FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Song Yang, actor of the film Wrath of Silence.

Actor Song Yang talk about his work on Wrath of Silence, directed by Xin Yukun, on which he plays the leading role and that was screened at the 2nd International Film Festival & Award Macao. In this film, Song Yang plays a mute; the challenge entailed acting in silence for the whole film. Yang point out another challenge that working on Wrath of Silence entailed: the fact that it is set in a rural setting, which meant that he had to lose some of his city habits, having been brought up and lived in a city environment all his life. Besides this, another challenge came from the fact that Song Yang normally acts in martial arts films and TV serials; though he gets physical in this film as well, Wrath of Silence is more dramatic. We ask him about this and about his work with the director.

Wrath of Silence:  In a small mineral mining town in the mountains of northern China, a miner Zhang Baomin returns to his small family sheep farm only to learn that his young son Lei hasn’t come back from shepherding for two days. He begins a search for the boy which stirs up anxiety, resentment and distrust among the townsfolk who turn a blind eye to the reality of a missing child. But Zhang does not stop the search even when he comes head to head with the corruption and danger that permeates the local mining business.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Sarmad Masud and Suhaee Abror, director and actress of the film My Pure Land.

Director Sarmad Masud and actress Suhaee Abro talk about My Pure Land, from the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. Masud describes the film as a modern feminist western and tells us that it is based on a true story from Pakistan of three women who defended their agricultural land from heavily armed men seeking to claim it as a part of a familial feud. He also tells us that this is a frighteningly common situation and that My Pure Land, by focusing on one story represents a microcosm of this situation in Pakistan. Abro talks about connecting with her character, admitting that she was initially intimidated by her as well as the weapons in the film. They also tell us about the importance of storytelling, one of the touching underlying themes of the movie and, among other things, the influences from the western genre.

My Pure Land:  The true story of a young woman called Nazo who, together with her mother and sister, are forced to defend their home after a bitter family feud leads to her father’s incarceration. In their isolated farmhouse in Pakistan, the women find themselves surrounded by armed men hired by their uncle Mehrban to take back the land. But Nazo is not easily beaten and when two of his men are killed in the attack, Mehrban calls in a local militia group of 200 armed bandits. But even with only a handful of bullets left, Nazo refuses to give in.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Jeremy Renner, actor and Talent Ambassador of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao.

Actor Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, The Avengers) was one of the talent ambassadors of the 2nd International Film Festival & Award Macao. The actor and producer talked about his impressions of the region and his opinion on its potential and its culture; he also reveals that this is his very first time in Macao. We also ask him for an opinion on Chinese movies, and he tells us that although he has not had time to watch many films since he entered the industry, he looks at the regions where directors are doing interesting things, and expects that China will be the place to look out for soon. Renner also talks about the upcoming Avengers movie or, rather, how little he can reveal about it. He does claim that it will be one of the biggest movies ever released and that they are all excited about it. He also shares his views on the recent #metoo movement and whether he prefers working on bigger budget blockbusters, like The Avengers series, or smaller (perhaps more character driven) ones, such as his latest film, Wind River.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Joan Chen, member of the jury of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao and actress of the film The Last Emperor.

Director and actress Joan Chen was one of the members of the jury of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. She is also the star of the Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning 1987 feature The Last Emperor, one of the special screenings at this year’s festival. This is where we start our interview, as Chen recalls what it was like to work with the celebrated Italian cineaste and how working on this important film impacted and shaped her subsequent career. Chen also went on to direct movies of her own. Here, she talks about her own experiences as a director and whether she feels the film industry has changed, for better or worse, for female directors.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Lawrence Osborne, author of the novel The Ballad of a Small Player and jury member of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao.

Author Lawrence Osborne was one of the jury members of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. He tells us that this was his first experience as a juror at a film festival, though he watches more films than he reads books, he prefers this experience to his previous ones at book festivals. However, does this also mean that his activities within the film industry will increase? We also talk about his novel, The Ballad of a Small Player, which is set in Macao, and why he decided to write a novel based on this part of the world.

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PODCAST| Samantha Sartori interviews Anik Datta, director of the film Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo, at the 48th International Film Festival of India, Goa.

IFFI’s journey from 23 countries in 1952 to 100 countries in 2017 With 47 years of existence and over a decade’s presence in Goa, IFFI has grown massively in both quantitative and qualitative terms. In 1952, it started with the participation of 23 countries with over two hundred films’ entries. This year, the numbers have increased multifold to submissions from over 100 countries across the world. IFFI celebrates its 48th this year with a more showbiz and a greater zeal from film artists around the globe. During the festival, we had the pleasure to talk with Anik Datta, director of Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo, selected in the Indian Panorama section. We talked about the making of the movie and other aspects of this epic thriller. A special thanks to the producer Billy Chatterjee who made this interview possible. Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo will open in UK this December, in Sweden soon, and you can see the movie in other festivals around the world.

Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo:  Professor Asimava Bose is a well-known sci-fi writer, a fellow at Oxford University. Every year he returns to Calcutta. His second wife Indrani is an ex-film actress, now runs an NGO. There are many other characters. Asimava’s son, his first wife, Indrani’s daughter, Indrani’s assistant, A film director and others. During one of Asimava’s yearly Calcutta visits he receives a surprise gift, a book Meghnadbodh Kabya from an unknown sender. Curiously, six months before his visit to Calcutta he had received the same book in London. The second time Asimava gets the book, it has a strange effect on him. One morning Asimava does not return from his morning walk. This creates a sensation in the media. Though there are various suspects with possible motives there is not much progress. After a lot of twists and turns the mystery is solved exposing an unlikely perpetrator with an unexpected motive.

To discover more about the Festival, click here.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Ofir Raul Graizer, director of the film The Cakemaker.

Ofir Raul Graizer talks about his directorial feature debut, The Cakemaker, which was screened in competition at the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. Graizer defines this film as a personal story; here he tells us why. Certainly, his personal connection to the story must have added to his passion for making it, despite the difficulties he encountered in raising sufficient funds to make it, which he explains here. The director also talks about how the film reflects upon the theme of love through the story of the connection between two people who, despite being worlds apart, have both lost someone they deeply cared about. The Cakemaker, as the title might suggest, includes several beautiful shots of food and cakes; this, Graizer agrees, is an important part of the film.

The Cakemaker:  Thomas, a young German baker who runs a popular pastry shop in Berlin, is having an affair with Oren, a married man from Israel who has frequent business visits to Germany. When Oren dies in a car crash in Israel, Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers about his death. Disguising his relationship to Oren, Thomas infiltrates the life of his late lover’s widow Anat who owns a small café in the city and starts to work for her. As his traditional cakes and cookies bring the establishment to life, Thomas finds himself involved in Anat’s life in a far deeper way than he ever anticipated.

The post Ofir Raul Graizer – The Cakemaker #IFFAM2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Sarah Adler and Roy Miller, actors of the film The Cakemaker.

Sarah Adler and Roy Miller star in The Cakemaker, directed by Ofir Raul Graizer. The film was screened at the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. Roy Miller plays Oren, a german man married to a woman in Israel, Anat, who engages in a romance with a dough maestro working in a cake shop in Berlin, whom he meets with regularly on his business trips to the German capital. Sarah Adler plays Anat. We never see the two of them share the screen together for, as Miller says in his description of the character, a film’s turning point is marked by his passing, which then connects the lives of his wife with his German lover. As explained in this interview, The Cakemaker was a film in which the actors had to connect and experiments with sides of themselves that had nothing to do with their private lives: Miller had to handle the challenge of portraying a tender and physical romance with another man despite himself being straight, while Adler tells us that she does not resemble her character in her private life at all and that it is what she goes through that she could understand. This in turn prompts the question of whether the fact of being taken out of your comfort zone in playing a role for the screen is a good thing because it allows you to experiment and explore parts of yourself you did not know existed. Adler also shares with us that she was approached by the director long before it was being made. The Cakemaker, in fact, as the director himself tells us in our interview with him, took eight long years to make, and Adler was initially approached years before it was finally shot.

The Cakemaker:  Thomas, a young German baker who runs a popular pastry shop in Berlin, is having an affair with Oren, a married man from Israel who has frequent business visits to Germany. When Oren dies in a car crash in Israel, Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers about his death. Disguising his relationship to Oren, Thomas infiltrates the life of his late lover’s widow Anat who owns a small café in the city and starts to work for her. As his traditional cakes and cookies bring the establishment to life, Thomas finds himself involved in Anat’s life in a far deeper way than he ever anticipated.

The post Sarah Adler, Roy Miller – The Cakemaker #IFFAM2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Shekhar Kapur, ambassador of the 2nd International Film Festival & Award Macao.

Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur presided the jury of the inaugural edition of the International Film Festival & Award Macao last year. This year, he returns as a festival ambassador and as one of the programmers of the festival’s Crossfire section, which promotes a cultural exchange between Western filmmakers choosing an Asian genre film and Asian filmmakers choosing a Western genre film to screen during the festival. Kapur chose Stanley Kubrick’s celebrated 2001: A Space Odyssey and tells us why. He also talks about about how his impression of the evolution of the festival. For instance, one of the things he singles out about it is that here, unlike other festivals that he goes to during the year, he can meet people who are not established; he says that when you are an established director, you don’t have much time to meet people because there is always something to do, meetings to attend, interviews, etc. This is something he misses as, he says, “the system starts to be boring” after a while. Besides this, Kapur tells us that he gets positive vibes from the International Film Festival & Awards Macao because he feels there is “a huge desire to make a success of it,” not only in financial terms but also in a cultural term. Kapur also shares with us that he would love to direct a Chinese film and reveals that he is in the early process of setting something up. In his answers, he also shares with us some very interesting and thought-provoking views on cinema in general.

To discover more about the International Film Festival & Award Macao, click here.

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PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Ram Nehari, Moon Shavit and Nitai Gvirtz, director and actors of the film Don’t Forget Me.

“It is a dark rom-com”, this is how Ram Nehari presents his film Don’t Forget Me written by his protagonist Nitai Gvirtz. The film is the main competition winner of the 35th Torino Film Festival and tells the love story between a girl trying to heal from anorexia and a guy with trouble fitting into life. Ram Nehari and Nitai Gvritz reveal that the script is very particular and detailed as it is based on Nitai’s high school best friend’s story and on what Moon Shavit went through dealing with anorexia and eating disorders. Gvirtz describes how they were always sitting down before starting to shoot, trying to find a drive to the film and to make the story as true as possible. The director and actors define the film dark, hardcore and funny as it deals with very heavy topics but face them with irony and in a comic way.

Don’t Forget Me:  Tom, who suffers from an eating disorder and is recovered in a clinic, has gotten her menstrual cycle back. When the doctor tells her it’s a good sign because it means her condition is improving, she panics: the idea of gaining back the kilos she lost scares her to death. It seems like a day to forget but when she meets Neil, a trombone player with socialization problems, everything changes: the two feel a strong connection that is sealed by their shared desire to escape everything which is considered socially acceptable.

For the page of the film on the Festival website, click here.

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