FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Dean Francis – director – Drown

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Dean Francis, in Torino to participate with his new film Drown to the feature Film competition of the 30th Torino Gay & Lesbian film festival.

After the 2005 short film Boys Grammar, Dean Francis goes back to dealing with themes such as homophobia and bullying in this entertaining drama, set in the tanned and sexist world of Australian Lifeguards. When Len, the perfect lifeguard and surfing champion, is forced to face his own inability to accept his true self, he inevitably responds with violence, as this is the only element he has known his whole life.

DROWN: Gaywatch. Lifeguard Len is a surfing champion and a typical alpha male with a perfect body. His team worships him and considers him a god. But when the team hires wildly attractive and openly gay Phil, all of his certainties begin to crumble. The newcomer is soon liked and admired by everyone except Len, who is envious of him and seems to mistrust him because of his sexual orientation.

During the annual surf lifesaving competition, mistrust turns into contempt. Hate makes people monsters, especially those like Len, who refuse to admit that true strength is measured not by physical prowess, but by the ability to show one’s true self.

A brutal, lyrical and muscular film, an overview of manliness and male camaraderie, taken to the extreme. Despite its low budget, it is a spectacular film with fast-paced editing. Point Break meets Brotherhood.

The post Dean Francis – Drown #TGLFF30 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Mikel Rueda – director – Hidden Away (A Escondidas)

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Mikel Rueda, in Turin to present his second film, Hidden Away (A Escondidas) which is in competition for the Queer Award at the 30th edition of Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

Rueda chooses to portray a coming of age story to show how homophobia and racism can still be present through adolescents. However, Hidden Away (A Escondidas) is a love story between two discriminated young men that find comfort , love and friendship in each other.

HIDDEN AWAY (A ESCONDIDAS) – Ibrahim, a street-smart Moroccan, has entered Spain illegally and scrapes a living dealing drugs. When he is arrested, his fate is sealed: he faces deportation to Morocco. The only solution for him is to gather his few possessions together and to escape into the desolate streets of Bilbao suburbs.

Rafa is beginning to realize he is gay, but he is still naive: he hates his schoolmates and he doesn’t know how to cope with Marta, who wants something from him which he will never be able to give her.

What Ibrahim and Rafa have in common is that they are both fourteen years old and they are both discriminated against. Their difficult paths will soon cross and then follow the same direction, moving towards the goal of living their youth to the fullest.

Dealing with both racism and sexism, this is the second film by Spanish director and writer Mikel Rueda: it is reminiscent of André Téchiné’s cinema style and is a clear-cut and bold depiction of early adolescence, with a rich ’80s and ’90s-inspired soundtrack.

The post Mikel Rueda – Hidden Away #TGLFF30 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

The 4th EFA Young Audience Award was assigned at the end of Young Audience Film Day. Young Audience Film Day was an event that took place in 25 different cities of 25 different European countries on the 3rd of May 2015.

During the course of the day, a young audience aged from 12 to 14 watched the three finalist films, took part in various activities and got to talk with the makes of the three finalist films. The young audience hence got the opportunity to find out more about each of the films and how they were made.

The three finalist films were “You’re Ugly Too” by Mark Noonan, “The Invisible Boy” by Gabriele Salvatores and “My Skinny Sister” by Sanna Lenken. In this closing ceremony, we hear the votes that were assigned by the audiences from the 25 participating countries, votes that were then added up in order to reveal the winning film of this year’s Young Audience Award.

The post 2015 EFA Young Audience Award closing ceremony #YAA2015 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Colette Bothof / Marjolein Bierens – director / screenwriter – Summer (Zomer)

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets director Colette Bothof and writer Marjolein Bierens right after the premiere screening of their film Summer (Zomer), in competition at the 30th Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

Summer, based on a theatre play, is a coming of age story, set in an undefined time in the Netherlands. It focuses mostly on the love story between Anne and Lena and their search for a place in life.

Adolescence lasts one ” summer” and they will eventually become the adults their parents weren’t able to be.

SUMMER (ZOMER): It’s a hot, sultry summer in a small village in the south of Holland, surrounded by seemingly endless fields and meadows and dominated by the power plant with its cables and pylons: all the people in the village work there. The atmosphere is suffocating, not only because of the blazing hot summer. Country-life proves to be same all over the world: there is always the same attitude of silent complicity and self-righteous moralism that covers up imploding male chauvinism, violence and repression.

16-year-old Anne finds this atmosphere unbearable and feels like an outsider, caught between her need to belong and her need for freedom. Her life revolves around her family and a group of friends of the same age, who, just like her, are trying to find their own road to adulthood.

Freedom begins for Anne with the arrival of Lena, an independent, uninhibited girl who comes from the city, riding a motorbike, dressed in leathers.

Summer is a liberating coming-of-age story, based on the play by Marjolein Bierens, who also wrote the script for this screen adaptation.

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Catherine Stewart – director – While You Weren’t Looking

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Catherine Stewart, director of While You Weren’t Looking, her first feature film after many years directing and writing TV series.

While You Weren’t Looking is an ensemble film portraying three love stories in Cape town, South Africa. By narrating these stories, Catherine Stewart introduces the audience to the status of LGBT community in South Africa, their legal achievements (thanks to the new Constitution of 1994, they can get married and adopt children) that don’t correspond to a real cultural and social change in people’s minds.

While You Weren’t Looking shows us the big contradictions in modern South Africa.

WHILE YOU WEREN’T LOOKING: Cape Town, South Africa. Mack is a white gay man who likes black guys. He is looking for Salute, a former lover with whom he had fought for civil rights 20 years earlier. Salute now goes by the name of Joe: he has a wife, children and a career in state administration. Shado is an androgynous lesbian who lives in the slums and goes by the name of Tommy Boy. She pretends to be a boy and falls in love with Asanda, an 18 year-old girl. Asanda has been the poster child of all the social changes the country had gone through: she is the adopted daughter of Terri and Dez, one of the first lesbian South African couples to get married (half African, half WASP).

United colours of South Africa: a fascinating overview of the LGBT community, a politicised soap opera where sadly, and in spite of everything, sexism, classism and racism still play a crucial part. Catherine Stewart debuts with this film after learning her trade in TV series.

The post Catherine Stewart – While You Weren’t Looking #TGLFF30 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Yair Hochner – Jury member, Ottavio Mai Feature Film Competition

For its 30th edition, Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival has invited Yair Hochner in the international jury by giving him the task and big responsibility, along with actor Lorenzo Balducci and Art Curator Beatrice Merz, of choosing the best film to be awarded with the Premio Ottavio Mai.

As founder and director of the TLVFest – Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, Hochner tells FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti that he’s always looking for films that could make, in their message, a social and political statement so make aware society and contributing to the equal rights’ achievement.

YARI HOCHNER: Yair Hochner was born in Kfar Saba, Israel. In 2005 he debuted with Yeladim Tovim, a feature film he wrote, directed and produced, winning awards at Festivals all around the world.

He is the creator and art director of the TLVFest – Tel Aviv LGBT International Film Festival, founded in 2006. In 2005 he wrote and directed Antarctica and in 2008 he participated in the collective project Fucking Different Tel Aviv, presented at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival.

He has also collaborated as a journalist with the “Cinémathèque Magazine” and “Camera Obscura” journal. He is now working for the “Seret” cinema magazine.

The post Yair Hochner – Jury member, Ottavio Mai Feature Film Competition #TGLFF30 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Antti Haase – director – Monsterman

FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews director Anti Haase, whose latest feature documentary Monsterman had its world premiere at the 2015 DOXA Documentary Film Festival in Vancouver.

The film talks about Lordi, the Finnish heavy metal band that famously won the 2006 edition of the Eurosong contest. However, we meet them years later, as the meadia has started to forget about them.

We particularly follow the band’s leader who, as Antti Haase tells us, was a childhood acquaintance of the director himself. Antti tells us how the project began, what attracted him to making Monsterman in the first place and why he didn’t want to make a fan film but rather focus on the more universal aspects of the story.

MONSTERMAN: Tomi Petteri Putaansuu, also known as Mr. Lordi, is the lead singer of Finland’s most celebrated, and decorated, metal band, Lordi. After being severely bullied in school, Tomi channeled his pain, and his love for KISS, into an elaborate monster fantasy world. From creepy figurines to horror movies, his artistic vision led him to form Lordi in 1992.

Fast forward to 2006, when Lordi was the first hard rock band to win the Eurovision Song Contest. (They remain the only Finnish artists ever to win the award.) A huge welcome home concert in Helsinki took place, and, for a moment, the band members were national heroes. Lordi even landed a movie deal, starring in the horror film Dark Floors.

But a few years later, when the hype had worn thin, and the screaming crowds were long gone, Tomi, on the advice of Sony Music Entertainment executives, decided to participate in a reality television show called Clash of the Choirs. This is when Lordi took the inevitable turn from unfettered artist to corporate entertainer. In the style of a true Shakespearean tragedy,

Monsterman traverses the rise and fall of the band’s popularity. Rarely taken seriously by true metal heads, and now near-abandoned by the mainstream, a rotating cast of band members and a pressure to get out of debt make it difficult for Lordi to write another new album.

Never free of monster frills and makeup, Tomi continues to receive unconditional love and support from his adoring mother, his best friend, and even his pet boa constrictor. But eventually, he must turn his lyrics on himself and ask: “Would You Love a Monsterman?”

The post Antti Haase – Monsterman #DOXAfest appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Mark Christopher – filmmaker – 54: The Director’s Cut

Mark Christopher is back on FRED Film Radio for a follow up on 54: The Director’s Cut, chosen to be the Opening Ceremony’s film to celebrate the 30th edition and birthday of the TGLFF – Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival.

It was only a natural step to have the Italian Premiere of the new, restored and desired version of 54 (after 17 years waiting) at the TGLFF where Mark Christopher showed a rough cut of this version 7 years ago and people actually caused a RIOT to get in and watch it. The news about this RIVOLTA ( the Italian word for Riot) reached Miramax and contributed to the releasing of this great film narrating the story of the young people working at the Studio 54 at the time.

54: The Director’s Cut will be distributed on ITunes on June 2nd

54: THE DIRECTOR’S CUT: 54, again. Studio 54, directed by Mark Christopher in 1998, was about the hedonistic frenzy of the famous New York City discotheque during the late ’70s, a wild experience of sexual freedom and excess that marked an era and made disco music a global phenomenon.

As the director says, “A time not-so-long-ago, when being young or homosexual meant freedom, excitement and, most of all, sex was sexy”. In the cast there are stars like Ryan Phillippe, playing the good-looking leading character, the stunning actresses Salma Hayek and Neve Campbell, and ex Austin Powers Mike Myers. But at the time the producers got out the scissors and re-edited the movie, cutting out many hard scenes and sugarcoating the bisexuality of the main character, bartender Shane.

After finding the scenes that were cut, 36 minutes of footage, Christopher worked on the movie again, until it finally reflected his original intentions. The result is harsher, more risqué and… more gay. Previewed at the Berlin Film Festival.

The post Mark Christopher – 54: The Director’s Cut #TGLFF30 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Claudia Lorenz – director – What’s Between Us (Unter der Haut)

At the 30th edition of Torino Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, Fred’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Claudia Lorenz, in Turin to present her first feature film What’s Between Us (Unter der Haut) in the PREMIO QUEER section, Out of competition.

What’s Between Us narrates the story of Alice who, after 20 years of marriage, finds out that her husband Frank feels more and more attracted to men.

What’s Between Us deals with two very universal themes and issues: the feeling of being left, abandoned by the person you love or you’ve been sharing your life with and the lying to yourself and consequently to others about who you really are and for this reason conducting the life that you think you’re supposed to live and not the one you would really want.

The unique way of narrating these Universal themes is what makes of this film “a wonderful variation on the broken marriage theme” as it has been written after the Palm Springs Film festival screening.

WHAT’S BETWEEN US (Unter der Haut) – When the husband is caught in the act. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. After eighteen years of marriage and three kids, Alice accidentally finds out that her beloved husband Frank visits gay dating websites. All hell breaks loose!

The couple try to solve the problem. They talk heart-to-heart and try to carry on as usual. But the law of desire is implacable. During a family holiday Annie finds out that Frank has a lover, Pablo. Nothing will ever be the same again. She becomes depressed, while he moves in with his lover.

A sad but passionate story, set in a rural area of Switzerland and told from the wife’s point of view. She examines women’s feelings and pain. What’s Between Us is Claudia Lorenz‘s debut film. She has opted for a strong photographic style and a simple unpretentious narration, focusing on the characters’ everyday lives.

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Svetlana Damianova – head of press office – Art Fest

FRED’s Matt Micucci meets Svetlana Damianova of Art Fest, Bulgarian partners of the 2015 EFA Young Audience Award, and award given by an audience of young people aged between 12 to 14 at the end of Young Audience Film Day, which runs on the 3rd of May in 25 different countries simoultaneously.

Svetlana talks about the partnership with the EFA Young Audience Award as well as the importance of the promotion of a different type of cinema among young people as well as the countless film related activities that Art Fest is involved with and promotes throughout the year – including the Sofia International Film Festival, Bulgaria’s premiere international film festival.

EFA YOUNG AUDIENCE AWARD: In a truly European vote, 12-14-year-old audiences in Aalborg (Denmark), Amsterdam (Netherlands), Athens (Greece), Barcelona (Spain), Belgrade (Serbia), Bratislava (Slovakia), Budapest (Hungary), Cluj-Napoca (Romania), Erfurt (Germany), Istanbul (Turkey), Izola (Slovenia), Kiev (Ukraine), London (UK), Malmö (Sweden), Prizren (Kosovo), Riga (Latvia), Skopje (FYR Macedonia), Sofia (Bulgaria), Tallinn (Estonia), Tbilisi (Georgia), Tel Aviv (Israel), Turin (Italy), Valletta (Malta), Wroclaw (Poland) and Zagreb (Croatia) will elect the winner of the European Film Academy Young Audience Award 2015.

Click here to visit the official website of the EFA Young Audience Award.

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