FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Karna Sigurðardóttir, director of the documentary 690 Vopnafjörður.

Director Karna Sigurðardóttir presented her feature documentary debut, 690 Vopnafjörður, at the 31st International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes in Biarritz, France, where the film had its world premiere. The film is set in a small Icelandic town of Vopnafjörður – indeed, the town is the main character of the movie. Sigurðardóttir tells us about her familiarity with this kind of setting, being from a small village in East Iceland herself. Nonetheless, she also talks about the initial difficulties she encountered when she begand filming her documentary: “The traditional Icelandic way is to not say very much,” she explains. “People didn’t really come to me with their story, I really had to kind of dig for them.” Her statement implies a type of quietness or silence that is found in the overall style of 690 Vopnafjörður; this was part of Sigurðardóttir tactic in achieving a film that would give spectators the feeling of being in the village as they watched the film. The director also talks about the way in which she embarked in the journey of making this documentary, how the younger generations live in the village (“people need to leave and then make the decision to come and stay. But I found that their way of thinking very often was just that they feel good there”), and more.

690 Vopnafjörður:  In a remote Icelandic village, the 645 residents of Vopnafjörður go about their daily lives. Heated arguments about soccer or politics both divide and bind the community, which thrives on the smallest conflict. The film examines the mini-dramas of everyday events, and on the deep connection between the villagers and their fjord. In a place like this, these social ties determine whether people stay or leave, and rural flight is a constant threat. (Text from the official website of Fipa, http://www.fipa.tv/en/)

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Marcio Debellian, director of the documentary Februaries.

Director Marcio Debellian presented his documentary Februaries at the 31st International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes (FIPA) in Biarritz, France. The documentary follows the preparation and the exhibition of an homage to the renowned and celebrated Brazilian singer Maria Bethânia by the Mangueira Samba School. This offers the opportunity not only for a portrait of the life, art, and other aspects of Bethânia, but also the telling of the history of the carnival and samba tradition, which originates from a past of slavery, poverty, mythology, and more. Debellian tells us a little bit about it with great passion; passion is, indeed, one of the driving forces of the film. The passion also comes from Bethânia herself, who is featured in the film, along with other contributors, including her brother and celebrated artist Caetano Veloso, her music and more great traditional Brazilian music. The director talks about working with Bethânia and reveals that he had worked with her before. He also discusses the controversies revolving the upcoming Carnival festivities, the use of little-seen archive footage, and more.

Februaries:  An endearing portrait following Brazil’s best-loved singer, Maria Bethânia, and her brother, Caetano Veloso, as they revisit their ancestral history in their hometown of Santo Amaro, long a source of her inspiration. They learn of their slave forefathers and of the unique religious context that gave rise to Bethânia the star, to whom the Mangueira Samba School recently paid homage in a parade that won the 2016 Rio Carnival.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Mariana Oliva, director of the documentary Piripkura.

The feature documentary Piripkura, a prize winner at the previous edition of the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam, had its French premiere in the program of the 31st International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes (Fipa) in Biarritz, France. It is here that we met and interviewed one of its director, Mariana Oliva, credited alongside Renata Terra and Bruno Jorge for making this powerful documentary about a search through the Amazon forest for two known survivors of the Piripkura people, members of an indigenous tribe of Brazil, who live in a protected area in the middle of the forest, with a troubled and tragic history. Oliva explains some of this history and just how much we can learn from these seemingly uneducated people and the way they live. In this interview, she also talks about one of the lessons of her documentary, an environmental message, the brutality and violence but essential beauty of the Amazon forest and the experience and challenges of filming there, and more.

Piripkura:  “The indigenous Piripkura are an unacculturated tribe of which only three members remain, two of whom continue to live traditionally somewhere in the Amazonian wilderness, cherishing a burning ember given them by an officer of the agency responsible for their protection in 1998. The officer must find them again to prove that the region, coveted by industries responsible for deforestation and livestock, can still legally be considered an indigenous area. We follow the incredible search for the last two existing members of their kind from another age.” (Text taken from the official webstite of Fipa, http://www.fipa.tv/en/)

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Mike Christie, director of the documentary Hansa Studios: By the Wall 1976-90.

Director Mike Christie presented his documentary, Hansa Studios: By the Wall 1976-90, at the 31st International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes in Biarritz, France, where it had its French premiere. The documentary tells the previously untold story of the legendary recording studio of Berlin that stood by the Berlin wall and where dozens of pop band recorded many great albums from the late 70’s to the early 1990’s, beginning with David Bowie’s Low, recorded in 1976 and released in 1977. “Berlin before the wall came down was a fascinating city to tourists,” explains Christie in this interview. “It felt like a dangerous place and yet it was incredibly liberal and to some extent relatively lawless … I think that really appealed to artists.” It is no accident that many of the albums discussed in the film were made by artists who were also, essentially tourists, including Iggy Pop, Depeche Mode, and U2 – the later was, in fact, the last big band to record the last album of the “golden era” of Hansa Studios: Achtung Baby, released in 1991. Christie recalls reading about the studio in the mid-80’s in an article about a new Depeche Mode article; he never thought he would go on to make a documentary about it. He was also surprised to find that not only were many big-name artists he approached interested in collaborating on the project, but they were also eager to visit Hansa Studios again; Christie says “it was kind of like an old love affair that they were all revisiting.” Despite the title, the documentary looks at the studio’s taciturn gap period that followed the fall of the Berlin wall and its rebirth, when bands like R.E.M. and Supergrass recorded albums there in later years. Christie also talks about how the architecture of Hansa Studios influences the film; along with his interest in architecture, also having made a number of films about architecture in the past, he says “I wanted the viewer to feel like being in a time machine … and I wanted to really communicate the spaces as well.”

Hansa Studios: By the Wall 1976-90: Few recording studios in the world can claim to rival the incredible list of musicians hosted by Berlin’s Hansa Studios. Between 1976 and 1991, this studio complex was nestled against the Berlin Wall. Here, David Bowie immortalized the Wall in Heroes and his flatmate Iggy Pop sang the rock’n’roll anthem Lust For Life. Prominent international artists followed, including Depeche Mode, Nick Cave and U2, making Hansa Studios one of the most important music factories of the 20th Century.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Mordechai Vardi, director of the documentary The Field.

Director Mordechai Vardi presented his documentary, The Field, at the 31st edition of the International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes (FIPA) in Biarritz, France, where it had its European Premiere. The documentary follows Roots, a Palestinian centre of nonviolence, created by Ali Abu Awwad on his family’s field. At the time of filming, not more than three hundred metres away, there were many terror attacks taking place, which involved, as Vardi says, army special soldiers “with their faces covered and weapons in their hand.” On the other hand, thanks to Roots, Palestinians and settlers sat down and talked with one another; “this is a real place for peace,” Vardi explains in this interview, “where everyone can say what they feel.” He also adds, “maybe politicians on both sides prefer that the conflict goes on, but the real people on the grown want to go on with their lives.” He reveals that he hopes this film will push politicians “to find a formula of how we can live together.”

The Field: Gush Etzion junction, between Jerusalem and Hebron: Ali Abu Awwad offers his family’s field as a Palestinian centre for nonviolence. Despite his life experiences (four years in an Israeli prison, his mother’s own five-year sentence, a brother killed by an Israeli soldier) Ali creates ”Roots” with local Israeli settlers to promote grass-roots work towards enabling political reconciliation. The film accompanies the initiative for 2.5 years and documents the changes transpiring on both sides.

The post Mordechai Vardi – The Field #FIPA2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Stephane Kaas, director of the documentary Etgar Keret: Based on a True Story.

Stephane Kaas presented his documentary feature Etgar Keret: Based on a True Story at the 31st Festival of Audiovisual Programmes (FIPA) in Biarritz, France. The film is based on the Israeli author Etgar Keret; particularly, as Kaas tells us in this interview, it is about “how Etgar creates fiction out of his own life.” Kaas had been a fan of Keret for a long time and had played around with the thought of making a movie based on one of his short story. With the assistance of his co-screenwriter, Rutger Lemm, he ended up making a film about the man himself and during the interview points out another objective: “We think Etgar is one of the best storytellers we have in the world and we though if we studied Etgar we could maybe learn how to tell good stories ourselves.” Etgar Keret: Based on a True Story takes us inside the world of the author in a number of different ways and through different techniques, such as by blending the line between reality and fiction (echoing the surrealist vibes of Keret’s work itself), through animation, and more. In this interview, we find out more about the style of the film and the techniques, as well as whether Kaas thinks Keret is a liar (a question he asks Keret’s friends throughout the documentary) and more, including that it is illegal to film with monkeys in Tel Aviv.

Etgar Keret: Based on a True Story: In his short stories, Israeli writer Etgar Keret mixes fantasy and reality. His own life story also comes across as a modern fairy tale. In this hybrid documentary, the filmmakers investigate why storytelling is essential for Keret’s survival.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Emily Loizeau, Ambassador of FIPA 2018.

Singer-songwriter and composer Emily Loizeau was the ambassador of the 31st International Festival of Audiovisual Programmes – indeed, the first ever FIPA ambassador in the history of the festival. Loizeau is interested in her activity as a composer for audiovisual projects, claiming that the process if different from when she writes her own albums; “Having to plunge into a story that does not come from your imagination is extremely inspiring.” She is also interested in experimenting with other art forms, claiming that she worries about being stuck in a repetitive pattern, and emphasizing that it is an artist’s duty to refrain from being stuck in a bubble and to reflect the times (much like Nina Simone once said).

To discover more about the Festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, actors and director of the film The Post, that will be realesed in Italian cinemas on February 1st.

 “The Free press are the guardians of democracy, that’s what I was raised to believe and what I found to be an incontrovertible truth”. These are the words used by Steven Spielberg to introduce his latest film The Post to the Italian audience, in company of the protagonists Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks. The Post comes at the right moment in history when the freedom of the press is under attack as much as or maybe even more so than in 1971, when the film is actually set. “This script was bought 6 days before the election and we thought it would be a nostalgic look back on how far we’ve come as women, and with a female president as everyone thought this would happen. And then election happened and the film became the story of how far we’ve not come” says Meryl Streep talking about the reasons why she was drawn to the project. Tom Hanks describes how it felt for him to fill a newspaper editor-in-chief’s shoes and how he empathised with the struggle his character went through not only to find a good story to tell but also to find the story to publish.

The Post: Steven Spielberg directs Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks in The Post, a thrilling drama about the unlikely partnership between The Washington Post’s Katharine Graham (Streep), the first female publisher of a major American newspaper, and editor Ben Bradlee (Hanks), as they race to catch up with The New York Times to expose a massive cover-up of government secrets that spanned three decades and four U.S. Presidents. The two must overcome their differences as they risk their careers – and their very freedom – to help bring long-buried truths to light. The Post marks the first time Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg have collaborated on a project.

For the official website of the film, click here.

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The post Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg – The Post appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Zac Efron and Zendaya, actors of the film The Greatest Showman.

One of the final significant tracks of The Greatest Showman, the new musical film starring Hugh Jackman, From Now on quotes : “And we will come back home”. That’s how the film felt for Jackman’s co-protagonist Zac Efron, who started his career in a musical and is finally showing all his singing and dancing skills again. The actor along with Zendaya reveal how they easily related to their characters and how difficult but rewarding the whole experience was. Together in the film they prove that love can overcome differences, discrimination and racism.

The Greatest Showman: Inspired by the imagination of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.

For the official website of the film, click here.

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The post Zac Efron, Zendaya – The Greatest Showman appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Hugh Jackman, actor of the film The Greatest Showman.

It is because of the energy, talent and perseverance of Hugh Jackman if The Greatest Showman, the musical film directed by Michael Gracey, has been made and is out in cinemas worldwide. The actor tells us the story behind the making of the musical in a special Skype interview in company of his co-stars Zac Efron and Zendaya and director Gracey. The Tony Award winner is obviously not new to the musical genre and he was the one who suggested Gracey to direct the film, as his first feature film. The two had previously met during the shooting of a commercial and Jackman became very fond of this young but talented director. In the film Jackman plays P. T. Barnum, the man who invented the Circus as we know it today by believing in those who were bullied and put aside by society because of their being different, because of their diversity and oddness. The Greatest Showman is a modern and musical homage to diversity as what makes us all special.

The Greatest Showman: Inspired by the imagination of P.T. Barnum, The Greatest Showman is an original musical that celebrates the birth of show business and tells of a visionary who rose from nothing to create a spectacle that became a worldwide sensation.

For the official website of the film, click here.

Follow film-related events on Twitter and on Facebook.

The post Hugh Jackman – The Greatest Showman appeared first on Fred Film Radio.