FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Francesca Raffi interviews some of the experts in media accessibility. This episode is focused  on the LTA Project and includes contributions from Rocío Bernabé, Pilar Orero, Carlo Eugeni, Miriam Hagmann, Wim Gerbecks, Estella Oncins, Marcel Bobeldijk and Gabriele Sauberer.

To listen to this programme, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

FRED is pleased to present the third episode of Accessible Cinema, a new periodical programme on media accessibility and inclusion, fostered by Sub-ti Access. This programme aims to inform its listeners and keep you updated on the status of media accessibility. We hope to raise awareness on accessibility in media and live entertainment, which is one of the 8 priority areas of the European Disability Strategy 2010 – 2020.

Rocío Bernabé is Deputy Head of the Professional College of Translation and Interpreting of the SDI in Munich (Germany) and tenured lecturer at the SDI University of Applied Languages. Together with Pilar Orero, Full professor of Audiovisual Translation at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain), she introduces the Live Text Access Project and discusses about accessibility as a human right.

Carlo Eugeni is lecturer in Conference Interpreting at the SSML of Pisa (Italy) and he identifies the differences between respeakers and live-event subtitlers.

Miriam Hagmann, international project coordinator of the company ZDF Digital (Germany), talks about live subtitling at ZDF.

Wim Gerbecks is the co-founder of Velotype (Netherlands) and discusses the main application contexts of the Velotype keyboard.

Estella Oncins is a postdoctoral researcher at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) and she explains the importance of quality today in media accessibility.

Marcel Bobeldijk, President of the European Federation of Hard of Hearing People, tells us more about real-time subtitles and why they are so important.

Finally, Gabriele Sauberer, Vice-President of the European Certification and Qualification Association, shares her opinion on the importance of having educational and non-educational partners in the LTA Project.

To discover more about the LTA Project, click here.

The post Accessible Cinema – 3rd Episode appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Sarah Bradbury interviews Marlena Lukasiak, artistic director of the Kinoteka Polish Film Festival in London.

The artistic director of Kinoteka Polish Film Festival, Marlena Lukasiak, speaks with us ahead of the 17th edition of the festival about the value of bringing Polish cinema and culture to London and the highlights of the programme including: a special night dedicated to the award-winning Cold War by Paweł Pawlikowski, a new generation of innovative female filmmakers, such as Olga Chajda, director of LGBT-themed Nina, a range of retrospectives, film and documentary screenings plus special events such as a Tate Late event on 90s Polish rave culture.

If Beale Street Could Talk: For the follow-up to his Oscar-winning Moonlight, director Barry Jenkins chose to adapt the 1974 James Baldwin novel If Beale Street Could Talk. The film tells the story of Tish and Fonny, played by KiKi Layne and Stephan James, whose childhood friendship blossoms into romance until a cruelly unjust criminal system allows Fonny to be jailed for a crime he didn’t commit. A strong supporting cast – Regina King, Colman Domingo – completes a beautifully crafted, visually powerful and elegiac screen version of a tale that carries with it timely themes of racial justice as well as a belief in love trumping all else.

Kinoteka Polish Film Festival returns to London’s festival scene from 4 – 18 April 2019, bringing with it an exhilarating range of new Polish film and culture as well as highlighting lesser known gems ripe for rediscovery. As well as offering unique insights into Poland’s rich history and culture, the festival represents diverse and universal new works from exciting new filmmakers as well as those which have made a valued contribution and impact to the world filmmaking landscape. Hosted by some of London’s most prestigious and forward-thinking cultural institutions, this year also includes masterclasses, artist film screenings, workshops and musical entertainment. The festival’s highlights include an immersive musical and dining experience for Cold War which closes the Festival; a focus on new female filmmakers; veteran auteur Krzysztof Zanussi presenting his new film Ether; and a night dedicated to ‘90s Polish rave culture. The festival has worked hand-in-hand with the following prestigious venues to deliver audiences this year’s eclectic and unique programme: Baltic Restaurant, Barbican, BFI Southbank, Close Up Cinema, Frontline Club, ICA, Tate Modern, The Horse Hospital, Regent Street Cinema and Watermans Art Centre.

The post Marlena Lukasiak – Kinoteka Polish Film Festival appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Zdenek Blaha, manager of the East Doc Platform.

An interview with Zdenek Blaha, manager of East Doc Platform (EDP), at the end of the 2019 edition of the largest co-production, funding and distribution platform tailor-made for Central and East European documentaries, which takes place annually in Prague in the Czech Republic. This interview covers such topics as what East Doc Platform is and how it works to provide support, training and more for the documentary filmmakers of the region and beyond, but also provides an overview of some of the main activities that took place at EDP this year and a chat about the awards that were assigned.

The East Doc Platform (EDP) is the largest co-production, funding and distribution platform tailor-made for Central and East European documentaries, every year connecting 120 East European filmmakers and more than 100 key decision makers – producers, broadcasters, distributors and festival programmers from around the world.

The post Zdenek Blaha #EDP2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Mike Leigh, director of the film Peterloo.

After competing for the Golden Lion at the last edition of Venice International Film Festival, the 75th edition, Mike Leigh lands in Italy again for the italian release of Peterloo. Leigh takes the occasion of this renewed attention on his film to describe its making of, how he shot the Peterloo massacre scene in particular. The connections between what happened in 1819 in the battle for democracy and the situation nowadays where populist movements are putting democracy at stake, Leigh declares that he doesn’t want to offer solutions but help his audience get their own conclusion on the moment we are living today. Peterloo will be out in Italian cinemas from March 21st thanks to Academy Two distribution.

Peterloo: An epic portrayal of the events surrounding the infamous 1819 Peterloo Massacre, where a peaceful pro-democracy rally at St Peter’s Field in Manchester turned into one of the bloodiest and most notorious episodes in British history. The massacre saw British government forces charge into a crowd of over 60,000 that had gathered to demand political reform and protest against rising levels of poverty. Many protestors were killed and hundreds more injured, sparking a nationwide outcry but also further government suppression. The Peterloo Massacre was a defining moment in British democracy which also played a significant role in the founding of The Guardian newspaper.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Mike Leigh – Peterloo appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Francesca Raffi interviews Olga Soler-Vilageliu, Associate Professor at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Olga Soler-Vilageliu is Associate professor at UAB, where she teaches psycholinguistics and cognitive processing to undergraduates in Psychology and Speech Therapy. With a background on language processing, her research has focused on on-line measures of handwriting in preschool and school children, and she is connected to international networks working on literacy (COST IS1401). Within the Transmedia projects she is currently setting up experiments on different accessibility services: quality of perception of Sign Language on TV and emotional involvement of users of Audiodescription and AudioSubtitling. She tells us more about the NEA (New Approaches to Accessibility: hybrid modalities, immersion and technology in audio description) project that she led with Anna Matamala, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Translation and Interpreting (UAB). The project was funded by the Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad under the Excelencia scheme (reference code FFI2015-64038-P, MINECO/FEDER, UE).

NEA ran from January 2016 until December 2018, and aimed to research audio description and audio subtitling with a special emphasis on the impact of audio features on the end-user experience. To this end, electrophysiological measures were applied in the field of accessibility. Through three main phases (a descriptive phase, followed by reception studies and knowledge transfer activities), NEA aimed to: – advance in the descriptive study of audio description, with a special interest in hybrid modalities such as audio subtitling; – research the impact of audio features in user experience, especially concerning immersion with text-to-speech audio description and clean audio implementation; – apply electrophysiological or behavioural measures in accessibility research in order to evaluate emotional activation; – assess the impact of various platforms/configurations in user interaction with access services, and – transfer research outputs to academia and society.

To discover more about the Project, click here.

The post Olga Soler-Vilageliu – New Approaches to Accessibility Project appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Arthur Pratt, director of the film Survivors.

An interview with Arthur Pratt, the director of Survivors, a documentary portraying the work of the Sierra Leone local humanitarian workers in the fight against the deadly Ebola virus. The film was screened at the 2019 One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. In this interview, Pratt shares with us some of the frustrations with the international press’ way of reporting on African matters, which at least partly birthed Survivors. He also talks about the organization supporting local West African filmmakers and journalists, WeOwnTV, that made Survivors plus the projects that will follow the work of this particular documentary.

Survivors: Filmmaker and local pastor Arthur Pratt focuses primarily on the stories of ambulance driver Mohamed Bangur and nurse Margaret Sesay, who, as first-line workers, come into frequent contact with the infected. This meticulously observational film presents their personal portraits, doubts, fears and joys, complemented by stories about their own family. The film explores not only the impact of the epidemic on families and society but also shows an infrastructure broken by civil war and misunderstandings between international organizations and local communities.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Arthur Pratt – Survivors #jedensvet2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Christian Frei, director of the film Genesis 2.0.

An interview with Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Christian Frei on his latest documentary, Genesis 2.0, screened at the 2019 One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. The film talks, on the one hand, about the potential of genetic research and synthetic biology and on the other hand, is the search for mammoth tusks in the New Siberian Islands. In this interview, Frei discusses his interest in these topics and the nature of his collaboration on this film with co-director Maxim Arbugaev. Frei also considers the similarities between the figure of the geneticist and the filmmaker and whether there is anything about the future that frightens him, among other things.

Genesis 2.0: A kilo of high-quality mammoth ivory costs $1000. Every year, Yakut men risk their lives to find some. Young filmmaker Maxim spends an Arctic summer with them in a captivating but raw landscape. He exchanges letters with his colleague, Christian, busy in the scientific world as he follows various genetic projects which might resurrect the woolly mammoth – or create completely new hybrid beasts. This film, which has already received many awards, including a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Festival, offers a unique opportunity to enter a world of primitive nature and futuristic science. And where they intersect there are some fundamentally urgent existential questions.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Christian Frei – Genesis 2.0 #jedensvet2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Rafal Lysak, director of the film Unconditional Love.

This is an intimate documentary about Lysak himself, a young gay man, and his 80-year-old grandmother, whose close and loving relationship is put to the test when he opens up about his sexual orientation to her. In this interview, Lysal discusses how making documentaries helped him deal with certain aspects of his life and communicate with others. He also talks about when he decided to make this particular film and when his grandmother, whose name is Teresa, agreed to be in it, among other things.

Unconditional Love: Grandma loves her grandson very much, and for this reason she patiently waits for God to rid him of his homosexuality. He understands that it does not make sense to blame her and quarrel endlessly, and so he responds to her expressions of dissatisfaction with silence and nervous laughter. The film captures the clash of old Catholic Poland with a new generation ready to fully adopt modern values. But it also casts a personal look at specific characters who breathe for themselves and who, despite their opposing feelings, try to find a way to live together. For these suggestive self-portraits Rafal Lysak has chosen a raw approach, using a handheld digital camera that does not invade the characters’ personal space in order to achieve a very intense experience that captures all the present emotions.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Rafal Lysak – Unconditional Love #jedensvet2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews RaMell Ross, director of the film Hale County This Morning, This Evening.

An interview with RaMell Ross, director of the Academy Award-nominated feature documentary Hale County This Morning, This Evening, screened at the 2019 One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. The film could be described as an impressionistic portrait of Black life in Hale County, Alabama, and area that Ross describes as underrepresented. In this interview, we start by asking the filmmaker about his background and find out that he believes there is some connection between his “previous life” as an athlete and his current involvement in photography and cinematography. He also talks about the rhythmic flow of the film, that almost feels like a musical scrapbook, how the interactive nature of Hale County This Morning, This Evening prompts reactions from audiences all over the world and more.

Hale County This Morning, This Evening: With extraordinary sensitivity, director RaMell Ross follows the efforts of his protagonists to lead a happy life. Long shots looking for beauty in the everyday allow the viewer to dive into situations that are completely interchangeable, yet unrepeatable. A daughter’s romping, a sunrise, children playing in the street… The desire of a young father to earn the respect of those around him and of his wife, to graduate and to ensure a dignified livelihood. The difficulties he faces in fulfilling his dream uncover the hard facts of American reality, but also the cohesion of the African-American community and the diversity of life in one of the largest countries in the world. In some moments, the film evokes the collaboration of Terrence Malick and Emmanuel Lubezki, becoming the hit of the Sundance Festival 2018.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post RaMell Ross – Hale County This Morning, This Evening #jedensvet2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.