FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Jonas Odell is one of the guests of Animation cinema: AnReal, the section at the 43° Bergamo Film Meeting dedicated to animated documentaries.

As in the last decade, the interest in animated non-fictional storytelling has become increasingly evident carving out an important space for itself even within sectoral festivals such as DOK Leipzig (for documentary cinema) or Annecy (for animated cinema), the 43°BFM decided to explore the new trends of animated cinema. 

In particular, through Animation cinema: AnReal, the festival, taking place from March 8 to 16, will embark on a  journey of discovery through animated documentaries.

Along with filmmaker Alexander Lahl who will also attend the Festival, Jonas Odell will not only present his remarkable “Tussilago” but will also hold a conversation on the development of animated documentary. 

In “Tussilago”, Odell tells the story of “A”, arrested because she was the former partner of Norbert Kröcher, a West German terrorist who in 1977 was imprisoned on suspicion of planning the kidnapping of Swedish politician Anna-Greta Leijon. 

In this case, animation fosters the need to hide the woman’s identity: remaining in service, yes, but simultaneously elevating the subject matter at hand.

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Czech screenwriter and director Alice Nellis is Bergamo Film Meeting’s protagonist of Europe, Now!, the section dedicated to contemporary European auteur cinema.

Along with german Director Christian Petzold, Nellis will present, at the Festival, her complete filmography including her famous “Ene bene – Eeny Meeny”, 2000, “Tajnosti – Little Girl Blue”, 2007 and “Buko”, 2022. 

Her feature debut, “Ene bene” (Eeny Meeny, 2000), a tragicomedy exploring family relationships in a small Czech community during local elections, won the Best Screenplay award at the FAMU Festival and the bronze Rosa Camuna ex-aequo at the 18th edition of Bergamo Film Meeting. This success marked Nellis as an emerging voice in European cinema.

About her comeback at the 43rd Bergamo Film Meeting she says: “BFM marked the start, back in 2000, of my professional international career so it’s an honor to be back”

Along her career she explored, through her films and TV Series, themes like the coming-of-age, parenthood, motherhood and dysfunctional families.

The director who recently returned to TV co-writing and co-directing with “Jiří Havelka” for the miniseries “Náhradníci”(Surrogates), comments on the challenges and developments of cinema narratives and TV narratives. 

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At the 43rd BFM FRED Film Radio interviewed Christian Petzold, a leading exponent of the “Berlin School”, featured in Europe, Now!, the section of the Bergamo Film Meeting dedicated to contemporary European cinema.

Christian Petzold is the son of emigrants from East Germany and in his first short films he told the story of the changes brought about by the fall of the Berlin Wall. Today Europe is crossed by great divisions, what role does he think cinema can have? “Some days ago I had a panel in Berlin between an East German filmmaker and me as a West German filmmaker whose parents are immigrants. We talked about cinema and the perspective we have had on our own countries on the East and on the West side and how we wew thinking about the other side behind the wall.And I think this conversation was fantastic because we have one language, we are living in the same country, but we have totally different perspectives. Europe is something based on different perspectives and we have to be aware of these different perspectives and not to have just one”.

History has always been present in Christian Petzold‘s movies. An element through which to reflect on our past and memory. “I don’t like historical movies so much when they try to make a reenactment of something from the past. I don’t like actors who are playing Napoleon or so”, says the director. “For me the things which have happened in the past are just in our contemporary times too. I think cinema is a little bit like a city. We have old houses, new houses, we have ruins and scares, and we have contemporary times with their utopian things and their desires. My historical movies are always contemporary movies. The people from the past and the ideas of the past are a little bit like ghosts who want to come to communicate with us”.

Women often play a central role in his movies. What do they allow Christian Petzold to explore? “Some years ago, before Claude Chabrol died, I was in Venice and met him”, remember the director. “I watched an interview he had given in which they asked him why there were always female characters in his movies? He said: ‘Men are living and women are surviving. And cinema is always about surviving’. I think female characters are survivors and cinema is always interested in survivors”.

One of the directors featured in Europe, Now! at the Bergamo Film Meeting, Christian Petzold is one of the leading ones of contemporary European cinema. But when he was an aspiring director, who were the ones who inspired him? “I had lived in Sesto San Giovanni, in Milan, when I was a young student”, remember the director. “In this time one of my favorite movies was ‘La Notte’ by Michelangelo Antonioni. And in this movie he is remembering himself to the times of Neorealism, a movement where Italy, after the fascism, tried to understand who we are, what we are, where we are living, why we are living. And cinema it’s the art to understand what is happening, what we are dreaming of, what is our desire, what we have done. Neo realism is for me the most important time of cinema”. 

After “Afire”, Christian Petzold is back behind the camera for a new film that he has just finished shooting. “It’s about a young student and she is in a depression crisis. Then she has an accident with her boyfriend and he dies. And there was an older woman near this accident place. She is living in a house by her own and she takes this girl with her to her house and they are living together like a mother and daughter. But something is wrong with their relationship”.

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“House Music: A Cultural Evolution” by Barbara Allen opened the door to the world of house music and its roots to the audience of the Seeyousound festival, in Torino. The director is from Chicago, where a specific and upcoming brand of house music was born in the 80’s and still is ruling the dance floors. Like happened for disco music in the 70’s, the roots of house came from the minorities’ necessity of their own space and expressivity, and the black queer world was the perfect nest for this new musical baby.

Barbara Allen in her film “House Music: A cultural evolution” explains clearly how that kind of music was born from the necessity of community and as a tool to defend itself and the safety of its members. Marginalised communities always find the way to survive and this way very often is through creativity and art, regardless the media it involves.

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World Cinema Fund is a special programme linked to the European Film Market and to the Berlinale with the  goal to promote high-quality filmmaking in regions with a weak infrastructure for film, while fostering cultural diversity in German cinemas as well as supporting collaboration between German and European producers and partners in WCF regions and countries. In the days of activity of the Fund in Berlin, we met with Kesmat El Sayed, an Egyptian producer that was one of the speakers in a panel on Arab Cinema.

Kesmat El Sayed explains where lies the biggest obstacle in helping and promote filmmaking in the regions interested by the WCF: where the money is spent.  Most of the funding coming from the Western world to help the producers that are the target of these actions are to be spent in the west and not on location, with makes the actual help much more complex, as there must be a non-local co-producer that needs to find a way to get those grants and use them.

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The Emilia Romagna Film Commission was present at the European Film Market 2025 also as partner on a film that was in the Berlinale programme. the film is “Paternal Leave” by Alissa Jung that was shoot almost entirely in the region. Talking with Emma Barboni, film commissioner, we discover how the film was born and why it had to be shot in Emilia Romagna. And we also have a glimpse on the new funding calls promoted by the region.

In Emilia Romagna there is also a Music Fund, promoted by the regional government , to help the production of music in the region and to increase the activity of musicians and music producers. As Emma Barboni tells here, it made perfect sense that the Film Fund joined this other public fund; therefore the two funds can work together and a film production can apply to both, deciding to have the music for the film produced and recorded in Emilia Romagna

This interview was recorded during the (Berlinale), in partnership with the Italian Film Commissions Association and with the support of the Italian Trade Agency.

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Gemma Lynch is the Head of Production of Sardinia Film Commission. Her presence at the European Film Market, besides the regular activities of finding productions to come and shoot on the island and promoting the territory,  is strictly link to the promotion of talents from the region, through a delegation of professionals that have been brought to Berlin to mingle and let themselves be known.

Gemma Lynch tells about the peculiarity of this choice of bringing to the Berlinale and the European Film market a delegation of film professionals coming from Sardinia, in order to let themselves be known and to promote the services of the territory as well. It is a bold and unprecedented move, at least in that scale.

This interview was recorded during the (Berlinale), in partnership with the Italian Film Commissions Association and with the support of the Italian Trade Agency.

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A usual presence at the European Film Market, the Toscana Film Commission was there with its director Stefania Ippoliti, for the usual meetings with producers and directors.  Besides this regular activity, Toscana Film Commission has set up a groundbreaking educational programme, Manifatture Digitali Cinema, that has been developed in a longer and more structured event, as we learn from this chat with Stefania.

The idea of Manifatture Digitali Cinema has always been that of creating a space for education and exchange for new professionals  from established experts in any field of the production for film and tv, in order to implement the offer for good and effective professional profiles that the Toscana has to give. This is the target that has been reached, as Stefania Ippoliti explains.

This interview was recorded during the (Berlinale), in partnership with the Italian Film Commissions Association and with the support of the Italian Trade Agency.

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Alessandra Miletto, Director of the Valle d’Aosta Film Commission, was in Berlin attending the European Film Market. We met at the Italian Pavillon, home-base for the all the Italian professionals at the EFM, to talk about the news happening in the region and to the youngest and smallest film commission in Italy.

Alessandra Miletto explains how much the Valle d’Aosta Film Commission has invested in educational courses for producers, and the result of such investments is now visible: three new production companies were born in the region to be the link with the external production companies that are going to shoot on these territories. Beside that, there has been a decisive raise on the cap for the film funding, up to 300.000€, increasing the appeal of the region for new projects.

This interview was recorded during the (Berlinale), in partnership with the Italian Film Commissions Association and with the support of the Italian Trade Agency.

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We met with the IDM Film Commission Südtirol at the European Film Market 2025, in Berlin. Talking with Birgit Oberkofler, Head Film Fund & Commissioner we found out about the news in their activities and we talked about the experience of participating to the production of “Vermiglio“, the acclaimed Italian film that was shot in their region.

Birgit Oberkofler told us about two new funds the IDM FilM Commission Südtirol just announced. One is dedicated to music, helping composers, musical artists and musical producers of the region in their craft. The second one is about distribution, contributing in the distribution of films, that is always the most demanding and important part in the life of a movie. Infos for both funds can be found on the IDM website.

This interview was recorded during the (Berlinale), in partnership with the Italian Film Commissions Association and with the support of the Italian Trade Agency.

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