FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Sarah Bradbury interviews Duccio Chiarini, director of the film The Guest.

Italian director Duccio Chiarini speaks with us from the Cinema Made in Italy festival in London about his second feature film The Guest. He told us how events in his own life influenced the late coming-of-age story, how the film plays with comedy, drama and tragedy and also forms a vehicle for him to explore the challenges of forming lasting relationships in the modern era.

The Guest: “Wryly funny, nicely observed comedy of manners about a man who becomes the unwelcome lodger of a succession of family and friends” – Adrian Wootton, curator of Cinema Made in Italy, CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission. After getting a Special Mention at the 2014 Venice Film Festival for his debut film Short Skin, Duccio Chiarini returns with a promising dramedy, The Guest. Guido is a 38 years old academic forever preparing a book on Italo Calvino and forced to move out of his comfort zone when his girlfriend shares her doubts about the future of their relationship. Unable to be alone, he navigates from one sofa to the next and witnesses the everyday lives of his relatives and friends and their various romantic entanglements, desperately seeking the roots for new beginnings.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Sarah Bradbury interviews Valeria Golino, director of the film Euphoria.

Long-time actress and second-time director Valeria Golino talks about her film Euphoria from the Cinema Made in Italy event in London. She explains how events in the life of a friend inspired the story, her desire to make an aesthetically beautiful film that had both moments of humour and sadness, and how her film resists judgment of its complex and contradictory characters.

Euphoria: “Valeria Golino’s second film as a director is an accomplished moving modern tale of the love- hate-love relationship of two very different brothers” – Adrian Wootton, curator of Cinema Made in Italy, CEO of Film London and the British Film Commission. Valeria Golino’s second feature film tells the story of Matteo and Ettore, two brothers who seem to have nothing in common. Matteo is a shining charismatic businessman who has made it to the big city when Ettore is a teacher who seems comfortable to be sticking to the shadows in their provincial home town. A dramatic event causes them to live together for a few months and they soon realise that they share more than what they think in a climax of fear and euphoria.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Bénédicte Prot interviews André Téchiné, director of the film Farewell to the Night.

A wonderful talk with André Téchiné to discuss this film tackling a serious and, sadly, very current subject, based on a series of interviews of real jihadists, which represented quite a new artistic approach for him, the great French filmmaker points out. The 75-year-old director tells us more about what interests him in the transitional age right between childhood and adulhood, and about the character of Alex specifically. He also explains why he is keen on collaborating time and again with the same actors, though in completely different roles, and describes his special work relationship with Catherine Deneuve as well as her character in the film, as it is Muriel’s helplessness the viewer identifies with the most.

Farewell to the Night :André Téchiné’s new film recounts young aspiring jihadist Alex’ (Kacey Mottet Klein) last Spring days at his grandmother Muriel’s (Catherine Deneuve) house, surrounded by a bucolic, sun-bathed countryside, before he goes to Syria with his girlfriend Lila (Oulaya Amamra).

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Ritesh Batra, director of the film Photograph.

Ritesh Batra has become an internationally established director. After the success of The Lunchbox he landed two international films (The Sense of an Ending with Charlotte Rampling and Jim Broadbent, and Our Souls at Night, with Jane Fonda and Robert Redford); he returned to India for his new film, a romantic bittersweet comedy that, as he says, could only happen in Bombay. Every big city in the world is demanding and pressuring but the combination of stress, love, social classes and tradition vs modernity that Bombay can give is unique.

Photograph: Rafi works hard to stay afloat as a photographer in Mumbai. Sharing his modest accommodation with other unmarried men, he sends his money home to pay off his father’s debts and dreams of a better life. One day he takes a picture of a young woman in front of the Gateway of India – and from this moment on he can think of nothing else. Miloni is a model student attending a school for auditors and is headed for university. Theirs are two irreconcilable worlds. When Rafi’s grandmother arrives, determined to marry off her grandson, Miloni agrees to masquerade as Rafi’s girlfriend. As the two begin to meet more and more often, Rafi shows Miloni, who has led a sheltered existence, unknown facets of their city. Ritesh Batra, who caused a sensation with his debut film The Lunchbox, returns to his hometown Mumbai for this bittersweet romance. In atmospheric images that exude a quiet charm, he almost casually depicts how social stratification divides Indian society and creates a sensitive portrait of everyday life in this megacity caught between tradition and progress.

The post Ritesh Batra – Photograph #Berlinale2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Carl Javer, director of the film Reconstructing Utoya.

Carl Javer tells the reasons and the motivations behind the film Reconstructing Utoya; some political and some artistical, but anyway all focused on the victims and their perceptions, leaving completely the terrorist out of the picture.

Reconstructing Utoya: White lines on a dark stage evoke the scene of the 2011 attack that plunged Norway’s open and democratic society into a state of shock. Together with a group of young people, four survivors reconstruct their recollections of the massacre that took place at a youth camp on the island of Utøya. Carl Javer’s film quietly observes a space in which scenes are re-enacted and means of processing trauma and communicating personal experience are made visible. Fleeing from gunshots, hiding in fear, not knowing what is coming next – these are experiences that straddle the borderline between life and death. But within the supportive environment of the group, the participants also manage to reclaim their laughter.

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Seamus Murphy, director of the film A Dog Called Money.

Seamus Murphy, photographer turned videomaker and director, tells us the birth of A Dog Called Money: from a photo montage with music, to a documentary, to a live show PJ Harvey’s style. The meeting of two people with same vibes and a common artistic sensitivity.

A Dog Called Money: A child curiously presses its face against the window of a car in which British musician PJ Harvey and photojournalist and filmmaker Seamus Murphy are sitting. They are in Kabul, Afghanistan, one of three destinations to which they are travelling; the others are Kosovo and Washington, D.C. Harvey is searching for inspiration; collecting impressions and words, observing, listening and absorbing. Her thoughts can be heard in voice-over. Hers is the chronicle of a stranger whose attentive gaze is directed towards the reality of everyday life in the places she visits. Inspiration turns into poetry, which gives rise to songs for her album The Hope Six Demolition Project. Back in London, Harvey records these songs with her band in a purpose-built studio which serves as a kind of peepshow, its one-way window allowing interested audiences to observe the process. Seamus Murphy transposes Harvey’s search for inspirational material and her intimate creative process into an impressively poetic montage that never once divests the musician of her enigmatic aura. A Dog Called Money merges the filmmaker’s and the musician’s visions in an extraordinary symbiosis.

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PODCAST| Federico Spoletti interviews actor Nolan Gerald Funk.

We met with Nolan Gerald Funk who received the Spotlight Award at Filming Italy Los Angeles. Funk is one of the most promising young American actors, he started as an athlete and became very soon a model and an actor. He’s back on FRED, six years after The Canyons by Paul Schrader, presented at the 2013 Venice Film Festival. Known all over the world as Hunter Clarington in Glee, he has already a long list of credits in films and very popular tv series. Among his recent projects, there’s the Amazon TV show everyone is talking about, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the TV series Counterpart with J.K. Simmons. He loves Europe and he will be soon in a new film, Berlin, I Love You with Helen Mirren and Keira Knightley. After working with the great Paul Schrader, Nolan Gerard Funk will appear in the second season of She’s Gotta Have It, the Netflix TV series created and directed by Spike Lee.

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PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Syllas Tzoumerkas, director of The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea.

After Homeland and A Blast which were set in an urban background, with The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea, presented in the Panorama Section of the 69th Berlinale, Greek director Syllas Tzoumerkas chooses the seaside, the beautiful west coast of Greece as a reflection of the souls of the film’s characters: a combination of beauty and ugliness. As the director points out, the film is a parable about how much you have to struggle and transform yourself in order to revalue yourself. Two women, apparently so different from one another, are the protagonists of the film which combines various genres like drama and thriller and add dream-like experiences. Syllas Tzoumerkas hopes that his audience will get to explore the grey areas of morality, beauty and nature.

The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea: As the frightening facts of a mysterious suicide case unfold, two women, a murder suspect and the law enforcer discover between them a striking similarity: contempt for their lives so far and a new relentless desire to start over. In a senseless and bland world they don’t feel like abiding the law.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews actress Charlotte Rampling.

In an edition of the Berlinale such as the 69th celebrating women and stories portraying women, it only feels right that the recipient of the Honorary Golden Bear is British actress Charlotte Rampling. She has a long affectionate relationship with the Berlinale, she was President of the international jury in 2006 and in 2015 won the Berlinale Silver Bear for her role in 45 Years by Andrew Haigh. After meeting her in Venice for Hannah in 2016, we welcome her again to talk about her career and the award at the Berlinale. The actress talks about her career, her memories about the shooting of The Night Porter by Liliana Cavani (screening at the Berlinale after the Honorary Golden Bear Award ceremony) and her collaboration with Andrew Haigh and Andrea Pallaoro in Hannah. The actress then also talks about TV series as she took part in HBO’s series Dexter in 2013 and about her next project Dune by Denis Villeneuve.

The 69th Berlin International Film Festival will award the Honorary Golden Bear to British film and stage actress Charlotte Rampling for her lifetime achievement, as well as dedicating the Homage to a selection of her films. On February 14, 2019, in conjunction with the award ceremony for the Honorary Golden Bear, the festival will be showing Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter, Italy, 1974), directed by Liliana Cavani.

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PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Udo Kier, actor of the film M – A City Hunts a Murderer.

It’s director David Schalko the reason why German-international actor Udo Kier accepted to play a role in M – A City Hunts a Murderer, the TV series based on the Fritz Lang’s 1931 classic, presented at the 69th Berlinale in the Berlinale Series section. The actor had already worked with Schalko so he decided to trust him and participate to this TV adaptation that focus more on what happens to a society when a crime is exploited by politics than the perpetrator. Kier, who was at the Berlinale last year in the cast of italian film Figlia Mia by Laura Bispuri, talks about Italian cinema and how it has changed through the years.

M – A City Hunts a Murderer: Vienna in the dead of winter. An annoyed mother sends her little daughter back to the playground to retrieve a forgotten jacket. A whistling behind the curtain of snow. The little girl follows the lure and vanishes without a trace. A child murderer is afoot. The police are helpless and speeding at idle speed. The Minister of the Interior exploits the incidents politically for his own purposes. The yellow press is instigating and the people get more and more nervous – the city seems full of suspects. More and more children disappear and as the dead bodies appear in the melting snow the situation escalates. The only focus is on finding the killer. “M” becomes a public case. Total surveillance, fake news, agitation in the net. Arbitrary arrests. The criminal underworld is made to look like fools which they don’t put up with, though. They actually do the work of the police and search for the murderer.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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