FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Merawi Gerima and Dennis Lindsey, director and actor of the film Residue.

A conversation with director Merawi Gerima and actor Dennis Lindsey, who presented the film Residue at the Giornate degli Autori, the parallel strand of the 77th Venice International Film Festival. In this interview, they talk about the film’s exploration of gentrification and the rage that fuels the movie. Gerima also shares thoughts on the distinctive style of the film and whether Residue is an autobiographical story, while Lindsey shares his thought on the challenge of cinematic representation.

Residue: When Jay arrives home, he finds his neighborhood gentrified beyond recognition. Demetrius, his childhood best friend, is missing, but none of the remaining black folks trust Jay enough to provide any answers. Jay’s frustration compounds as he also finds himself alienated in the city at large, attacked from all sides. Jay visits his last friend Dion in prison, but leaves feeling powerless and infuriated. Finally, a chance confrontation threatens Jay with the same fate as his friends.

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PODCAST | David Martos interviews Abel Ferrara, director of the film Sportin’ Life.

Our conversation with Abel Ferrara, presenting Sportin’ Life out of competition in the 77th Venice Film Festival, leads us to a reflection on the state of cinema, his motivations to shoot a documentary during the last Berlinale and the things he learnt during the 2020’s quarantine.

Sportin’ Life is the sixth incarnation of the international art project Self, curated by Saint Laurent’s creative director, Anthony Vaccarello. This project is an artistic commentary on society while emphasizing the complexity of various individuals through the eyes of artists who evoke the Saint Laurent attitude of confidence, individuality and self-expression. The documentary is an exploration into the sources and personal history of creativity, the essential life of an artist. Raw and sharp, it has the feeling of a moment in time that is still happening. Abel Ferrara’s intimate and lush look at his own life, his world refracted through his art – music, filmmaking, his collaborators and inspirations such as Ferrara’s early works and his creative partnerships with Willem Dafoe, Joe Delia, Paul Hipp and the musicians who inspired this work.

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PODCAST | David Martos interviews Filip Jan Rymsza, director of the film Mosquito State.

Filip Jan Rymsza, director of Mosquito State, out of competition in 77th Venice Film Festival, talks to FRED about this story of a man obsessed with mosquitoes, set on the verge of the financial crisis in august 2007. We explore some of the symbols in the film, like the mosquitoes seen as vampires or capitalism as a system that drinks our blood.

Mosquito State: August 2007. Isolated in his austere penthouse overlooking Central Park, obsessive Wall Street data analyst Richard Boca sees ominous patterns. His computer models are behaving erratically, as are the swarms of mosquitos breeding in his apartment, an infestation that attends his psychological meltdown.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Tilda Swinton, actress of the film The Human Voice.

With her appearance at the 77th Venice Film Festival as Golden Lion for lifetime recipient, Tilda Swinton confirms her divine being status. The actress is also the protagonist of Pedro Almodovar’s short film The Human Voice, freely based on Jean Cocteau’s piece of 1930 and presented out of competition at the Festival. Tilda Swinton describes the emotion of joining the Olympus of Pedro Almodovar’s muses as this might only be the first film the two shoot together.

The Human Voice: A woman watches time passing next to the suitcases of her ex-lover (who is supposed to come pick them up, but never arrives) and a restless dog who doesn’t understand that his master has abandoned him. Two living beings facing abandonment. During the three days of waiting, the woman only goes out to the street once, to buy an axe and a can of gasoline. The woman goes through all sorts of moods, from helplessness to despair and loss of control. She makes herself up, she dresses up as if going to a party, she considers throwing herself off of the balcony, until her ex-lover calls on the phone, but she’s unconscious because she’s taken a combination of thirteen pills and cannot answer the call. The dog licks her face until she wakes up. After a cold shower, revived by a coffee as black as her state of mind, the telephone rings again and this time she can answer. The human voice is hers, we never hear the voice of her lover. At first she pretends to act normal and calm, but she is always on the verge of exploding in the face of the man’s hypocrisy and meanness. The Human Voice is a moral lesson about desire, even though its protagonist is on the verge of the very same abyss. Risk is an essential part of the adventure of living and loving. Pain is very present in the monologue. As I said at first, it is about the disorientation and distress of two living beings who grieve their master.

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PODCAST | David Martos interviews Hiam Abbass, director of the film The Furnace.

Australian director Roderick MacKay comes to Venice Film Festival with his first feature film, The Furnace, set in the 1890’s. The filmmaker talks about the situation of Indian, Afghan and Persian workers that were taken to Australia by the British Empire in order to work handling camels.

The Furnace: 1897 Western Australia. To escape a harsh existence and return home, a young Afghan cameleer partners with a mysterious bushman on the run with two 400oz Crown-marked gold bars. Together the unlikely pair must outwit a zealous police sergeant and his troopers in a race to reach a secret furnace—the one place where they can safely reset the bars to remove the mark of the Crown. The film is an unlikely hero’s tale, navigating greed and the search for identity in a new land. It illuminates the forgotten history of Australia’s “Ghan” cameleers, predominantly Muslim and Sikh men from India, Afghanistan and Persia, who opened up the Nation’s desert interior, thereby forming unique bonds with local Aboriginal people.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Sam Pope, associate producer of the film Final Account.

We talk with the associate producer Sam Pope about the journey of Final Account, began in 2008 by director Luke Holland that decided to look for all survived affiliated with SS, that worked as officials or soldiers in the SS army, to analyse their perceptions of what happened in those days. An outcome fascinating and devastating at the same time.

Final Account, over a decade in the making, is an urgent portrait of the last living generation of everyday Germans to participate in Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich – raising vital questions about authority, conformity, national identity, and responsibility, as men and women ranging from former SS members to civilians reckon in very different ways with their memories, perceptions and personal appraisals of their own roles in the greatest human crimes in history.

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PODCAST | David Martos interviews Hiam Abbass, actress of the film Gaza Mon Amour.

Hiam Abbass, very well-renowned actress all over the world by her roles in huge titles as Blade Runner 2049 or HBO’s Succession, talks to FRED about Gaza Mon Amour, the last film by the Nasser brothers, selected in Orizzonti in this Mostra 2020.

Gaza Mon Amour tells the story of Issa, a mature man that lives in the Gaza Strip and never got married. But he know a woman he wants to marry. At the same time he finds a valuable item at sea, when he’s out with his fishing boat. This particular item will bring him some trouble…

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