FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Nicol Ellecosta interviews Vasco Pimentel, sound engineer of the film Lisbon Story.

Interviewed by Nicol Ellecosta, Vasco Pimentel tells us about his career as a sound engineer in which he has worked with such legends as Wim Wenders. Invited by the Bolzano Film Festival to lead a Masterclass on tone, Vasco expounds on the secrets of what distinguishes a good sound technician and to never forget to be curious.

Lisbon Story: Film Sound Designer, born in Lisbon, Portugal, 1957. Primary & Secondary Education at Deutsche Schule Lissabon. Further German studies at Goethe Institut, Lisbon. Musical education (piano, violin, composition) at Conservatorio Nacional de Lisboa. Graduation (Cinema) from Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema de Lisboa. Constant collaboration with Teatro da Cornucopia as a Musical Director and Sound Designer. Supervising Producer / Editor of spoken word CD’s, Composer of Original Music Score for feature films ASPERN PAPERS e ANDRE VALENTE. Teaching, Masterclasses and Workshops for Universities, Schools and Festivals. Starting 1979, constant activity a Foley Artist, Sound Recordist, Sound Editor, Sound Designer and Dubbing Mixer on over 150 feature films.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Anke Leweke, jury member at the 36th edition of the Bolzano Film Festival.

Film critic, journalist, radio journalist, film festival consultant and curator, Anke Leweke is at the Bolzano Film festival as a member of the Official competition jury. Leweke talks about how she will try and “judge” the films with her fellow jurors. Since she is an expert radio host and in 2008 she was awarded, in Germany, as the Best Radio Journalist of the year, we discuss with her about how promoting, commenting and reviewing cinema on the radio has changed and developed in recent years.

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PODCAST | Francesca Raffi interviews Nina Reviers, Anna Jankowska and Gert Vercauteren.

Nina Reviers, Anna Jankowska and Gert Vercauteren from University of Antwerp tell us more about ARSAD 2023: audio description experiences in diverse formats and environments, creation and translation, training, technologies and user involvement. Nina, Anna and Gert also give us a preview of the next international event dedicated to media accessibility and audiovisual translation in general: Media for All 10 and its main theme, “human agency in the age of technology”.

ARSAD 2023 Since 2007, ARSAD has been the meeting point for researchers, industry, trainers, trainees, users, practitioners, regulators, broadcasters, policy makers, social activists, cultural managers and anyone interested in audio description. After an edition moved online due to the pandemic, the ARSAD community meets again in Barcelona (20-21 April 2023) to discuss the latest trends and challenges in audio description.

MEDIA4ALL The Transmedia research group organised its first conference in Barcelona in 2005. Ever since, Media for All has travelled all over Europe and beyond. The 10th edition of Media For All will take place in Antwerp (July 6-7, 2023) and the the focus will be on the role of human agents in the translation process. Media For All 10 aims to map the changing profiles of stakeholders in the field of AVT and MA, practice and research, and elicit the many complex relations in which human agents engage.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Ayşe Polat, director of the film In the blind spot – Im Toten Winkel.

In the blind spot, closing film of a trilogy by Ayşe Polat, which premiered in the Encounters Section at the 73rd Berlinale, is in competition at the 36th Bolzano Film Festival. Kurdish German director Ayşe Polat talks about the film wanting to portray the side of the victims but this time, also the perpetrators’ one as a way to know all the perspectives. In the blind spot plays a lot with the supernatural elements as well. As a woman director, Polat also offers her view on the “female gaze” and the status of women in the film industry.

In the blind spot – Im Toten Winkel: A German film team is shooting a documentary in northeastern Turkey. In a remote Kurdish village, they witness an elderly woman performing a recurring ritual to keep the memory of her missing son alive. The Kurdish translator of the German crew is also the nanny of Melek, a 7 year – old Turkish girl. Her father, Zafer, works for a sinister organization and is caught between loyalty to them and fear for his family’s well – being when his daughter appears to be haunted by a mysterious force. The fatef ul encounter of these people develops a destructive power. IN THE BLIND SPOT unravels a complex net of conspiracy, paranoia and generational trauma.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Christine A. Maier, guest of honor at the 36th edition of the Bolzano Film Festival.

At the 36th Bolzano Film Festival – Bozen directed by Vincenzo Bugno, Austrian cinematographer Christina A.Mayer is the guest of honor at this year’s edition and just received a career award from the Festival for her outstanding contribution in films like Quo Vadis, Aida? and Licht by Barbara Albert. Mayer talks about when she first became interested in cinema in her childhood years and then cinematography, when the women DOPs were only two. The cinematographer who’s also a professor, talks about how the number of women cinematographers has increased in the last 10 years as a result that things in equality and representation are effectively changing.

Christine A. Maier’s cinematography has been featured in films by Henner Winckler, Amie Siegel, Jamie Babbit, Barbara Albert and Jasmila Žbanić, whose film Grbavica won the Golden Bear at Berlinale in 2006. Quo Vadis, Aida?, her recent cooperation with Žbanić, won the European Film Award for Best Film 2021 and was nominated for the International Feature Film category of the 2021 OSCARs and BAFTAs. She received the Austrian Film Award for Best Cinematography 2021 and the German Camera Award 2021 for Quo Vadis, Aida? She got the Austrian Film Award 2018 for Mademoiselle Paradis and was nominated 2019 for the Austrian Film Award for Life Guidance. 2021 she became a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

To discover more, click here.

The post Christine A. Maier – Career Award #BFFB36 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Francesca Raffi interviews Marie Campbell, professional audio describer and lead trainer in Red Bee Media’s Audio Description team.

Using her 20+ years of describing experience, as well as her training expertise across Red Bee Media’s English language operations, Marie Campbell will look back at the journey AD editorial guidelines have been on with regards to sensitive content, starting when AD in the UK was in its infancy and the nascent guidelines were predicated on a linear televisual landscape that looked, by default, much more “white” and “male” compared to what we see on our screens today. She will explore how a desire to avoid “othering” led to outdated guidelines that failed to describe the diversity of the world we live in as televisual content started to change and embrace that diversity in a more visual and meaningful way.

Marie Campbell has been describing for over 20 years and is the lead trainer in Red Bee Media’s Audio Description team. She started out in London, helping to set up the BBC’s first ever AD department, where she developed editorial guidelines and new bespoke software while integrating the service into the wider, well-established broadcast chain. Marie has described for the majority of UK broadcasters, overseen the describing of 200+ films on the theme of disability for the British Film Institute and been part of the pre- recorded AD team during the Winter and Summer Paralympics. She continues to be at the forefront of AD excellence, developing guidelines and using her expertise to train new scriptwriters and voicers in the UK, USA and Australia, tailoring the service to different English-speaking countries, while integrating workflows, maximising collaboration and providing ongoing support to new AD teams. Marie is currently looking at how e-learning can be used to facilitate audio description training.

Since 2007, ARSAD has been the meeting point for researchers, industry, trainers, trainees, users, practitioners, regulators, broadcasters, policy makers, social activists, cultural managers and anyone interested in audio description. The 2023 edition will kick start discussing the growing role of technology as a cornerstone of our everyday interactions. Technology facilitates contact, provides new opportunities but it also faces us with some challenges. In this technologically-driven world an awareness of social aspects is also growing, from diversity to sustainability, with collaboration at the core of many social actions. Within this context ARSAD aims to be a thought-provoking event where we can learn about the present of audio description across the globe from multidisciplinary perspectives and where we can get a glimpse of the future of this fascinating access mode.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews James Gray, director of the film Armageddon Time.

At the 14th Rome International Film Festival, James Gray talks about Armageddon Time, his autobiographical film, out in Italian Cinemas from March 23rd with Universal Pictures. The director wrote the film with the help of his brother as he’s the one remembering every single detail of their childhood.

Armageddon Time: From acclaimed filmmaker James Gray, Armageddon Time is a deeply personal story on the strength of family, the complexity of friendship and the generational pursuit of the American Dream. The film features an all-star cast including Anthony Hopkins, Anne Hathaway and Jeremy Strong

The post James Gray – Armageddon Time #RoFF17 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews the director Jaco Van Dormael.

Jaco Van Dormael, protagonist of Europe, Now! at the 41st Bergamo Film Meeting talks about his cinema and the complete retrospective of his works the festival has organized. The festival will also present the 4K restored version of his first film, Toto le héros that will come back to italian cinemas from April 17th thanks to I WONDER CLASSICS. The director shares with us his memories from that Festival De Cannes of 1991 where he presented Toto le héros to the cinema world.

Jaco Van Dormael (Ixelles, Belgium, 1957) He’s a director, screenwriter and producer. Raised between Germany and Belgium, Van Dormael first developed a passion for theatre, which accompanied him throughout his artistic career. At the age of eighteen, he took up clowning and became a director of children’s shows. After studying film at Louis-Lumière in Paris and INSAS in Brussels, he wrote and directed his first short documentary and fiction films in the early 1980s. The best known, È pericoloso sporgersi (1984), is the story of a child who experiences two possible versions of his future. The short film won the Grand Prix at the Clermont-Ferrand festival, revealing Van Dormael’s experimental, non-linear, dreamlike and visionary narrative style, his predilection for childhood characters and themes, and his near-obsession in depicting the complexity of life, caught between choices and destiny, between limitations and possibilities. Success with audiences and critics came in 1991 with his first feature film, Toto le héros (Toto the hero at the end of the millennium), in which old Totò is convinced he’s been swapped with his neighbour as a baby and is determined to take revenge for having been robbed of his actual life. On its debut at Cannes, the film won the Caméra d’Or, followed by a César and four European Film Awards. In 1996, he presented Le Huitième Jour (The Eighth Day), a Palme d’Or at Cannes for the two leads – Daniel Auteuil and Pascal Duquenne – who portray on screen a unique friendship that develops between an ordinary man and a boy with Down Syndrome. At the core of the film is another theme that runs through Van Dormael’s filmography, i.e. physical and mental disability, always portrayed respectfully and sympathetically. Several years later, Van Dormael directed Mr. Nobody (2009), starring Jared Leto and Sarah Polley and winner of the Best Screenplay award at the Venice Film Festival. Picking up on the subject of the “alternative” lives of È pericoloso sporgersi (in fact, all of Van Dormael’s films refer to each other), he portrays a hypothetical future where Nemo Nobody, the last of mortals and the world’s oldest man, retraces all the possible versions of his past, in a tangle of lives lived or imagined, conditioned by individual choices and chance. Van Dormael’s fourth feature film, Le tout nouveau testament (The Brand New Testament) came out in 2015. A surreal comedy where a despotic and violent God torments and controls the destinies of humans through an old computer, the film premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs in Cannes to critical acclaim, was a box-office success and won four Magritte Awards, including Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay. Jaco Van Dormael is not a prolific author, accustomed as he is to developing his scripts over the years, reworking ideas and suggestions collected in notes accumulated day by day. More than a decade has passed between one film and the next, even if interspersed with a few shorts and theatrical plays. From such perspective, Bovary (2021), his latest work, represents an anomaly: born from a stage adaptation of Flaubert’s novel and written by Michael De Cock, artistic director of the Royal Flemish Theater in Brussels. The original play was to be performed live but was cancelled due to the pandemic. To deliver it to an audience, Van Dormael agreed to shoot in a very short time and bring it to life on the screen: “In five days, I tried to make something that is neither film nor theatre”, making extensive use of back projection and extended close-ups or resorting to other cinematic gimmicks. An experiment born out of an emergency situation, which nevertheless allowed Van Dormael to combine, for once, his passion for cinema and the stage.

To discover more, click here.

The post Jaco Van Dormael – Retrospective of complete works in the Europe, Now! section #BFM41 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Michaela Pavlátová, director and animator.

At the 41st edition of Bergamo Film Meeting, Czech director and animator Michaela Pavlátová is the protagonist of the section dedicated to auteur animation. The director reveals how she’s surprised and honored that the Festival organized a world premiere of her complete works consisting of 25 titles, including shorts and features, and two live-action films. Pavlátová then tells us more about when and why she began working in the animation field and what is the fil rouge that connects her works.

Michaela Pavlátová (Prague, 1961) graduated from the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague in 1987. In the same year, as an end-of-study film, she made her first 2D animated short – a recurring technique in her filmography – Etuda z alba (An Etude from an Album) in which, with spare traits and light-hearted humour, the stylistic and thematic characteristics that will recur in her filmography are already noticeable. Řeči, řeči, řeči (Words, Words, Words, 1991) is a visual representation of the thoughts and speeches that hover in a bar full of people: the creativity and originality with which Pavlátová depicts an ordinary scenario earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Animated Short in 1993. From this point onwards, Pavlátová achieved such recognition and acclaim that she became, to all intents and purposes, the most internationally recognised animation director of the new generation, earning the praise of critics and audiences alike. With Repete (Repeat, 1995), thanks to the combination of compositional refinement and sarcasm, enhanced by pastel drawing animation, Pavlátová won two significant awards: the Special Prize of the Jury at the International Animation Festival in Annecy and the Golden Bear for Best Short Film in Berlin. From 1998 to 2002, she split her time between Prague and San Francisco, where she worked as an art director for the animation studio Wildbrain Inc. In 2003, she directed her first live-action feature film, Nevěrné hry (Faithless Games), reflecting on the dynamics of couples and the search for marital harmony. At the same time, she confirmed her versatility by continuing to produce animated shorts; in 2008, she directed her second fiction feature film Děti noci (Night Owls), presented at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival, where it won the awards for best male and female performances. Some of Pavlátová’s films also have an erotic component, sometimes shown in a suggestive manner, other times more explicitly but never vulgar: these include Karneval zvířat (The Carnival of the Animals, 2006) or Tram (2012), which won the Cristal award at Annecy and the Special International Jury Prize at the Hiroshima International Animation Festival for its ingenious and ironic presentation of female erotic fantasies. In 2021 she directed My Sunny Maad, the first animated feature film that, maintaining its typical spare but elegant traits, puts aside black humour to portray a very timely story of conquering freedom and one’s rights through the eyes of a European woman who, for love, moves to Kabul. Michaela Pavlátová currently teaches animation at the prestigious FAMU – Academy of Performing Arts, Film and TV School in Prague, but has also held courses at the Academy of Art College, Computer Arts Institute in San Francisco, Harvard University and VSUP – Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague. She has also been a member of international juries at prestigious film festivals.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Ursula Meier, director of the film Ursula Meier’s retrospective.

Bergamo Film Meeting reconnaissance of contemporary European cinema on its 41st edition will focus on the works of Ursula Meier (France – Switzerland) – which straddle the thin borderline between fiction and documentary – masterfully analyse the profound ambivalence of emotional ties. These are the words through which the Festival has described the French director. Ursula Meier comments on the homage to her work the 41st Bergamo Film Meeting has organized and talks about the fil rouge that connect all her films, from Home (2008) to the latest one, La Ligne.

Ursula Meier’s retrospective: Ursula Meier is a director and screenwriter. She often navigates the thin borderline between fiction and documentary, analysing with great skill the profound ambivalence of emotional ties. Growing up in eastern France, near the Swiss border, she studied film and television production in Belgium at the IAD – Institut des Arts de Diffusion and began working as an assistant to Alain Tanner in the second half of the 1990s. Her diploma film, Le Songe d’Isaac, and the subsequent Des Heures sans sommeil (1998), won the special jury prize at the Festival international du court métrage de Clermont-Ferrand and the International Grand Prix at the Toronto Film Festival, and allowed her to devote herself to cinema full time. In 2001, she directed the short film Tous à table – about a group of friends who meet at a special birthday dinner – which won the audience award at Clermont-Ferrand. After two documentaries, Autour de Pinget (2000) – a tribute to the work of the writer Robert Pinget – and Pas les flics, pas les noirs, pas les blancs (2002) – on the extraordinary story of Alain Devegney, deputy sergeant of the Geneva gendarmerie – she directed Des épaules solides (2003), produced for the ARTE series “Masculin-Féminin/Petite Caméra”, achieving great success with the public and a nomination for the Swiss Film Prize. The film tells the story of Sabine, a talented young athlete who wants to pursue a professional sports career and pushes her body to extreme limits. Her first feature film was Home, starring Isabelle Huppert, in 2008, in which she recounts the vicissitudes of a family living in a remote cottage near a closed motorway, which, to their surprise and concern, is about to be reopened, with all the unpleasant consequences imaginable. The film was presented during the International Critics’ Week at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival and received a nomination for the 2009 César Awards in the Best First Feature category and was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Production Design. In 2012, with L’Enfant d’en haut (Sister), the story of siblings Simon and Louise, she received a special mention for the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival and represented Switzerland in the nominations for the 2013 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film; she also received a nomination at the 2013 Lumière Awards for Best Francophone Film and one at the 2013 Independent Spirit Awards for Best Foreign Language Film. In 2014, she was among the 13 directors who created the collective film The Bridges of Sarajevo, shot on the occasion of the WWI 100th anniversary and presented at the Cannes Film Festival; her segment, Tišina Mujo, takes place during a football practice in the Zetra stadium, where little Mujo misses a penalty kick by sending the ball over the fence. She then made Kacey Mottet Klein, Naissance d’un acteur (2015), a short film which documents the physical and professional growth of the young actor starring in her two previous films, and Ondes de choc – journal de ma tête (2018), a feature film with Fanny Ardant, in which a young man kills his parents after sending his secret diary to his French teacher. La ligne (The invisible line, 2022), the story of three sisters, a mother and a forced distance, is Meier’s latest work presented in competition at the 2022 Berlin Film Festival starring Valeria Bruni Tedeschi. The film recounts the dynamics of an atypical family, in which it’s space that defines affections and relationships.

To discover more, click here.

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