FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Sabu – director – Chasuke’s Journey

FRED’s Angelo Acerbi meets Sabu, the director of “Chasuke’s Journey” which was presented at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

Sabu is a very prolific director who uses comedy and irony to describe and criticize contemporary life. He tells us about his formation on western movies and how we can always find a comical aspect in life when we look closer. And why he calls himself Sabu.

Plot: Things are hectic in heaven. Dozens of scribes sit before a long scroll incessantly scribbling away. They are composing the biographies of earth-dwellers. What is invented by the men in heaven is lived out below. And their employer, God, is increasingly vehement in demanding avant-garde ideas. Take, for example, the beautiful Yuri, a girl who dies in a car crash. Some of the heavenly scribes find this very dull and send former gangster Chas, who has become a heavenly tea-boy, back down to earth with instructions to save Yuri no matter what. And so Chas ends up in Okinawa, gets to know the earth-dwellers, interferes in their fates, becomes celebrated as ‘Mr Angel’ and is hounded by brutal enemies. His falling in love with Yuri is of course a foregone conclusion. But no one could anticipate what happens next. Not even God himself.

Oscillating between philosophy and buffoonery, Sabu‘s film plays with famous motifs from film history, uniting melodrama, the gangster movie, romance and slapstick. His underlying idea, that every life has a value of its own, is special and in no way predictable and is presented with great pace and flamboyance.

The post Sabu – Chasuke’s Journey #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Malgorzata Szumowska – director – Body

This is an extract from the 65th Berlin International Film Festival press conference of Malgorzata Szumowska‘s film “Body”.

For this film, Malgorzata Szumowska won the Silver Bear for best directing at the 65th Berlinale. Here, she discusses the concepts of body and soul and how they are relevant in her film.

Plot: Janusz is not a man to be easily shocked. As coroner he undertakes precise research, analysing the crime scene in minute detail. Despite the extreme situations he comes up against, he works hard. Perhaps too hard. Yet when faced with his anorexic daughter Olga, still grieving for her dead mother, he feels helpless. Fearing that she might kill herself, he commits her to a clinic where Anna, a psychologist, carries out her duties. Years before, Anna lost her baby to cot-death and now sequesters herself and her big dog in a heavily barricaded flat and conjures up spirits who communicate with the living from beyond the grave … Malgorzata Szumowska works with elements of black comedy to tell of the difficulties people encounter when struggling to cope with the loss of loved ones. The film explores the fear of and yet longing for intimacy, self-harm due to mental anguish and escaping into the esoteric. A complex meditation on the loneliness of the heart and the conflict between the rational and belief in a supernatural universe.

The post Malgorzata Szumowska – Body #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Pablo Larrain – director – The Club

FRED’s Angelo Acerbi meets filmmaker Pablo Larrain, who presented his latest work “The Club” at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

Pablo Larrain is not a filmmaker of easy movies. He alwaks looks to dig withing the darkness of humanity. His criticism of the church intended as a corporation is strong in this film, much like his depiction of good and bad, or more precisely right or wrong, which is not at all obvious and easy even when nuns ad priests should always be, by definition, always on the right side.

Plot: A group of priests of various ages lives together with Mónica, a nun, in a house on the Chilean coast. When they are not praying and atoning for their sins, they train their greyhound for the next race. What on earth has brought them here, practically to the end of the world, where a stiff breeze constantly blows? When a new priest moves in, a man suddenly turns up at the door and starts making strong accusations about the newcomer. His voice grows louder and louder until a shot rings out. The priest has evaded the accusations by committing suicide. The church sends an investigator, but does he really intend to uncover the truth or is he merely meant to ensure that the appearance of beautiful holiness is maintained?

Little by little the film brings dark secrets to light, explores the past of these servants of God and mercilessly reveals contradictions in the Catholic Church. At least Pablo Larrain’s screenplay achieves what the church itself has failed to do, and metes out just punishment to the black sheep. In doing so, it strictly abides by the rules and rituals of Christian martyrdom.

The post Pablo Larrain – The Club #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Laura Nix / Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Margareth Matembe – filmmakers and activists – The Yes Men Are Revolting

FRED’s Angelo Acerbi meets director Laura Nix and political activists Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Margareth Matembe to talk about the film “The Yes Men Are Revolting” from the 65th Berlin International Film Festival.

How difficult is it to be an activist today? Even more if you have a family, a job and media attention that sometimes gets in the way. Through thick and thin, highs and lows, these guys manage to keep their passion high and our attention awake.

Plot: After almost two decades of humorous guerrilla activism against economic greed and political corruption as The Yes Men, everyday life and a crisis of identity seem to have caught up with the duo: Mike Bonanno now has a wife and children, and Andy Bichlbaum has not given up hope of a lasting relationship with his male partner. Their critical interventions, in which amongst other ruses they pretended to be spokespeople for the US Chamber of Commerce or for Shell and announced a change of tack to nonplussed members of the press have fizzled out without having had the desired effect. Growing responsibilities in their private lives have influenced their ability to stage interventions together.

In spite of this they still feel a duty to oppose climate change – which far overshadows any of humanity’s other problems – with all they have. Alternating between Andy and Mike’s diary-like perspectives, this third film about The Yes Men (2009 Panorama Audience Award), describes the ups and downs of a creative friendship and takes an amusing look at the duo’s successful and not so successful interventions from 2009 to the present.

The post Laura Nix, Andy Bichlbaum, Mike Bonanno, Margareth Matembe – The Yes Men Are Revolting #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Alexey German Jr. – director – Under Electric Clouds (Pod electricheskimi oblakami)

Alexey German Jr joins FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti at the 65th Berlin Film Festival to talk about his new film UNDER ELECTRIC CLOUDS which is in competition at the Festival.

As the film is set in the Russia of 2017 but German Jr plays with time and structure on purpose, the inevitable question is to ask his opinion on the situation of Russia today. Director Alexey German Jr also tells us more about his quoting Cezanne at the beginning of the film and his attempt of speaking in a language that springs from the traditions of impressionism.

Plot: Russia 2017. The world could be on the verge of a great war. People are anxious that things could fall apart. Revolving around an unfinished building, a diverse group of outsiders struggle to find their place in this rapidly changing society, making up the mosaic of existence that is life itself… With sophisticated visuals and wit, writer-director Alexey German Jr. boldy pursues his exploration of Russian culture and politics by reaching deep into the soul of the human spirit.

A Kyrgyz construction worker arrives in Russia, finding himself almost on a different planet due to language problems and prejudice. His problems worsen when he discovers that the construction site has been shut down… A brother and sister return from abroad to inherit their deceased father’s large estate. They have no plans to remain and complete their adored father’s ambitious architectural project. They are rejected by his close friends and they are pressured about the unfinished building… A real estate lawyer and his haunting dreams about the past begin to push away the present, as if he is living some other life, not his own… A musuem guide has been working on the same art dissertation for years. His museum is now in danger of closing due to the progressive new building under construction. He must choose whether to protect his museum or move on… A war refugee who lost his entire family attempts to save a young girl held hostage near the abandoned construction site… The 40-something architect of that unfinished building simply refuses to grow up. When he falls in love with a woman many years younger, he tries to find a common language. Soviet Russia is still a part of him, but for her those were medieval times.

The post Alexey German Jr. – Under Electric Clouds #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Andreas Dresen – director – As We Were Dreaming (Als wir traumten)

Andreas Dresen joins Chiara Nicoletti in Berlin on the occasion of the participation of his new film AS WE WERE DREAMING to the 65th Berlinale in the official competition.

After his first film, SILENT COUNTRY, Andreas Dresen goes back again to setting a new story in the early 90’s, the first years of reunified Germany. This time Dresen has decided to tell how the younger generation experienced that period and to do that, he decided to adapt Clemens Meyer’s popular novel. Despite its being set in a specific time in history, the film deals with universal themes all adolescents have to confront themselves with.

Among these, according to Andreas Dresen,there is the moment we all have/had to adapt to life, rules, things as they are.

Plot: Daniel, Mark, Rico, Pitbull and Paul. A group of East German friends grow up in the early 90s. The first years of reunified Germany – when everything was colliding, when everything seemed possible. From boyhood to rough-and-tumble teenagers, the Leipzig suburbs were their whole world. Daniel was in love, Rico was the greatest boxer. And Starlet was the prettiest girl they had ever known. They party, they riot, they run a techno club, they run from neo-Nazis, their parents and the future. They are coming of age in a time of anarchy.

The post Andreas Dresen – As We Were Dreaming #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Gareth Ellis-Unwin – Producer

Distribution is the real big deal once a movie is made. Internet and digital distribution are changing the way films are seen and sold, and how to adapt to this new means is the challenge to win for any producer. Gareth tells us about it and about the joy and pain of this kind of distribution, being the main speaker on the panel at EFM on this issue.

The post Gareth Ellis-Unwin – Producer #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay – actors – 45 Years

This is an extract from the 65th Berlin International Film Festival press conference of Andrew Haigh’s “45 Years”, about a married couple who are faced with a sudden internal crisis after an event threatens to end their 45 years together.

For this film, both Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay won the awards for best actors at this year’s Berlinale. Here, Charlotte Rampling talks about how she believes filmmaking to have changed for her from her beginnings to the modern day – while Tom Courtenay discusses playing working class characters and the difference between the one he plays in 45 Years to the one he played in the masterpiece of the angry young man British films, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner”

Kate is in the middle of preparations for her 45th wedding anniversary when her husband Geoff suddenly receives news which pulls him back into the past. Fifty years ago his then girlfriend had a fatal accident in the Swiss Alps. Now, finally, her body has been found, frozen in ice and time. Kate and Geoff are both shocked but are unable to share their insecurity with each other. He retreats ever more into a distant world of memories whilst Kate endeavours to suppress her burgeoning jealousy and anxiety with pragmatism. She needs to concentrate on selecting the music and menu for the party and taking care of the other arrangements. Outwardly, everything is business as usual. But the camera cautiously registers how a well-tuned coexistence is going out of kilter. Whether over a shared breakfast or a lonely wander through the town, Kate feels more and more like a stranger in her own life. 45 Years tells the story of two people who, caught up in unexpected emotions, are forced to bolster themselves against unfamiliar feelings and, in doing so, have the rug pulled out from under their feet. After 45 years, which feeling will prevail on the couple’s big day?

The post Charlotte Rampling, Tom Courtenay – 45 Years #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Gabriel Ripstein – director – 600 Miles (600 Millas)

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meet Gabriel Ripstein, who has presented his debut feature film 600 MILES at the 65th Berlin International Film Festival. The film is in the Panorama Section.

Gabriel Ripstein tells us about his collaboration with director Michel Franco, producer of the film and their way of working together. Thanks to Franco, Gabriel Ripstein could count on the participation of Tim Roth, playing the ATF agent Hank Harris.

With the intention of portraying the real situation and condition of gun smuggling trade between Us and Mexico, the film tricks the audience without showing them the truth behind some happenings until the very end. The very detailed and realistic way in which human relationships are represented is guaranteed by the very close collaboration with Michel Franco. Gabriel Ripstein and Michel Franco introduced the so-called “Bullshit area” which is an indicator to test true-life level in every scene they were shooting.

Plot – Arnulfo Rubio, a young Mexican, works with a gringo barely older than himself to smuggle weapons from Arizona to Mexico for a drug cartel. We follow him buying weapons, crossing borders and during his almost familial encounters with middle-men and clients. What Arnulfo does not know is that for some time he has been under surveillance by agent Hank Harris. Harris is a member of US law enforcement organisation ATF, an agency notorious for its dubious methods when it comes to combating Mexican drug cartels. One day Harris makes a fateful mistake; Arnulfo panics and decides to take the agent hostage and hand him over to his clients in Mexico. During their long road trip from Arizona to Culiacan the two very different men begin – albeit awkwardly – to warm to each other. But no sooner do they arrive at their destination than events come thick and fast. An inexorable spiral of violence is unleashed and their fates soon become inextricably intertwined. An utterly hopeless situation for Arnulfo, that leads to a deeply ambivalent, emotional ending

The post Gabriel Ripstein – 600 Miles #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Patricio Guzmàn – filmmaker – The Pearl Button (El Botòn de Nàcar)

This is an extract from the 65th Berlin International Film Festival press conference of the film “The Pearl Button” by Patricio Guzmàn.

For his film, which gravitates the element of the ocean and water with poetry, creativeness and intelligence, Patricio Guzmàn won the best script award at this year’s Berlinale.

Here, Patricio Guzmàn voices his frustration with academic teachings of conventional and structured filmmaking and also talks about his own hardships in getting this documentary made.

Plot – The ocean contains the history of all humanity. The sea holds all the voices of the earth and those that come from outer space. Water receives impetus from the stars and transmits it to living creatures. Water, the longest border in Chile, also holds the secret of two mysterious buttons which were found on its ocean floor. Chile, with its 2,670 miles of coastline and the largest archipelago in the world, presents a supernatural landscape. In it are volcanoes, mountains and glaciers. In it are the voices of the Patagonian Indigenous people, the first English sailors and also those of its political prisoners. Some say that water has memory. This film shows that it also has a voice.

The post Patricio Guzmàn – The Pearl Button #Berlinale appeared first on Fred Film Radio.