FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews João Canijo, director of the film Bad Living.

There’s a portoguese director João Canijo who at the 73rd Berlinale just brought two films, Mal Viver – Bad Living in the official competition and Viver Mal – Living Bad, a mirror film to the first one, in Encounters. The director talks about the starting point of the two films which are both set in a hotel run by three generations of women. In Mal Viver, which is Canijo most autobiographical and personal film, we look at a matriarcal family and their corrupted relations. In Viver Mal instead, we see things from the clients’ perspective which personalities are inspired by three drama plays by August Strindberg including The Pelican. Mal Viver just won the Silver Bear Jury Prize at the 73rd Berlinale.

Mal Viver – Bad Living: In a family-run hotel, by the Portuguese northern shore, lives a group of women from different generations of the same family, whose relationships with each other have grown poisoned by bitterness. They try to survive in the declining hotel, as the unexpected arrival of a granddaughter to this oppressive space stirs trouble, reviving latent hatred and piled-up resentments.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post João Canijo – Mal Viver – Bad Living #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Federica Scarpa interviews Liu Jian, director of the film Art College 1994.

It was in 2017 when the Chinese director/animator Liu Jian brought his second film, Have a Nice Day, to competition at the Berlinale. This year, six years later, the director returns with Art College 1994, a long story of the everyday life of some art students in China in 1996. The director expresses his thoughts on art, recalls one of the funniest moments of his time at college and explains why that formative period in each of our lives is so important to him.

Art College 1994: In the 1990s, a group of students on the campus of the Chinese Southern Academy of Arts are pursuing their studies and preparing to face the world. China is opening up to the West and the students’ lives are a tangle of love stories and friendships, artistic research, ideals and ambitions brought about by new influences. Caught between tradition and modernity, they have to decide who they want to become. Filmmaker and painter Liu Jian returns to the Berlinale Competition with an animated film that combines stylised modern illustrations with a passion for art and life. Suffused with a dark offbeat humour, his work depicts the hopes and artistic dreams of an entire generation as it passes into adulthood. People, events and styles blend with the urban and winter landscape of a country undergoing rapid change.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Liu Jian – Art College 1994 #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Rolf De Heer, director of the film The Survival Of Kindness.

Rolf De Heer, director of The Survival of Kindness, in Competition at the Berlinale 73, talks with Fred Radio about the way this film was born, the peculiar way of wruitung if and the intense but rewarding process of shooting, to create a movie with a powerful message against racism.

The Survival Of Kindness: In the middle of the desert, BlackWoman is abandoned on a trailer, in a cage. Her captors have left her to die. But she is not ready to pass. She escapes, and walks through pestilence and persecution, from desert to mountain to city, to find … more captivity. Those responsible are reluctant to relinquish their privileges, and BlackWoman, escaping once more, must find solace in her beginnings. As in his last film Charlie’s Country, the tragic hero of Rolf de Heer’s new work clearly asks: “What is left of our humanity?” This time the hero is a woman, portrayed with an unforgettable mix of bravery and weariness by Mwajemi Hussein. The Dutch-Australian filmmaker’s searing moral fable subverts our expectations by playing with a variety of genres, but confirms his indisputable understanding of the burden endured by ethnic minorities in a white man’s world. Their tragedy is amplified by the apocalyptic situation in which humankind finds itself, and their isolation further underlined by the film’s striking and meticulously composed dystopian landscapes. Poised between poetry and despair, BlackWoman’s thought-provoking story gradually gives shape to the most moving of exploits: the will to resist.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Rolf De Heer – The Survival Of Kindness #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Mawjemi Hussein, actress of the film The Survival Of Kindness.

Mwajemi Hussein is the lead character in The Survival Of Kindness, by Rolf De Heer, in Competition at the Berlinale 73. It is her first ever role, never acted or even thought about cinema. She brought to this role her personal experience of being a Congolese refugee first in Tanzania and then in Australia. And she totally nailed it.

The Survival Of Kindness: In the middle of the desert, BlackWoman is abandoned on a trailer, in a cage. Her captors have left her to die. But she is not ready to pass. She escapes, and walks through pestilence and persecution, from desert to mountain to city, to find … more captivity. Those responsible are reluctant to relinquish their privileges, and BlackWoman, escaping once more, must find solace in her beginnings. As in his last film Charlie’s Country, the tragic hero of Rolf de Heer’s new work clearly asks: “What is left of our humanity?” This time the hero is a woman, portrayed with an unforgettable mix of bravery and weariness by Mwajemi Hussein. The Dutch-Australian filmmaker’s searing moral fable subverts our expectations by playing with a variety of genres, but confirms his indisputable understanding of the burden endured by ethnic minorities in a white man’s world. Their tragedy is amplified by the apocalyptic situation in which humankind finds itself, and their isolation further underlined by the film’s striking and meticulously composed dystopian landscapes. Poised between poetry and despair, BlackWoman’s thought-provoking story gradually gives shape to the most moving of exploits: the will to resist.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Mawjemi Hussein – The Survival Of Kindness #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Leandro Koch, Paloma Schachmann, director of the film The Klezmer Project.

It all started with the idea of making a documentary on klezmer music and filmmaker duo Leandro Koch and Paloma Schachmann ended up directing a film which is a love story and also a road movie on finding your roots. This is A dentro mio estoy bailando – The Klezmer project, presented in competition at the 73rd Berlinale.

 The Klezmer Project: Argentinian cameraman Leandro makes a living from filming Jewish weddings. At one of his jobs, he falls in love with Paloma, the clarinetist of the Klezmer band. To seduce her he pretends to be shooting a documentary film about traditional Yiddish folk music. What Leandro does not know is that his “fake” film project will take him on an unscripted journey throughout Eastern Europe in search of the last remaining Klezmer melodies.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Leandro Koch, Paloma Schachman – The Klezmer Project #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren, director of the film 20.000 especies  de abejas.

With her debut feature, 20,000 species of bees, basque director Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren brings to the 73rd Berlinale competition a summer tale about a eight-year-old child trying to find her own self and identity. The director talks about the genesis of the film that was inspired by the tragic story of a 14 years old trans boy who committed suicide for not being accepted as who he was. To portray a little boy transitioning to finally being the girl he is, Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren chose an actress, Sofía Otero, as to respect the gender her protagonist felt and chose to be.

20.000 especies de abejas: An eight-year-old child struggles with the fact that people keep addressing her in confusing ways. During a summer in the Basque Country among the beehives, she explores her identity alongside the women of her family, who at the same time reflect on their own lives and desires.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Estibaliz Urresola Solaguren – 20.000 especies de abejas #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews David Zonana, director of the film Heroico.

David Zonana’s Heroico, screening in the Panorama section at the 73rd Berlinale unveils how violence and toxic masculinity is still systemic in nowadays Mexico through the story of a 18-year-old Luis joining the national military academy.

Heroico: Luis, an 18-year-old boy with Indigenous roots, enters the Heroic Military College in hopes of ensuring a better future. There, he encounters a rigid and institutionally violent system designed to turn him into a perfect soldier.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post David Zonana – Heroico #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Christian Petzold, director of the film Afire.

After presenting the first chapter of his trilogy being about water, Undine at the Berlinale in 2020, Christian Petzold is back in the Berlinale competition with the second chapter, Afire, whose title anticipates the fire element. Afire is an enchanting but yet concrete tale on human relations and the poetics of love and it stars the director’s muse Paula Beer and Thomas Schubert.

Totem: A small holiday house by the baltic sea. The days are hot and it hasn’t rained in weeks. Four young people come together, friends old and new. As the parched forests around them begin to ignite, so do their emotions. Happiness, lust and love; but also jealousies, resentments and tensions. Meanwhile the forests burn. And before long, the flames are there.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Christian Petzold – Afire #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Lila Avilés, director of the film Totem.

In her second feature film, Totem, after the successful debut with The Chambermaid in 2018, Lila Avilés brings the “everything” of life into her story as it depicts an almost matriarcal family as it surrounds around Tona, father to 8 years old daughter Sol, who has been sick a long time and whose sisters, wife and father are organizing a birthday party for. There’s a disfunctional and lovely family that empathizes with the audience, there’s the beautiful chaos, life and death intertwining. Finally, there’s a young girl coming of age before kids her age as she understands life better than most adults.

Totem: Seven-year-old Sol spends the day at her Grandfather’s home, helping with the preparations for a surprise party for her father. Throughout the day, chaos slowly takes over, fracturing the family’s foundations. Sol will embrace the essence of letting go as a release for existence.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Lila Avilés – Totem #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Franz Rogowski, actor of the film Disco boy.

After working with Gabriele Mainetti in Freaks Out, Franz Rogowski is again the centre of another italian yet international film, the debut feature film by Giacomo Abruzzese, Disco boy, in competition at the 73rd Berlinale. The german actor talks about the film being perceived as a coming-of-age as his character, Aleksei , a young Belarusian joining the French Foreign Legion, is in search for his place in the world.

Disco boy: Aleksei is a young Belarusian on the run from a past he must bury. Entering into a kind of Faustian pact, he becomes a member of the French Foreign Legion in exchange for the promise of French citizenship. Far away in the Niger Delta, Jomo is a revolutionary activist engaged in an armed struggle to defend his community. Aleksei is a soldier, Jomo a guerrilla fighter. As a result of one more senseless war, their destinies will intertwine. What is “otherness” and how do you absorb it into who you are as you go through life, cross borders and find yourself inhabiting an ever-changing physical and mental space? Giacomo Abbruzzese exhibits a remarkable sense of out-of-the-box thinking and inventiveness as he explores such questions in a visually striking work that is ripe with poetry and tension. Bodies fall into trances that are both revelatory and altruistic because they represent an opportunity to commune with others. Accompanying this magical reverie is a powerful score from electronic musician Vitalic that helps turn the night club into a place of transcendence. The disco becomes the ultimate destination for those who keep their sights firmly set on the sacred horizon of utopia.

To discover more about the Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Franz Rogowski – Disco boy #Berlinale2023 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.