastiane award to the best LGBTQ+ film of this 71st edition. Robin Campillo personally chose the actress who played the character inspired by his own mother: the César winner and french rising star Nadia Tereszkiewicz. The actress is in San Sebastian for two films, this one by Robin Campillo and “Rosalie“, in Perlak.

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At Kinótico, on the occasion of the special coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival, in collaboration with FRED Film Radio, we talked with Vincent Maraval, president of the Paris based film sales and production company Goodfellas (formerly Wild Bunch), at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.

Vincent Maraval, who knows all the secrets and ins and outs of the audiovisual industry, is responsible for big cinema triumphs such as “Fahrenheit 9/11”, “Pan’s Labyrinth”, and “The Orphanage” and the work from cinema masters like Ken Loach and the Dardenne brothers.

Vincent Maraval gave us his opinion on the state of the film industry today which has been hit by the Hollywood scriptwriters and actors’ strikes for months now. He also told us about the work he does at festivals like San Sebastian with meetings and panels y how important Zinemaldia is for the autumn agenda.

We finally asked him about “La passion” de Doudin Bouffant, the film France selected to represent it at the Oscars instead of the Cannes 2023’s winner “Anatomy of a fall“.

The Goodfellas team is also renowned for discovering new and innovative directorial talent, such as J.A. Bayona (“The Orphanage”, 2007), Cristian Mungiu (“4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” – Palme d’Or, 2007), Ladj Ly (“Les Misérables” – Oscar Nominee, 2019), Kantemir Balagov (“Tesnota, Beanpole” – Best Director, Un Certain Regard, 2019), Dea Kulumbegashvili (“Beginning” – San Sebastian Golden Shell, 2020), Audrey Diwan (“Happening” – Golden Lion, 2021), Julia Ducournau (“Titane“ – Palme d’Or, 2021), Alice Diop (“Saint Omer” – Silver Lion, Best Debut Film, 2022).

Interview by David Martos

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With the 67th edition of the London Film Festival just around the corner, we sat down with Rowan Woods, one of the festival programmers to hear about what’s in store for 2023.

Woods gave an overview of the festival programme, what’s new and exciting for this year, and how it looks in terms of the diversity of storytellers and voices platformed, including over 250 titles from over 90 countries, with 38% from female and non-binary filmmakers.

She explained that although there is now a new festival director in place, with Kristy Matheson taking over from Tricia Tuttle, the structure of LFF remains largely the same, even if the texture will feel different, as with every year.

We discussed how the London Film Festival fits into the film festival calendar, taking some of the best of what has shown over the year, from Berlin to Cannes to Venice and beyond, such as Martins Scorses’s “Killers of the Flower Moon” and Sofia Coppola‘s “Priscilla“, but also presenting some films for the first time in World Premieres, including Kibwe Tavares and Daniel Kaluuya’s “The Kitchen” and “The Book of Clarence” by Jeymes Samuel.

Woods dug into the programme to highlight some of the titles in the various sections, including Headline Galas, Special Presentations, the Official Competition and First Feature Competition, as well as other events happening alongside, such as the LFF Expanded and Shorts programmes, and Screen Talks from the likes of Martin Scorsese and Greta Gerwig.

Finally, mention was made of how the brilliant line-up showed the cinema landscape to be in good shape, particularly celebrating the health of British cinema and new and upcoming filmmakers from around the world.

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At Kinótico, on the occasion of the special coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival, in collaboration with FRED Film Radio, we talked with Kitty Green. The director and scriptwriter surprised the industry, film critics and the audience with her powerful and concise “The Assistant”, a film depicting ,from the margins, Harvey Weinstein’s history of abuse and harassment. It was well-received by critics, who especially praised Julia Garner’s performance and the film’s claustrophobic depiction of office life.

The American film director competes for the Concha de Oro in San Sebastian with “The Royal Hotel“, a suspense film with Julia Garner again in the leading role . 

“The Royal Hotel” premiered at the Telluride and Toronto festivals. before screening in Zinemaldia.

Interview by Dani Mantilla

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At Kinótico, on the occasion of the special coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival, in collaboration with FRED Film Radio, we talked with Craig Gillespie, director and producer of “Dumb Money“, a satire film based on real events. 

The director of “Lars and the real girl” reached international success thanks to two other films that were also based on real life stories and that he approached with a mix of black humour and comedy: “I, Tonya” which racked up three Oscar nominations and carried off the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress to Allison Janey and the mini-series “Pam and Tommy” (2022). For “Dumb Money”, the Australian director could count on a stellar cast including Paul Dano, America Ferrara, Pete Davidson and Seth Rogen.

After its world premiere in Toronto, the film “Dumb Money” is screening the Perlak section in San Sebastian.

Interview by Dani Mantilla

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At Kinótico, on the occasion of the special coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival, in collaboration with FRED Film Radio, we talked with Noah Pritzker and Griffin Dunne, respectively director and actor of “Ex-husbands“.  Noah Pritzker is internationally premiering  his second film en Zinemaldia after his debut feature, “Quitters”, was in competition at the SXSW, one of the most important festivals in the independent film circuit.

Griffin Dune is the unforgettable protagonist of the 1985’s Martin Scorsese movie “After Hours”. In 40 years of his acting career, he also appeared in “An American Werewolf in London”, “Dallas Buyers Club“ and the TV Series “This is us“. In 1996 he was nominated for an Oscar for  directing the short film “Duke of Groove”.

Interview by Dani Mantilla.

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At Kinótico, on the occasion of the special coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival, in collaboration with FRED Film Radio, we talked with James Norton and Miles Haizer, the actors from “Ex-Husbands” by Noah Pritzker, the director’ second film (his debut film, “Quitters” was in competition at the SXSW). British actor James Norton is a remarkable TV figure thanks to the BBC one historical drama television serial War and Peace  and the critically acclaimed Happy Valley. Among his films, “Mr Jones“ by Agnieszka Holland and the latest version of “Little Women“ by Greta Gerwig. Norton then won all the film festival hearts with his unforgettable interpretation in “Nowhere special“ by Uberto Pasolini, presented at the Venice Film Festival.

Miles Haizer is known for portraying Alex Standall in the Netflix original series “13 Reasons Why” and Drew Holt in the NBC drama series “Parenthood”. He has also appeared in the films “Rails & Ties” (2007), “The Stanford Prison Experiment” (2015), “Nerve” (2016), and “Love, Simon” (2018).

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At Kinótico, on the occasion of the special coverage of the San Sebastian Film Festival, in collaboration with FRED Film Radio, producer Christine Vachon, have talked about her work by Todd Haynes’ side which includes the latest May December, screening in San Sebastian and started with Haynes’ debut feature in 1991 with Poison.

She is considered to be among the queens of independent cinema for her work producing titles like “Hedwig and the Angry Inch”, “Boys don’t cry”, “Happiness” and “Past Lives” for which she could receive her first Oscar Nomination in the following months. Vachon was president of the jury at the 60th edition of San Sebastian Film Festival. That year the winner of the Concha de Oro was François Ozon with ‘In the house’.

“Past Lives” by Celine Song is also screening at San Sebastian Film Festival, in the PerlaK section.

Interview by Dani Mantilla.

Inspired by true events. A teacher was arrested for having sexual relations with one of her 13-year-old students while she was married and the mother of three children. She was released after completing her sentence, but failed to respect the prohibition to see the boy again, becoming pregnant by him and spending another 7 years in prison accused of rape. Now, 20 years later, a Hollywood actress wants to make a film about their story.

Nora and Hae Sung, two deeply connected childhood friends, are torn apart when Nora’s family emigrates from South Korea to the United States. Two decades later, they are reunited in New York for a week that will confront them with notions of love, destiny, and the choices that make up a life.

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