FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST |Chiara Nicoletti interviews Carlos Alfonso Corral, director of the film Dirty Feathers.

Carlos Alfonso Corral has been a member of director Roberto Minervini’s crew since Stop the pounding heart and with the italian director as mentor and producer, at the 71st Berlinale, Corral presents his debut film Dirty Feathers on two homeless lovers’ journey and their world of forgotten people. Shot in Black & White, Corral decided to take a narrative direction for the film but to be carried away by these people’s stories and testimonies. Dirty Feathers was inspired by by the sudden death of Corral’s paternal uncle who had lived a fast life filled with binge drinking, heroin, and gambling, vices that frequently bankrupted him into homelessness, the director reveals. This whole happening led him to the homeless shelter in downtown El Paso, called The Opportunity where he met his protagonist Brandon and started develop his film. Thanks to the Empathy lesson given by Roberto Minervini, Corral knew how to become part of these people lives, listen to them and create room for their adventures and tales to be told in front of his camera.

Dirty Feathers: With two homeless lovers’ journey as the through-line, Dirty Feathers weaves in and out of an overwhelmed shelter and a forsaken landscape with fervent echoes of the unheard and neglected: a grieving father who lost his child is paralyzed by unshakable guilt; a veteran living under a bridge recalls his past glory serving the very country that has long abandoned him; and a 16 year old girl who has seemingly transcended trauma embraces life on the streets with a holy righteousness, becoming the haunting conscience of the film.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Maria Schrader and Jan Schomburg, director and screenwriter of the film I’m your man.

Is it possible to fall in love with a robot? What do women and men look for in a relationship? I’m your man by Maria Schrader, in competition at the 71st Berlinale, tries to answer to these questions. Maria Schrader and screenwriter Jan Schomburg explain the idea of “creating” a mechanical being made for a woman, distancing themselves but the tons of films that made the opposite thing. Through I’m your man, we get to explore a woman’s point of view when faced with a “man” who’s in charge of pleasing her and being the best partner he can be. Set in today’s world and not in a dystopian future, the film starts with Alma, a scientist, being asked to test this humanoid robot played by Dan Stevens, who, by the way, speaks a perfect German and a fluent spanish and korean. The result is a open discussion of the rules of love and attraction and the difference between women and men’s approach to these rules.

I’m your man: Alma (Maren Eggert) is a scientist at the famous Pergamon Museum in Berlin. In order to obtain research funds for her work, she is persuaded to participate in an extraordinary study. For three weeks, she has to live with a humanoid robot tailored to her character and needs, whose artificial intelligence is designed to be the perfect life partner for her. Alma meets Tom (Dan Stevens), a machine in human form in a class of its own, created solely to make her happy. I’M YOUR MAN is a playful comic-tragic tale about the questions of love, longing and what makes a human being human.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

The post Maria Schrader, Jan Schomburg – I’m your man #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Julio Maria Martino, director of the film Country of Hotels.

A conversation with Julio Maria Martino, director of Country of Hotels. The film is screening on March 12 at this year’s online edition of the Manchester Film Festival, and revolves around a number of people who find themselves spending time in a mysterious and decaying hotel. In this interview, the director talks about the style of the film, surreal, absurd and darkly comic, and talks about the influences of such people as David Lynch and Samuel Beckett. He also talks about the challenge of shooting a film that mostly takes place in one single hotel room, his collaboration with screenwriter David Hauptschein and the cast, and how he believes this film reflects these days of lockdown, despite the fact that it was made before the start of the pandemic.

Country of Hotels tells the stories of the desperate souls who pass through the doors of 508, a room on the fifth floor of an anonymous, decaying hotel. We are taken on a surreal and blackly comic journey down its lonely corridors and behind its out-dated furnishings and stained surfaces. The story plunges us into the ever-turning carousel of haunted lives who check in and check out of the establishment.

The post Julio Maria Martino – Country of Hotels #MANIFF2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Joana Hadjithomas and  Khalil Joreige, directors of the film Memory Box.

Memory Box, film in competition at the 71st Berlinale, comes from notebooks and cassette tapes director Joana Hadjithomas sent to a very close friend who’d moved to France during the Lebanese civil war. These memories were combined with those of co-director and Hadjithomas’ husband Khalil Joreige to create the starting point for the film’ story. By discovering her mom’s teen years memories through this box, Alex can connect to a different version of who she thought her mother was. The two directors comment on the aspect that while connecting past and present through two adolescences, the daughter’s one and the mother’s, the film helps understand that the dynamics change, the way through which we experience things change but not the very essence of that particular moment in life, adolescence. Memory Box feels like a post Covid film for his depiction of a sort of stand-by feeling ( caused by war in the case of the film’story) and the directors reveal that they agree but they didn’t see it coming.

Memory Box: Maia, a single mother, lives in Montreal with her teenage daughter, Alex. On Christmas Eve, they receive an unexpected delivery: notebooks, tapes, and photos Maia sent to her best friend from 1980’s Beirut. Maia refuses to open the box or confront its memories, but Alex secretly begins diving into it. Between fantasy and reality, Alex enters the world of her mother’s tumultuous, passionate adolescence during the Lebanese civil war, unlocking mysteries of a hidden past.

To discover more about the 71st edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Hamy Ramezan, director of the film Any Day Now.

Hamy Ramezan tells Fred Radio the path that lead him to this story about himself and his childhood. It has been difficult to find the right way to tell a story about a family of refugees, without describing suffering and pain, and make it believable ( as such tales now are drenched in sorrow and pain , and we are used to that). But when the right cast came on board everything got easier…

Any Day Now: Rain-soaked Finnish forests bathed in a nebulous haze. Every morning, the 13-year-old Ramin is awakened tenderly by his mother. The Mehdipour family encounters everyday life in a refugee accommodation in a quiet, simple manner, full of humour and warmth. In the here and now, every moment is savoured as if there were no tomorrow: time with friends, new encounters, parties and – for Ramin – falling in love for the first time. And yet, it is clear that if the family’s application for asylum is denied, which could happen any day, things will change abruptly. Moments of courage and joy, despair and worry all add to the loving portrait of a child and his family who, on the threshold of a new life, never lose their dignity.

The post Hamy Ramezan – Any Day Now #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Ferit Karahan, director of the film Brother’s Keeper.

Ferit Karahan tells us about the inspiration and the difficulties in bringing on the screen, and on paper before that, of his personal memories as a child and a student in a boarding school like the one portrayed in the film. And his idea of fear as an instrument of education.

Brother’s Keeper: Strict rules prevail at a remote boarding school in the mountains of Anatolia where Turkish teachers educate gifted Kurdish pupils from the surrounding area. Once a week, the boys are allowed to shower and, like everything else here, this process is monitored. One night, twelve-year-old Memo asks his friend Yusuf if he can sleep in his bed. But, afraid of gossip, Yusuf refuses. The next morning, Memo is sick and cannot attend class. The school’s heating has broken down and an icy winter’s day takes its course. Memo’s condition worsens. He is no longer responsive and Yusuf is only allowed to talk when prompted. Gradually, the events of the previous night are revealed. Ferit Karahan’s finely spun drama illuminates a microcosm marked by poverty and fear. Surrounded by snow and frost, the emotional coldness which prevails between teachers and pupils in this authoritarian educational institution become almost physically tangible.

The post Ferit Karahan – Brother’s Keeper #Berlinale2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Niklas Pollmann interviews Jacqueline Lentzou, director of the film Moon, 66 Questions.

Niklas is talking with Greek director Jacqueline Lentzou about her sensual and visually stunning debut Moon, 66 Questions, the enactment of multiple sclerosis in her film, the expressibility of lacks/absences and why the film is not first and foremost a feminist work.

Moon, 66 Questions: the 24-years-old upper class Greek girl Artemis is coming back to her Greek home to help her father and his sudden onset of multiple sclerosis. Therein Artemis find out a family secret and her own way to deal with it.

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PODCAST | Niklas Pollmann interviews Anne Zohra Berrached, director of the film Copilot.

Niklas is talking with Anne Zohra Berrached about her third feature film Copilot,  the passive perspective of love, its narrative difficulties and implications, such as interpersonal and political.

Copilot: the German-Turkish researcher deeply falls in love with the Lebanese student Saeed during the Mid90s in Hamburg, Germany. Asli tries to prevent him from radicalizing in his islamic beliefs and wants him to fight for his dream to become a pilot.

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PODCAST | This interview is about director and screenwriter Kantarama Gahigiri, selected for this year edition of Berlinale Talents 2021.

Kantarama is an award winning filmmaker. She writes and directs films set in East Africa, Switzerland and the United States. Her first feature film “Tapis Rouge” has been screened and awarded worldwide including TV5Monde Best Feature Film at Geneva International Film Festival (2014) and Best Directing at Chelsea Film Festival (New York) in 2015, followed by a national theatrical release in France, May 2017.

In 2018 she became one of the 5 residents for the 3rd Edition at “Realness – An African Screenwriter’s Residency” selected after evaluation of more than 130 projects from the whole continent. Following the residency, Kantarama was invited as a delegate to the Atlas Workshops (Marrakech International Film Festival) in December 2018.

The other films she directed garnered praise and won awards internationally. Including: 2 seasons of the short TV series Me+U, a comedy she created and directed. And the short video Pinot In The Grass which won the Award of Merit – Special Mention at Los Angeles IndieFEST 2014.

Since 2014, she also teaches directing, writing & producing workshops to help younger artists implement their work (in Rwanda, Brazil, Switzerland, Tunisia, Kenya, Tanzania and Malaysia).

In 2004, Kantarama was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship and a Swiss Benevolent Scholarship.

As a freelance producer, she has been working on various films, TV and commercials in Uganda, Rwanda and the United States.

To discover more about Berlinale Talents, click here.

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PODCAST | This interview is about music composer Tomás Barreiro, selected for this year edition of Berlinale Talents 2021.

Tomás Barreiro (b. 1976) is a composer, orchestrator, interpreter and teacher, with more than 15 years of experience in the cinematographic medium. His portfolio includes TV shows, theater, advertising, and over 20 feature films, both mexican and international productions. Some of the prizes and nominations he has received throughout his career include: Ariel and Fénix Prizes, Berlinale, Toronto International Film Festival and Chicago International Film Festival, among others.

Besides his distinguished trajectory as a film composer, Barreiro has an active participation in concert music. His work has been awarded in very prestigious composition contests around the world. He received the 2012 Sayat Nova Composition Award; and in 2008, the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award, whose jury included the well known composer Steve Reich. His compositions have been premiered in different countries around the world, including: France, United States, Poland and Japan.

From the beginning of his career as a film composer, Barreiro has worked in relevant mexican productions, such as: Güeros (Ariel, 2014), Museo (Berlinale, 2018) and Verde (Luminus, 2016), from director Alonso Ruizpalacios, with whom he has closely collaborated since 2008. He also scored Alejandra Márquez Abella’s Las niñas bien (Ariel, 2018) and Bruno Santamaría’s first two feature films: Margarita (FICG, 2016) and Cosas que no hacemos (CIFF, 2020). Most recently, Barreiro has expanded his career to Latin America and the United States, with productions like Bad Hombres (United States, 2020) a documentary directed by Andrew Glazer, and Jezabel (Venezuela, 2021) by Hernán Jabes.

Tomás Barreiro is currently a member of Sistema Nacional de Creadores de Arte, a program that reunites Mexico’s most distinguished artists. He is also a teacher at the Panamerican University in Mexico City, and Hidalgo State’s National Music School, where he teaches film scoring to graduate and undergraduate students.

To discover more about Berlinale Talents, click here.

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