FRED Film Radio - English Channel

“Mother’s baby” by Johanna Moder is in competition at the 75th Berlin International Film festival. 

German-Swiss actress Marie Leuenberger plays Sofia, a successful conductor who, quoting Moder’s words “becomes a mother late in life and is suddenly thrown into all the prefabricated pigeonholes in which she doesn’t feel at home”. 

 As it is a story about the hidden side of motherhood, Moder decided to tell it through the form of a psychological thriller as to explore the multiple layers a situation like that can be experienced. 

Marie Leuenberger describes her approach to this character and to this alienation she had to embody in the film. 

The post “Mother’s baby”, interview with actress Marie Leuenberger appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Rafaela Camelo’s feature ” The Nature of Invisible Things” narrates an unforgettable summer two young girls lived, a summer where they learned a lot about life and the world of grown-ups. The film has been selected as the Opening one for the Generation K Plus section of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.

“The Nature of Invisible Things” by Rafaela Camelo presents three generations: on one side we have the young girls and the grand parents and old people they met, on the other sode the adults , the generation in the middle, that the film narrates as the most complicated, overwhelmed and confused, so much that they cannot even read their children anymore.

“The Nature of Invisible Things” deals directly with death and passing, and the most complex burden the director Rafaela Camelo had to face was explaining it to the two young girls playing the main characters. But sometimes kids can be surprising, as she experienced.

The post “The Nature of Invisible Things”, interview with the director Rafaela Camelo appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

“Paternal leave” is the first feature film of Alissa Jung , who after a seres of short films decides to jump into the world fo features with a story about the responsibilities  of paternity and a man who tried to scape them. For this first film she decided to cast her own life partner, the actor Luca Marinelli,  a daring and potential risky choice, that she is glad to have made, as she explains in the interview.

Alissa Jung had this aspect in the story to play with, while making “Paternal Leave“:  the two protagonists, the German girl Leo and her Italian father Paolo, have a serious communication issue, as they have hard time in understanding each other. This was a tool Alissa used so well, rehearsing with the actors in their own language, so that they were forced to find different ways of communicating and understanding each other.

The post “Paternal Leave”, interview with the director Alissa Jung and the actor Luca Marinelli appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

“The Heart Is A Muscle” selected in the Panorama section of the Berlinale 2025, is a South African film directed by Imran Hamdulay, that tells the story of man struggling to become the best version of himself. the film starts from a real fact happened to the director, almost completely reconstructed for the film, that serves as starting point in a reflection on adulthood and masculinity, trying to deconstruct it to understand it better.

The question Imran Hamdulay asked himself while making “The Heart Is A Muscle” is that one: can we overcome our past and become better men? This is the will of the lead character of the film played by Keenan Arrison, whose past pf suffered abused and violence and guilt interfere with his new life of husband and father. With ferocious outcomes.

The post “The Heart Is A Muscle”, interview with the director Imran Hamdulay and the actor Keenan Arrison appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Director Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay brings to the Berlin International Film Festival his new feature film “Hysteria“, an intense thriller set within a film crew on the set, where an accident becomes a fuel for dangerous misunderstanding. We talk with the director on the various issue the film brings to surface, from vulnerability and the fear of strangers, to racism and xenofobia.The

“Hysteria” starts on a film set where a criminal arson is recreated for the shooting. This was a real fact happened in Germany as a violent gesture of xenophobia against immigrants, who were German citizens. Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay is deeply interested in this development of German society, as he explains in our talk.

Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay chose a simple and accidental fact ( burning a Quran in a reconstructed arson) as the element to explain and depict the enormous misconception fo religion through strict unconditional faith. Art should not be influenced by this misconception, but instead it is.

The post “Hysteria”, interview with the director Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Austrian screenwriter and director Johanna Moder presents her 3rd feature film, “Mother’s Baby“, in competition at the 75th Berlinale. 

The film, described as very personal from the director herself, is a story about the hidden side of motherhood.

Moder follows the story of this woman, Julia, a successful conductor finally having the baby she has always dreamed of and feeling distanced from her son and the whole new life she is somehow forced to embrace.

“My film is about the challenge of dealing with the expectations of motherhood and finding yourself” explains Moder who declared that she chose to tell “Mother’s baby” as a psychological thriller since the the film plays with visual darkness and juxtapositions of beauty and pain.

In the role of Julia, the enigmatic German-Swiss actress Marie Leuenberger while in the villain role of awkwardly calm Dr Villefort, danish actor Claes Bang. 

The post “Mother’s baby”, interview with director Johanna Moder appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Swiss director Lionel Baier is at the 75th Berlinale with his new film “La Cache – The Safe house” in competition. 

The film is inspired by a small but poignant paragraph of Christophe Boltanski’s “La Cache“, set in Paris, May ’68. 

The secret to managing this apparent impossible challenge of adapting Boltanski’s text, was focusing on this very short period of time, mixing the words of the book’s author with elements from Baier’s own family story. 

Baier confirms that “May 1968 was a fascinating era to film because it’s the very root of our current period. For better or worse”. 

In the role of the grandfather, in the family the film portrays, french actor Michel Blanc in his last performance on the big screen. He died on on Friday, October 4, 2024. 

Lionel Baier describes his experience in directing him and declares that he was the obvious choice for the role. 

The post “The Safe house”, interview with director Lionel Baier appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Argentinian director Ivàn Fund presents at the 75 Berlin International Film Festival his 8th feature film, El Mensaje – The Message.

The film tells the story of a young girl (newcomer Anika Boots) with the gift of communicating with animals, in particular domestic pets such as dogs. 

Her family force her to live traveling on the road and make this “communicating to pets” a business.

Ivàn Fund chooses black and white and relies on the incredible performance of Boots who rarely talks but speaks loudly than words. 

While traveling along Argentina, the film reflects also its current reality: the economic and social crisis affecting urban centers and its ripple effects in small towns and rural outskirts. 

Though believing a film must not have a message to deliver, Ivàn Fund confirms that the film is an in invitation to stay more connected to nature, to animals, to people. 

The post “The Message”, interview with director Ivàn Fund appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Chinese writer, director and producer, Vivian Qu is back at the Berlinale to present in competition, “Girls on Wire“. 

Renowned producer, she won the Golden Bear for her production “Black Coal Thin Ice“ and at this 75th edition, as a director, she brings a women story. 

After “Angels wear white“, presented in Venice competition in 2017, the director is again portraying two women, in particular two cousins who are trying to escape the dramatic fate that has been designed for them. 

As confirmed by Qu, the message of the film is crystal clear from the title: All women are “Girls on Wires” and the film aims to showing women’s strength and resilience in every situation. 

The post “Girls on wire”, interview with director Vivian Qu appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Romanian director Radu Jude is back in the Berlinale competition with “Kontinental ’25“. 

After winning the Golden Bear in 2021 with “Bad Luck Banging“ or “Loony Porn“, the director is again depicting social and political issues in present-day Romania but with a different angle. 

The film blends a sense of tragedy with elements of comedy while exploring also ethical issues like the feeling of guilt and the moral dilemma. 

With Eszter Tompa in the role of a bailiff feeling extremely guilty because an homeless man she evicted, killed himself, the film gets its inspiration from “Europe ’51” by Roberto Rossellini and “Psycho“ by Alfred Hitchcock. 

As it narrated a woman consumed by guilt, searching for redemption, Europe ’51 was the catalyst for the development of Kontinental ’25”s plot. 

Psycho instead, was fundamental for the structure of the film, as the film changed its perspective and its protagonist, from the “victim” to the “killer”. 

The same thing Jude did by focusing first on the homeless man and then entirely on the bailiff Orsolya. 

The post “Kontinental ’25”, interview with director Radu Jude and actress Eszter Tompa appeared first on Fred Film Radio.