FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST |Chiara Nicoletti interviews Dash Shaw and  Jane Samborski, director and animation director of the film Cryptozoo.

With Cryptozoo, their animation film on mythical creatures, director Dash Shaw and his wife, animation director Jane Samborski just won a special mention from the jury of the 71st Berlinale Generation section. Set in the 1970’s California the film shows us the internal contradictions of believing a Cryptozoo, could actually be a safe refuge for fantastical creatures such as the dream-devouring chimera Baku. Cryptozoo is an extraordinary and dreamlike trip through capitalism, legends, the concepts of good and bad with a perfect attention to every detail.

Cryptozoo: “C’mon babe, have some faith! There could be magic here, or a utopia! Use your imagination!” – “Utopias never work out.” The scene: California, circa 1970. While the nation’s youth practice free love and protest against the establishment and the Vietnam War, a different sort of struggle plays out underground: veterinarian Lauren Grey tracks down fantastical creatures, rescuing them from abuse and providing refuge in her Cryptozoo. Alas, the military is scheming to get its hands on the greatest cryptid of them all, the dream-devouring chimera Baku, to harness its power and destroy the dreams of the burgeoning alternative culture. In Dash Shaw’s idiosyncratic, transgressive trip, utopic visions of hero and anti-hero are put to the test. Inspired by the psychedelic underground comics of the 1960s, this story situated between lucid dream and horror trip resonates like an echo in our present day.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Dash Shaw, Jane Samborski – Cryptozoo #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Aliaksei Paluyan, director of the film Courage.

For his first documentary feature, Belarus director Aliaksei Paluyan went back to his country to narrate the people and his actor friends constant fight for democracy. Paluyan chose his friends Maryna, Pavel and Denis as the protagonists of the film and he showed their 15 work as activists and as artists of the Belarus Free Theatre. The director explains the reason behind the title, Courage and the way he tried to keep his distance from the happenings while shooting. Courage not only reminds us the power of art but it also tells us all that especially in countries where democracy is taken for granted, we tend to forget that it is instead a right we should always fight for and we should never ever take it for granted.

Courage: In the course of the presidential elections in Belarus in the summer of 2020, three actors from an under-ground theatre „Belarus Free Theatre“ in Minsk get caught up in the maelstrom of mass protests. They are drawn to the wide streets of Minsk to protest vociferously for freedom of speech and the long-awaited change of power. But the people‘s voice is brutally crushed by the regime‘s security apparatus. Members of the theatre group and many other people get arrested. The country is on the brink of civil war. COURAGE accompanies the courageous and peaceful resistance of Maryna, Pavel and Denis before and during the protests. The film takes a very personal look at the events and thus provides a close and gripping insight into the lives of people in today‘s Belarus who are fighting for their freedom and the right to democracy.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Aliaksei Paluyan – Courage #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Alexandre Koberidze, director of the film What do we see when we look at the sky?

To depict a love story wasn’t enough for Alexandre Koberidze in What do we see when we look at the sky?, in competition at the 71st Berlinale. The film starts as a love story, an impossible one as it is suddenly and soon cursed by an evil spell but then embraces so many other themes: everyday life with kids playing and going to school, soccer games and the World championship being watched, magical realism and a touch of Italian cinema thanks to the Nanni Moretti references. Koberidze walks us through his film, its genesis (a jet stone he used to wear, as a child, meant to protect him from the evil eye) and its elements.

What do we see when we look at the sky? : It’s love at first sight when Lisa and Giorgi meet by chance on a street in the Georgian city of Kutaisi. Love strikes them so suddenly; they even forget to ask each other’s names. Before continuing on their way, they agree to meet the next day. Little do they know that an evil eye casts its spell on them. Will they manage to meet again? And if they do, will they know who they are? Life goes on as usual in their hometown, street dogs stray, the soccer world cup begins and a film crew on its quest to find true love might be what they need.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Alexandre Koberidze – What do we see when we look at the sky? #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST |Chiara Nicoletti interviews Carlos Alfonso Corral, director of the film Dirty Feathers.

Carlos Alfonso Corral has been a member of director Roberto Minervini’s crew since Stop the pounding heart and with the italian director as mentor and producer, at the 71st Berlinale, Corral presents his debut film Dirty Feathers on two homeless lovers’ journey and their world of forgotten people. Shot in Black & White, Corral decided to take a narrative direction for the film but to be carried away by these people’s stories and testimonies. Dirty Feathers was inspired by by the sudden death of Corral’s paternal uncle who had lived a fast life filled with binge drinking, heroin, and gambling, vices that frequently bankrupted him into homelessness, the director reveals. This whole happening led him to the homeless shelter in downtown El Paso, called The Opportunity where he met his protagonist Brandon and started develop his film. Thanks to the Empathy lesson given by Roberto Minervini, Corral knew how to become part of these people lives, listen to them and create room for their adventures and tales to be told in front of his camera.

Dirty Feathers: With two homeless lovers’ journey as the through-line, Dirty Feathers weaves in and out of an overwhelmed shelter and a forsaken landscape with fervent echoes of the unheard and neglected: a grieving father who lost his child is paralyzed by unshakable guilt; a veteran living under a bridge recalls his past glory serving the very country that has long abandoned him; and a 16 year old girl who has seemingly transcended trauma embraces life on the streets with a holy righteousness, becoming the haunting conscience of the film.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Carlos Alfonso Corral – Dirty Feathers #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Maria Schrader and Jan Schomburg, director and screenwriter of the film I’m your man.

Is it possible to fall in love with a robot? What do women and men look for in a relationship? I’m your man by Maria Schrader, in competition at the 71st Berlinale, tries to answer to these questions. Maria Schrader and screenwriter Jan Schomburg explain the idea of “creating” a mechanical being made for a woman, distancing themselves but the tons of films that made the opposite thing. Through I’m your man, we get to explore a woman’s point of view when faced with a “man” who’s in charge of pleasing her and being the best partner he can be. Set in today’s world and not in a dystopian future, the film starts with Alma, a scientist, being asked to test this humanoid robot played by Dan Stevens, who, by the way, speaks a perfect German and a fluent spanish and korean. The result is a open discussion of the rules of love and attraction and the difference between women and men’s approach to these rules.

I’m your man: Alma (Maren Eggert) is a scientist at the famous Pergamon Museum in Berlin. In order to obtain research funds for her work, she is persuaded to participate in an extraordinary study. For three weeks, she has to live with a humanoid robot tailored to her character and needs, whose artificial intelligence is designed to be the perfect life partner for her. Alma meets Tom (Dan Stevens), a machine in human form in a class of its own, created solely to make her happy. I’M YOUR MAN is a playful comic-tragic tale about the questions of love, longing and what makes a human being human.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Maria Schrader, Jan Schomburg – I’m your man #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Julio Maria Martino, director of the film Country of Hotels.

A conversation with Julio Maria Martino, director of Country of Hotels. The film is screening on March 12 at this year’s online edition of the Manchester Film Festival, and revolves around a number of people who find themselves spending time in a mysterious and decaying hotel. In this interview, the director talks about the style of the film, surreal, absurd and darkly comic, and talks about the influences of such people as David Lynch and Samuel Beckett. He also talks about the challenge of shooting a film that mostly takes place in one single hotel room, his collaboration with screenwriter David Hauptschein and the cast, and how he believes this film reflects these days of lockdown, despite the fact that it was made before the start of the pandemic.

Country of Hotels tells the stories of the desperate souls who pass through the doors of 508, a room on the fifth floor of an anonymous, decaying hotel. We are taken on a surreal and blackly comic journey down its lonely corridors and behind its out-dated furnishings and stained surfaces. The story plunges us into the ever-turning carousel of haunted lives who check in and check out of the establishment.

The post Julio Maria Martino – Country of Hotels #MANIFF2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Joana Hadjithomas and  Khalil Joreige, directors of the film Memory Box.

Memory Box, film in competition at the 71st Berlinale, comes from notebooks and cassette tapes director Joana Hadjithomas sent to a very close friend who’d moved to France during the Lebanese civil war. These memories were combined with those of co-director and Hadjithomas’ husband Khalil Joreige to create the starting point for the film’ story. By discovering her mom’s teen years memories through this box, Alex can connect to a different version of who she thought her mother was. The two directors comment on the aspect that while connecting past and present through two adolescences, the daughter’s one and the mother’s, the film helps understand that the dynamics change, the way through which we experience things change but not the very essence of that particular moment in life, adolescence. Memory Box feels like a post Covid film for his depiction of a sort of stand-by feeling ( caused by war in the case of the film’story) and the directors reveal that they agree but they didn’t see it coming.

Memory Box: Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia sent to her best friend from 1980’s Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Joana Hadjithomas, Khalil Joreige – Memory Box #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Hamy Ramezan, director of the film Any Day Now.

Hamy Ramezan tells Fred Radio the path that lead him to this story about himself and his childhood. It has been difficult to find the right way to tell a story about a family of refugees, without describing suffering and pain, and make it believable ( as such tales now are drenched in sorrow and pain , and we are used to that). But when the right cast came on board everything got easier…

Any Day Now: Rain-soaked Finnish forests bathed in a nebulous haze. Every morning, the 13-year-old Ramin is awakened tenderly by his mother. The Mehdipour family encounters everyday life in a refugee accommodation in a quiet, simple manner, full of humour and warmth. In the here and now, every moment is savoured as if there were no tomorrow: time with friends, new encounters, parties and – for Ramin – falling in love for the first time. And yet, it is clear that if the family’s application for asylum is denied, which could happen any day, things will change abruptly. Moments of courage and joy, despair and worry all add to the loving portrait of a child and his family who, on the threshold of a new life, never lose their dignity.

The post Hamy Ramezan – Any Day Now #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Ferit Karahan, director of the film Brother’s Keeper.

Ferit Karahan tells us about the inspiration and the difficulties in bringing on the screen, and on paper before that, of his personal memories as a child and a student in a boarding school like the one portrayed in the film. And his idea of fear as an instrument of education.

Brother’s Keeper: Strict rules prevail at a remote boarding school in the mountains of Anatolia where Turkish teachers educate gifted Kurdish pupils from the surrounding area. Once a week, the boys are allowed to shower and, like everything else here, this process is monitored. One night, twelve-year-old Memo asks his friend Yusuf if he can sleep in his bed. But, afraid of gossip, Yusuf refuses. The next morning, Memo is sick and cannot attend class. The school’s heating has broken down and an icy winter’s day takes its course. Memo’s condition worsens. He is no longer responsive and Yusuf is only allowed to talk when prompted. Gradually, the events of the previous night are revealed. Ferit Karahan’s finely spun drama illuminates a microcosm marked by poverty and fear. Surrounded by snow and frost, the emotional coldness which prevails between teachers and pupils in this authoritarian educational institution become almost physically tangible.

The post Ferit Karahan – Brother’s Keeper #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.