FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Monica Lazurean-Gorgan, director of the documentary A Mere Breath from the 15th Transilvania International Film Festival.

Monica Lazurean-Gorgan presented her latest documentary feature A Mere Breath at the 15th Transilvania International Film Festival. The director talks to us about what prompted her to follow this family over the course of her seven years, and introduces to us the film by telling us about the difficult economical situation of the village in which the story is set. Furthermore, we talk about the family feeling of the film and its universal message, as well as how Monica shot the film, and whether she established a close relationship with the family around whom the narrative of the family widely revolves.

A MERE BREATH (Doar o rasuflare): Seven years in the life of Sicrea family, capturing the trials and tribulations of Dobrin, his wife Lia and their three children. Dobrin is waiting for a miracle to happen, to enable his youngest daughter to get up from her wheelchair and walk.

A Mere Breath, trailer from MANIFEST FILM on Vimeo.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Magnus Gertten, co-director of the documentary feature Becoming Zlatan from the 2016 Transilvania International Film Festival.

With the 2016 European Cup finals just around the corner, it seems just right to talk about a documentary on the formative years of one of the famous footballers on the planet. Particularly, Becoming Zlatan deals with his coming-of-age, from his debut in Malmo FF to his transfer to Ajax and the 2005 move to Juventus, which consigned him to the international footballing stage.

Fredrik Gertten and Magnus Gertten, the directors of the film, were the first to interview him as a professional, and this led them to wanting to follow his life since. Magnus Gertten, in this interview, talks about his connection with Ibrahimovic, and how they made the film so that it has a type of fiction film narrative structure. Along with archive footage of ibrahimovic, Becoming Zlatan includes contributions and interviews from some notable names that encountered him throughout this period of time, such as Mido, Van der Meyde and Van Basten.

BECOMING ZLATAN (Den unge Zlatan): The decisive years of Swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic, told through rare archive footage in which a young Zlatan speaks openly about his life and challenges. The film closely follows him, from his debut with the Malmö FF team in 1999 through his conflict-ridden years with Ajax Amsterdam, and up to his final breakthrough with Juventus in 2005.

Becoming Zlatan International trailer from WG Film on Vimeo.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interview Joyce A. Nashawati, director of Blind Sun from the 15th Transilvania International Film Festival.

Blending genre film (sometimes horror, other times even a type of post apocalyptic western) with experimental elements, Joyce A. Nashawati’s Blind Sun is inspired by environmental issues and other themes, such as cultural contrast. And, of course, the Sun is more than a definint narrative element, unbearably hot and bright – it is also a driving factor in the film, which defines its outlook and its visual style. Nashawati tells us defines this film as an immersive and sensorial experience. We not only agree, but add that it is often one that is hard to escape from. Among other things we discuss in this interview are her choice of making a film with restricted dialogue and the reason behind her setting the film in Greece.

BLIND SUN: Greece. Sometime in the near future. A seaside resort struck by a heavy heat wave. Water is rare and violence is mounting. Ashraf, a solitary immigrant, is looking after a villa while its owners are away. On a dusty road crushed by the sun, he is stopped by a police officer for an identity check…

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Jonas Roethlaender, director of the film Fado from the 15th Transilvania International Film Festival.

A guy moves to Lisbon to win his girlfriend back. But jealousy and possessiveness threaten to send the couple’s romance on a path to self destruction. Intense and unsettling, Jonas Roethlaender’s Fado is a film that takes us inside the mind of its male protagonist, in an organic way, and to the point where what is real and what is imagined is constantly mysterious and questionable.

We talk about the intentions of the film with the director and the personal influences that came into play when making the film. One of them, as the title implies, came from the nature of the title Portuguese music genre, which often talks about subjects of sorrowful longing and other elements, such as the sea. Roethlander discusses the meaning behind the title and much more in this interview from the 15th Transilvania International Film Festival.

FADO: Young doctor Fabian travels to Lisbon to win back his ex-girlfriend Doro. While the two of them are gradually getting closer again they are being haunted by their fears. Fabian’s jealousy once again puts their relationship to the test.

Feature Film: FADO – Trailer from StickUp Filmproduktion on Vimeo.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Pavle Vučković, director of the film Panama from the 2016 Transilvania International Film Festival.

Two college guys wanna have sex, and lots of it, to the point where they race each other in their sexual pursuits as a type of sporting competition. But it’s all a facade, because one of them, is falling in love. His denial of this very obvious fact is what makes up the bulk of the tension in Panama, the debut feature by Pavle Vuckovic. He argues in the film that this is the result of narcissism, which is a result influences of such things as pornography and social media.

Speaking of pornography, the film’s sexual creativeness lends significant meaning to the portrayal of the central couple, and the director shares his views on why that is. Panama is the first feature film by Vuckovic, and so we get an insight on his influences on this film (Hitchcock’s Vertigo for one) and the way in which, to paraphrase him, he changed perception of the film he was making it while making it.

PANAMA: Jovan starts dating Maja casually, no strings attached. But her mysterious behavior begins to disturb him. Jovan starts to follow videos and clues over social networks that hint at Maja’s parallel life. In a web of lies, jealousy and passionate sex, Jovan loses himself, desperately trying to understand who Maja really is.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Patric Chiha, director of the film Brothers of the Night from the 2016 Transilvania International Film Festival.

Young, wild and beautiful, a group of Bulgarian Roma resides in the belly of the Viennese Austrian underworld. Their profession? Seduction. Luring other men, mostly older and lonely, into living out their sexual fantasies with their charisma and bold courageousness, they moved to Austria from their native land for freedom and a quick buck, before giving into the temporary wealth of hustling. Filmmaker Patric Chiha is fascinated by them, as he shows in his documentary, Brothers of the Night. Fascinated, but protective, with his docuementary, but not of the conventional brand. In fact, as he explains in this interview, the film was really a collaboration between the boys and himself, in his pursuit of truth through fakery.

Beautifully, but intuitively shot, the film also serves as an homage to filmmakers such as Pasolini and Fassbinder. It also highlights themes of timelessness, culture clash and “temporary” beauty. There aren’t many films like it, especially about hustling, treated not as a social ill but like an exaltation of the blending of the fine – finer than usually thought of – between fantasy and prostitution. Why is that? Chiha tells us in this interview, “perhaps it’s not in fashion nowadays.” But with its own seductiveness, Brothers of the Night aims, and succeeds, to prove otherwise.

BROTHERS OF THE NIGHT (Brüder der Nacht): In an underworld, against the backdrop of the Danube and Vienna’s skyline, live the underdogs of respectable society. Sporting their leather jackets like suits of armour, these Bulgarian Roma pose, play and seduce Marlon Brando style. They moved to Vienna in search of adventure, freedom and a quick buck, but poverty has drawn them to sell their bodies instead. What is their story?

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Ibolya Fekete, director of the film Mom and Other Loonies in the Family from the 15th Transilvania International Film Festival.

Through Communism, anti-Jews laws and other such tragedies, a family in Hungary lived out its generational turn, tip toeing its way across a whole century. This is the story that filmmaker Ibolya Fekete tells, and it is a story that is deeply personal. The film was in fact inspired by the story of her own family, and the narrator of Mom and Other Loonies in the Family was inspired by her own mother, as she reveals.

Fekete did not make the film with a big budget, but as far as stylistic inventiveness is concerned, it looks a million bucks. We stop to talk about the film’s visual creativity, her process in selecting actors to play the many characters populating its narrative, and a key aspect of this film – humour. Despite the film’s informative nature, fascinating as much to an outsider as to a Hungarian on the history of the country, the film is defined by its warmth and its uplifting features. Life, is, after all a mixture of drama and comedy and, seeing as how Mom and Other Loonies in the Family portrays this sentiment, Fekete agrees.

MOM AND OTHER LOONIES IN THE FAMILY (Anyám és más futóbolondok a családból): A zany tale of a family in the 20th century. Four generations of fools with Mom in the focus, who has lived 92 years and moved 27 times in her life. Moving was her only means of dealing with trouble, danger or conflicts. Now she tells the story to her daughter – a playful, heart-warming and occasionally heartbreaking story.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Pablo Larrain, director of Neruda from the 69th Cannes Film Festival

Celebrated director Pablo Larrain returns on the FRED Film Radio “airwaves” to talk about his latest film, Neruda, presented in Director’s Fortnight, the independent section of the Cannes Film Festival. For the making of this film, Larrain was inspired by a specific speech the poet Pablo Neruda gave, in which he confessed to not be sure about whether some events in his life were real or imagined. In fact, the film is constructed on this very threading of the fine line between imagination – dreams – and reality, channelled through Larrain’s vision.

NERUDA: It’s 1948 and the Cold War has reached Chile. In congress, Senator Pablo Neruda (Luis Gnecco) accuses the government of betraying the Communist Party and is swiftly impeached by President Gonzalez Videla (Alfredo Castro). Police Prefect Oscar Peluchonneau (Gael García Bernal) is assigned to arrest the poet. Neruda tries to flee the country with his wife, the painter Delia del Carril (Mercedes Morán), but they are forced into hiding. Inspired by the dramatic events of his new life as a fugitive, Neruda writes his epic collection of poems, “Canto General”. Meanwhile, in Europe, the legend of the poet hounded by the policeman grows, and artists led by Pablo Picasso clamor for Neruda’s freedom. Neruda, however, sees this struggle with his nemesis Peluchonneau as an opportunity to reinvent himself. He plays with the inspector, leaving clues designed to make their game of cat-and-mouse more dangerous, more intimate. In this story of a persecuted poet and his implacable adversary, Neruda recognizes his own heroic possibilities: a chance to become both a symbol for liberty and a literary legend.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Kleber Mendonça Filho, director of Aquarius from the 69th Cannes Film Festival.

Kleber Mendonça Filho presented his film Aquarius in the main competition of the 69th Cannes Film Festival. Playing the leading role in the film, Sonia Braga, whose praises are sung by the director in this interview. The film, in his words, would simply have been totally different without her. He also talks about the energy, memories and nostalgia that houses hold and evoke and how fascinating and essential these aspects were to the making of Aquarius.

AQUARIUS: Clara, a 65 year old widow and retired music critic, was born into a wealthy and traditional family in Recife, Brazil. She is the last resident of the Aquarius, an original two-story building, built in the 1940s, in the upper-class, seaside Avenida Boa Viagem, Recife. All the neighboring apartments have already been acquired by a company which has other plans for that plot. Clara has pledged to only leave her place upon her death, and will engage in a cold war of sorts with the company, a confrontation which is both mysterious, frightening and nerve wracking. This tension both disturbs Clara and gives her that edge on her daily routine. It also gets her thinking about her loved ones, her past and her future.

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