FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Gaspar Noé and Monica Bellucci, director and actress of the film Irréversible.

Noé talks to FRED about re-cutting the film because it needed restoration. Bellucci speaks about her experience around the original release and how it compares with 2019’s film.

Irréversible is a 2002 French experimental psychological thriller drama film, written and directed by Gaspar Noé and starring Monica Bellucci, Vincent Cassel and Albert Dupontel. The film employs a reverse chronology and follows two men through the streets of Paris as they seek to avenge a brutally raped girlfriend. The film’s soundtrack was composed by Thomas Bangalter, one half of the electronic music duo Daft Punk.

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PODCAST | Daily news and updates from the 76th Venice Film Festival, with Matt Micucci and Nicolò Comotti.

FRED’s Matt Micucci and Nicolò Comotti come to you with the eighth daily report from Venezia 76. On this episode we talk about Atom Egoyan’s Guest of Honor, Valentyn Vasyanovych’s Atlantis, Luis Bunuel’s The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz from the Venice Classics section and more.

The post Daily 4th September – Day 8 #Venezia76 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews Alex Gibney, director of the film Citizen K.

Alex Gibney, the prolific documentary director, sits down with us to reveal his latest work: Citizen K. Centred around the figure of Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the extremely wealthy Russian oligarch turned political exile and anti-Putin militant, Citizen K is an impressive document on how the wild wild East unravelled since the fall of the Soviet Union and through Putin it strives to return to its powerful, monolithic grandeur. Citizen K is out of competition in Venice 76.

Citizen K: In 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, one of the richest men in Russia, began a ten-year sentence for tax evasion. Many believed his downfall was challenging then newly elected president Vladimir Putin. During his time in a Siberian prison, Khodorkovsky became a world-famous dissident. Today, exiled in London, he continues to battle Putin’s 19-year hold on power. Exquisitely photographed in the UK, Russia and Germany, Citizen K examines power in Russia.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Benedict Andrews, director of the film Seberg.

We all remember Jean Seberg as a nouvelle vague american star who was a muse for Jean Luc Godard and who died of suicide in the late 70’s. With Seberg, out of competition at the 76th Venice International Film Festival, director Benedict Andrews tries to capture her essence through actress Kristen Stewart who shares with Seberg the link with French Cinema (Stewart has worked with Olivier Assayas in two movies and speaks French) and the fact that they both started acting very young. Andrews decided to portray a very particular moment in Jean Seberg’s life when she was put under sever control by the FBI (the agency was actually incriminated for pushing too hard in this matter) because of her activism and her “friendship” with civil rights associations and in particular The Black Panthers. Quoting Andrews and Stewart’s own words: “This film is a love letter to Jean Seberg so that people can finally see her for the brave woman she was and not only for her fragility and that famous haircut of hers”.

Seberg: Inspired by true events, the film tells the story of À bout de souffle (Breathless) star and darling of the French New Wave, Jean Seberg, who in the late 1960s was targeted by the illegal FBI surveillance program COINTELPRO. Seberg’s political and romantic involvement with civil rights activist Hakim Jamal made her a target of the FBI’s ruthless attempts to disrupt, discredit and expose the Black Power movement. An ambitious young FBI agent, Jack Solomon, is assigned to surveil her, only to find his fate dangerously interwoven with her own.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Andrey A. Tarkovsky, director of the film Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer. 

Andrey A. Tarkovsky directed a film about his father, the legendary Russian filmmaker of such revered films as The Mirrror, Solaris and Ivan’s Childhood, among others. Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer was presented in the Venice Classics section of the 2019 Venice International Film Festival. Here, Tarkovsky talks about the nature of this homage to his father, as well as his own earliest memory (which coincidentally is attached to being on his father’s set early in his life), plus the meaning of poetry in his own life, the significance of where the archive where all the material of the film came from and more.

Andrey Tarkovsky. A Cinema Prayer: The brilliant director Andrey Tarkovsky, whose works are considered masterpieces of world cinema, left us with eight films and an ever growing interest in and desire to understand his work. The documentary recounts Tarkovsky’s life and work, letting the director tell the story himself, as he shares with us his memories, his view of art and his reflections on the destiny of the artist and the meaning of human existence. Thanks to some extremely rare audio recordings, viewers are able to immerse themselves in the mysterious world of his cinematic imagery, allowing them to comprehend and reassess the work and inner life of the great director. The account is accompanied by never previously released recordings of poems by Arseny Tarkovsky, one of the greatest Russian poets of the 20th century and the director’s father, read by their author. Arseny’s poetry had always had an influence on Andrei’s movies, underlining the profound cultural and spiritual bond between father and son. The images of the film are made up of excerpts taken from the director’s works, rare contemporary photos and videos and sections shot in the places where Tarkovsky lived and made his movies, in Russia, Sweden and Italy, his adoptive home.

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PODCAST | Daily news and updates from the 76th Venice Film Festival, with Matt Micucci and Angelo Acerbi.

FRED’s Matt Micucci and Angelo Acerbi come to you with the sixth daily report from Venezia 76. On this episode we talk about Olivier Assayas’ Wasp Network, David Michod’s The King and more, plus the Career Achievement award to Julie Andrews and Martin Scorsese’s New York New York restoration.

The post Daily 3rd September – Day 7 #Venezia76 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Steven Soderbergh, Gary Oldman and Meryl Streep, director and actors of the film The Laundromat.

We all know about the Panama papers but not many of us know how much this issue and the existence of off shore “shell” companies can touch and affect each one of us. Steven Soderbergh found the right way to make everyone aware of that with The Laundromat, in competition at the 76th Venice Film Festival. With Antonio Banderas and Gary Oldman playing both narrators and Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca, experts in the seductive ways shell companies and offshore accounts help the rich and powerful prosper, Soderbergh counts on Meryl Streep to close the circle and deliver a very balanced tale of comedy and drama. The actors describe the fun and the pleasure in working with such a great director like Steven Soderberg.

The Laundromat: When her idyllic vacation takes an unthinkable turn, Ellen Martin begins investigating a fake insurance policy, only to find herself down a rabbit hole of questionable dealings that can be linked to a Panama City law firm and its vested interest in helping the world’s wealthiest citizens amass even larger fortunes. The charming—and very well-dressed—founding partners Jürgen Mossack and Ramón Fonseca are experts in the seductive ways shell companies and offshore accounts help the rich and powerful prosper. They are about to show us that Ellen’s predicament only hints at the tax evasion, bribery and other illicit absurdities that the super wealthy indulge in to support the world’s corrupt financial system. Zipping through a kaleidoscope of comic detours in China, Mexico, Africa (via Los Angeles) and the Caribbean en route to 2016’s Panama papers incident – where journalists leaked the secret, encrypted documents of Mossack Fonseca’s high- profile patrons – this film is adapted from Secrecy World: Inside the Panama Papers Investigation of Illicit Money Networks and the Global Elite by Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Jake Bernstein.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Timothée Chalamet, Joel Edgerton and David Michod, actors and director of the film The King.

It is a perfect balance mix of Shakespeare and historical facts, the new film directed by David Michod, written with Joel Edgerton: The King. The film, presented out of competition at the 76th Venice Film Festival is based on the Henry V Shakespeare’s play and sees Timothée Chalamet in the role of King Henry and Joel Edgerton in that of John Falstaff. The King is shaped as a coming of age film and with this guideline in mind, Michod, Edgerton and Chalamet comment and describe their work on the story and the film. When do we really become adults? This is a question every spectator will have to answer while watching the film.

The King: Hal, wayward prince and reluctant heir to the English throne, has turned his back on royal life and is living among the people. But when his tyrannical father dies, Hal is crowned King Henry V and is forced to embrace the life he had previously tried to escape. Now the young king must navigate the palace politics, chaos and war his father left behind, and the emotional strings of his past life—including his relationship with his closest friend and mentor, the ageing alcoholic knight, John Falstaff.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Nate Parker and Spike Lee, director and producer of the film American Skin.

Nate Parker and Spike Lee are the director and producer of American Skin, presented in the Sconfini section at the 76th Venice Film Festival. Spike Lee got on board when Nate Parker, former director of The Birth of a Nation, had already shot the film. American Skin is a film and a project as it aims at connecting people, at creating a dialogue between different people. In the film, Nate Parker plays a veteran who is seeking justice for the killing of his 14-year-old son, by a policeman who thought the boy was holding a gun. Parker tries to find a different way to try and put an end to the many injustices Afro-american people have to face in the United States. The only solution is the dialogue and that’s why Spike Lee blessed the project.

American Skin: Lincoln Jefferson is a Marine veteran. Now stateside, he works as a custodian in a prestigious California high school–a job he secured only to ensure enrollment in the school to his 14-year old son KJ. One night, Lincoln and KJ are stopped by police and an altercation leads to the fatal shooting of the unarmed boy. Hopeful the system will provide a trial, Lincoln is dismayed to learn the officer responsible for pulling the trigger will go uncharged and will return to active duty without an indictment. The protagonist desperately takes the matter into his own hands in a series of events he hopes will finally lead to justice for his son.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi and Chiara Nicoletti host the roundtable on The Role of International Film Festivals Today, with Karel Och, Intishal Al Tamimi, Mike Goodridge and Git Scheynius.

FRED’s Matt Micucci and Chiara Nicoletti host a special roundtable session on the role of film festivals today. The roundtable features: Karel Och, artistic director of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival; Intishal Al Tamimi, director El Gouna Film Festival; Mike Goodridge, artistic director of International Film Festival & Awards Macao; and Git Scheynius, director of the Stockholm International Film Festival.

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