FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Gregor Valentovic, director of the film Kid.

European Film Promotion (EFP) presents ten outstanding young directors from Europe with their latest work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival every year. This is an interview with director Gregor Valentovic, representing the Slovak Republic at this year’s edition, and presenting his short film Kid. In this interview, he explains why he describes the film as a coming of age drama that happens a little later in life. He also talks about his mission of finding art in ordinary, everyday life, the influence of music on his films and more.

Kid: Hana is getting married, Maja is moving in with her boyfriend, Bažo is off to Canada, but there are no radical changes in David’s life. His friends grow distant, and now he must face the problem of dealing with his newfound loneliness. A congenially energetic film about the void that often grows between the world of carefree partying and the settled life of adulthood.

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The post Gregor Valentovic – Kid #KVIFF54 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Eileen Byrne, director of the film Touch Me.

European Film Promotion (EFP) presents ten outstanding young directors from Europe with their latest work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival every year. This is an interview with director Eileen Byrne, representing Luxembourg at this year’s edition, and presenting her short film Touch Me. In this interview, she talks about her starting point for dealing in her film with breast cancer, the feminine perspective of the movie, the warmth of its style and more.

Touch Me: Alice is undergoing treatment for breast cancer. Her boyfriend Moritz tries to be supportive, but he isn’t capable of fully understanding her state of mind (or at least that’s how it seems to Alice). The young woman tries to overcome her fears of an uncertain future, but she struggles to come to terms with her operation-scarred body. An intimate film about a sensitive but also highly important topic.

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The post Eileen Byrne – Touch Me #KVIFF54 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Damjan Kozole, director of the film Half-Sister.

An interview with Damjan Kozole on his new film, Half-Sister, that had its world premiere in the official competition of the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. The Slovenian filmmaker tells us about the pivotal lead odd couple, the theme of compassion, the cultural contrast between Albania and Slovenia that also shapes the movie and more.

Half-Sister: Half-sisters who were never that close are forced by circumstance to share a flat in Ljubljana… The leading Slovene director returns to Karlovy Vary with a remarkably precise study of alienation and the inability to communicate, in a film characterized by polished dialogue, plenty of black humour and entirely natural performances.

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The post Damjan Kozole – Half-Sister #KVIFF54 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Anna Roller, director of the film The Last Children of Paradise.

 European Film Promotion (EFP) presents ten outstanding young directors from Europe with their latest work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival every year. This is an interview with director Anna Roller, representing Germany at this year’s edition, and presenting her short film The Last Children of Paradise. In this interview, she discusses some of the themes of her film (including that of mortality), her views on cinema’s ability to show what occurs in the characters’ minds, her experience at this year’s Future Frames in Karlovy Vary and more.

The Last Children of Paradise: Fourteen-year-old Leah lives with her ten-year-old brother Theo and their grandmother. A sad event that unexpectedly affects their lives forces her to take responsibility for the family, but she does so with the ease of a child. A perceptive film about losing a sense of security that had felt like paradise.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Rozálie Kohoutová, co-director of the film Off Sides.

An interview with Rozálie Kohoutová, co-director with Tomas Bojar of Off Sides, a documentary screened at the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Films strand. Off Sides is a documentary about cultural exchange between teenage ice hockey players from Czech Republic and Morocco. Kohoutová calls the film a “documentary comedy,” and explains what she means by that term. We also ask her how she found out about this particular project, her creative partnership with Bojar (who also produced the Off Sides) and their interest in the theme of sport, among other things.

Off Sides: A group of young hockey players from the east Bohemian town of Náchod travel to Morocco where a local team has taken up ice hockey. Documentary filmmakers Rozálie Kohoutová and Tomás Bojar return to the world of sports to capture a vibrant dialogue between different cultures seeking a common language, on and off the ice.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Felipe Ríos, director of the film The Man of the Future.

An interview with director Felipe Ríos, whose film The Man of the Future had its world premiere in the official competition of the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic. The Chilean filmmaker talks about some of the themes of the film and the importance of time in his movie – past, present and future – as well as some of the ways in which they are represented, particularly in the lead male character being a truck driver and the lead female character being a boxer.

The Man of the Future: Michelsen, an elderly truck driver, sets out on his last trip driving freight to the southern tip of Chilean Patagonia. The long and arduous drive through the magnificent, luxuriant natural landscape, past lakes and extensive glaciers, ultimately becomes a recapitulation of his life when he unexpectedly happens upon his adult daughter, whom he hasn’t seen since her childhood.

The post Felipe Ríos – The Man of the Future #KVIFF54 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Antonio Lukich, director of the film My Thoughts Are Silent.

An interview with Antonio Lukich, director of My Thoughts Are Silent, presented at the East of the West competition of the 2019 Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic, where it had its world premiere. Here, he talks about his working method, the use of the road movie structure and humour to communicate through his films, and more. Based on one of the elements of My Thoughts Are Silent, we also ask him whether he believes that it is difficult to be an artist nowadays.

My Thoughts Are Silent: Twenty-five-year-old Vadym works as a sound recordist. When a generous job offer comes along which could help him fulfill his dream to move to Canada, he doesn’t think twice and sets out to record the sounds of animals in the Carpathians… In his visually inspired road movie, subtly enhanced by its synthesized score, debuting director Antonio Lukich demonstrates a highly unusual talent for constructing tragicomic situations.

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PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews Rosanne Pel, director of the film Light as Feathers.

Rosanne Pel is here in Brussels with her brave and provocative Light as Feathers. She is in company of many other great filmmakers within the Director’s Week section of the festival.

Light as Feathers: Eryk grows up without a father in a village in the Polish countryside. Aged 15, attracted to his young neighbour, he does not know the limit between love and abuse. For her first film, Pel turns to fictional documentary to address the sensitive issue of sexual abuse. A bold film half-way between retribution and forgiveness.

To learn more about the film, click here.

The post Rosanne Pel – Light as Feathers #BRIFF2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews Hubert Charuel, director and juror.

Hubert Charuel joins us to talk about his imminent experience as juror here in Brussels – and much more.

Born in the east of France in 1985, Hubert Charuel grew up in an agricultural environment in a family of dairy farmers. After studying and graduating from La Fémis Film School in 2011, he co-writes and directs three shorts, Diagonale du vide, his graduation film, in 2011, K-Nada in 2014 and Fox-terrier in 2017, all three selected and awarded at many festivals. All his projects were co-written with Claude Le Pape. In 2016, he co-writes and directs Petit paysa , his first feature film, distinguished at the Critics’ Week of the 2017 Cannes Film Festival. He obtained three Valois at the 2017 Angoulême Francophone Film Festival and three César in 2018. He has just finished his new documentary, Les Vaches n’auront plus de nom, which looks back at the time when his parents sold their farm.

To learn more about the juries and awards, click here.

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PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews director Bas Devos of the film Hellhole.

We are pleased to meet once again with the talented – and now prolific! – belgian director Bas Devos, here in BRIFF with his film Hellhole. However, he was also in Cannes with Ghost Tropic. Clearly, we have a lot to catch up with.

Hellhole: Hellhole follows three starkly different people in the months after the terrorist attacks in Brussels in March 2016. A Flemish doctor, whose son is a fighter pilot deployed in the Middle East, is forced to confront his loneliness. A young man with Algerian roots is asked by his brother to do him a deceivingly simple favour. An Italian woman, who works for the European Institutions, is slowly losing control under the pressure of her demanding life. The same question that seems to haunt the city, looms over their lives: where do we go from here?

To learn more about the film, click here.

The post Bas Devos – Hellhole #BRIFF2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.