FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Agnieszka Holland, director of the film Charlatan.

Agnieszka Holland is an outspoken and a political film director who always manages to tell private stories with political resonance. She talks in this interview about her approach to the film, her career, censorship and being a woman director, when she started and in present days.

Charlatan:  Jan Mikolášek is the epitome of aplomb and solidarity. He is talented, sensitive, assertive and enigmatic. In his youth and when he is older, regardless of whether he is in private or public, he is a man of action, reason and intuition. A faith healer. Just one glance at the urine bottle is enough for him to know what ails his patient. With fame comes fortune, and this at a time when Czechoslovakia is a pawn in a game being played by the major power blocs. Protected and used by both the National Socialist and Communist regimes, he steps in wherever the system fails. But during the post-Stalinist years, the political climate becomes unpredictable and his special status is endangered. Along with his assistant František, with whom, as the secret police are well aware, he has much more in common than herbal medicine, the charlatan finds his morals being put to the test. Based on the life of Jan Mikolášek (1889–1973), and with a screenplay by Marek Epstein, Agnieszka Holland once again explores the link between the private and the political, and the relationship between the passage of time and the story of an unconventional individual.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews Prateek Vats, director of the film Eeb Allay Ooo!

Combining documentary-like sensitivity and a keen sense of Indian humour, director Vats creates Eeb Allay Ooo!, a farce about the harsh life of an underdog in a modern megalopolis that subtly reflects contemporary society. Eeb Allay Ooo! is having its European premiere in the Panorama section of the 70th edition of the Berlinale.

Eeb Allay Ooo!:  Anjani lives with his heavily pregnant sister and her husband in a shack in New Delhi. He is one of the countless migrants moving to India’s expanding cities. His brother-in-law has arranged a job for him as a professional monkey repeller. Ever since the keeping of langur monkeys – the natural enemies of rhesus monkeys – has been prohibited, humans have taken on the tricky job of preventing the cheeky rhesus monkeys from invading government buildings, as well as protecting tourists. This is complicated by the fact that many Indians worship the monkeys as incarnations of the god Hanuman and reverently feed them, which only serves to make the animals even bolder. Anjani is afraid of the monkeys. On one particular feast day, the situation escalates and he resorts to unusual measures.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews Catarina Vasconcelos, director of the film A Metamorfose dos Pàssaros.

With borrowings from Manoel de Oliveira and Agnès Varda, Catarina Vasconcelos has brought her family history to life in A Metamorfose dos Pàssaros, this intimate, very personal film that is rather like a polyphonic diary. Remembrance and mourning merge into a poetic narrative in which father and daughter talk about their history and the film that is emerging from it. Like the two deceased mothers, A Metamorfose dos pàssaros images offer protection against the relentless passage of time. And as the living protagonists whose voices we hear come to realise, parting is a prerequisite for a new beginning.

A Metamorfose dos Pàssaros:  Beatriz and Henrique meet, fall in love and get married when Beatriz is 21 years old. Henrique is a naval officer and goes to sea. Beatriz looks after their six children at home. One day she dies unexpectedly. Her oldest son is Jacinto. Since early childhood, he has dreamed of turning into a bird. Jacinto is the father of director Catarina Vasconcelos, whose mother also died when Catarina was 17. After the loss of their mothers Catarina started to work on a film called A metamorfose dos pássaros.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Catarina Vasconcelos – A Metamorfose dos Pàssaros #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Niklas Pollmann interviews filmmakers Catalina Marín, Berni Goldblat, Butheina Kazim and Alejandro Pinedo.

Four filmmakers from different countries of the global south share their experiences of founding cinemas in their home countries or other countries of the global south. With Butheina Kazim (UAE), Catalina Marín and Alejandro Pinedo (Chile) and Berni Goldblat (Sweden/Switzerland/Zimbabwe/Burkina Faso).

To discover more about Berlinale Talents, click here.

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PODCAST | Niklas Pollmann interviews Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Kristof Konrad, actor and Berlinale Talents Workshop leader.

Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Kristof Konrad demonstrated the Alexander acting technique in their workshop “Embodying The Character” and their decision to bring their workshop for the first time to a public audience.

To discover more about Berlinale Talents, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Viktor Kossakowsky, director of the film Gunda.

Viktor Kossakowsky goes back to the memories of his childhood to build a narrative touching and visually epic ( with an astounding black and white), and with a universal animalist meaning. The reasons of these choices in this talk with Angelo Acerbi at Berlinale 70.

Gunda:  Gunda is the protagonist of this gentle black-and-white documentary triptych. She takes care of her little ones, accompanies them on a journey of discovery and then takes a break to recharge her batteries. She tentatively approaches the camera. Does she know what her fate is? What might she be thinking? What does she think of us? Gunda is one of several hundred million pigs that inhabit the planet, alongside a billion cattle, represented in the film by two gracefully mooing cows, and over 20 billion chickens, exemplified here by a one-legged chicken stumbling its way through the world. Whether rooting through the mud, swatting away flies or searching for worms, they all are heroes. And film essayist Victor Kossakovsky is and remains adamant: after this film meat consumption is impossible. His indignation about the ignorance of humans in general and the degradation of these creatures in particular flows into his conceptually minimalist, but visually brilliant meditation. Gunda is an intimate portrait. An intervention in the form of a modest gesture. A film that ascribes majestic greatness to the underdogs. And makes us think. In the very least.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Viktor Kossakowsky – Gunda #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Radu Jude, director of the film Uppercase Print.

Radu Jude talks with Angelo Acerbi about his unusual documentary that mixes tv original footage fro Roumanian tv of the 80’s and a live reading if the documents of the secret ( not anymore) file of the secret police about the writings in chalk against the government that appeared on the walls in a town in Roumania and the kid who did them. An important film to remember the past.

Uppercase Print:  In 1981, chalk slogans written in uppercase letters started appearing in public spaces in the Romanian city of Botoşani. They demanded freedom, alluded to the democratic developments taking place in Romania’s socialist sister countries or simply called for improvements in the food supply. Mugur Călinescu was behind them, who was still at school at the time and whose case is documented in the files of the Romanian secret police. Theatre director Gianina Cărbunariu created a documentary play based on this material. Besides showing a production of the play, Radu Jude also uses archive footage from Romanian TV from the era. This dialectical montage creates an image of a dictatorial surveillance state, drawing on the authorised popular entertainment of the Ceaușescu regime in the process in order to unmask it. Cooking shows alternate with interrogations, transcripts of wiretapped phone calls with recommendations to exercise instead of taking sedatives. This not only shows what amazing finds can be unearthed in archives, but also how such materials can be used today to talk about yesterday with thoughtfulness and insight while avoiding the pitfalls of re-enactment.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Radu Jude – Uppercase Print #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Julia Fidel, Head of Berlinale Series.

Julia Fidel is the Head of Berlinale Series, the section of the Berlin Film Festival dedicated to tv serial productions. She tells FRED what she was looking for while selecting, and she talks about the importance of tv series in terms of narrative, of freedom of expression and also of financial investments and productivity.

To discover more about the 70th edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews David France, director of the film Welcome To Chechnya.

David France had the nerve to shoot during 18 months on one of the safe houses use to hide lgbtqi people before fleeing Chechnya, following the “gay purge” that the government started in 2017. This is still happening, with a more difficult pace, and this film could help to ignite attention to the issue again. David talks with Angelo Acerbi about how he worked, how he edited and the personal involvement with the people he met.

Welcome To Chechnya:  In 2017, the LGBTQI* community, human rights defenders and allies all over the world were shocked by the devastating news of crimes being committed in the Russian republic of Chechnya. In a coordinated action, the authorities were rounding up gay and bisexual men and women, and taking them to illegal prison facilities where they were tortured and forced to out others, with the result that they were either executed or released to their families where they were often subjected to “honour killings”. In an interview, Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov denied all accusations, claiming that there are no queer people in Chechnya. David France’s film is the first documentary about those who have come together to save lives – both their own and those of others. This film is a raw, emotionally arresting account of the enormous risks and setbacks but also the victories won against an ultra-conservative society and government. Following rescue operations undertaken by several courageous activists, the film is meticulous in unveiling reality in today’s Chechnya as it unfolds, and excels at making palpable the fear and the hope in the fight for survival.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post David France – Welcome To Chechnya #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Carlo Chatrian, Berlinale Festival Director.

Carlo Chatrian talks with Angelo Acerbi about his first edition of Berlinale as director : his idea of festival, the value of Berlinale as a whole composed by important parts and the intention of offering the widest and most comprehensive selections of films, through the addition also of a new section as Encounters to the original slate.

To discover more about the 70th edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

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