FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | This interview is about writer and director J.J. Neepin, selected for this year edition of Berlinale Talents 2021.

JJ Neepin is an Indigenous writer & director and is a member of the Fox Lake Cree Nation. JJ has written, directed and produced several short films alongside her sister/partner/producer; Justina Neepin with their company JJNeepinFilms INC. They made their first short film MARK in 2012 and had its world premiere at the 2013 Gimli Film Festival in Manitoba.

To discover more about Berlinale Talents, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Hadas ben Aroya, director of the film All Eyes Off Me.

A conversation with Hadas ben Aroya, director of All Eyes Off Me, presented in the Encounters section of the 2021 Berlinale International Film Festival. The film is an exploration of sexual fantasies, intimacy and love in the modern world. In this interview, the director talks with us about her interest in the topic and how she likes to integrate the things she loves in her works. We also talk about some of the defining traits of the style of All Eyes Off Me, including the structure that is split into three parts, as well as the intimacy of the extended sex scenes and more.

All Eyes Off Me: Danny is pregnant by Max but she doesn’t get around to telling him at a party. Meanwhile, Max is busy trying out his girlfriend Avishag’s sexual fantasies with her. She wants him to hit her when they have sex. Avishag takes her bruises over to Dror, whose dog she sits. A familiarity develops between the older man and the young woman that neither of them expected.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Samaher Alqadi, director of the film As I Want.

A conversation with Samaher Alqadi, director of As I Want, from the Encounters section of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival. This is a powerful documentary about the explosion of politically charged sexual terrorism against women that swept through Cairo’s Tahrir Square in the aftermath of the Arab Spring. In this interview, Alqadi shares her testimony of those days and offers her thoughts on what motivates such violence against women. She also talks about her own journey in making the movie and her use of the camera as a weapon for self-protection.

As I Want: Cairo, January 25, 2013. A string of severe sexual assaults takes place in Tahrir Square on the day of the second anniversary of the revolution. In response, a huge crowd of enraged women surges onto the streets. Samaher Alqadi joins them, taking her camera with her as protection but also to document the protests of a burgeoning women’s rebellion. She has no idea where the story will take her. Samaher’s filming coincides with her falling pregnant, and this prompts her to consider her childhood in Palestine and what it means to be a woman and a mother. She begins an imaginary conversation with her own mother, who dies before she can see her one last time. In an intimate inner dialogue that guides us through the narrative, Samaher starts to form the words that are left unsaid and to share her deepest secrets. She goes on a traumatic visit back to her parent’s house in Ramallah where she conjures up and confronts dark memories of the childhood she has managed to escape. Meanwhile, the struggle in Egypt continues and, even after the birth of her son, Samaher still finds herself on the frontline. As I Want is a crucial, hard-hitting political document, an essay film and an inward journey in which individual emancipation is linked to the collective process of liberation in the Arab world.

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PODCAST | Niklas Pollmann interviews Ryūsuke Hamaguchi, director of the film Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy.

Niklas is talking with Ryūsuke Hamaguchi about his first film in Berlinale Main Competition, focussing on filming under the conditions of COVID-19, Japanese cinema and the borders between commercial and Indie cinema as well as his cinematic philosophy between formalism and spontaneity, Hong Sang-Soo and Cassavetes and making a cinema about narration itself.

Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy: A compilation of three short stories about love, solitude and the value of fiction. The first episode a love triangle with two actress friends and a rich businessman. The second is about a woman that tries to trick an erotic novelist into a honey-trap. The third is about a reencounter of two middle-aged women and its homo-erotical implications.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Dan Stevens and Maren Eggert, actors of the film I’m your man.

In Maria Schrader’s new film I’m your man, screening at the 71st Berlinale in competition, Maren Eggert and Dan Stevens play respectively a scientist and a robot made exactly for her as part of a new experiment she has to evaluate. The at first awkward situation becomes slowly an occasion for the film and its audience to wonder about the meaning of love, relationship and the rules of attraction. The two actors elaborate on the film’s themes and reveal the lesson they learned from this experience.

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.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Gustavo Pizzi, director of the series The Last Days of Gilda.

A conversation with Gustavo Pizzi, director of the series The Last Days of Gilda, presented in the Berlinale Series section of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival. The series revolves around a free and independent woman named Gilda living on the edge of the favelas, and the growing hostilities between her and the reactionary Christians that begin to become a powerful and imposing presence of her territory. In this interview, Pizzi discusses how the series reflects the current socio-political sitiation of Brazil but also speaks about the timelessness that it evokes. He also shares his thoughts on the current state of the art in Brazil in the times of Bolsonaro and whether there is something he finds particularly stimulating about the series structure, as opposed to the more traditional feature film structure.

The Last Days of Gilda: Gilda loves cooking, men and life. She is a free woman who knows exactly what she wants and how to satisfy her hunger for love, noisy passion and boisterous celebrations. But in her neighbourhood on the edge of a favela in Rio de Janeiro, reactionary Christians are rapidly gaining the upper hand, and her unbridled way of life, self-confidence and independence do not go down well with everyone. At first, the graffiti on the façade of her small house barely bothers optimistic Gilda, but her little world between chickens and pigs is becoming ever more constricted.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Dénes Nagy, Director of the film Natural Light.

With his debut into feature films from a long history in documentaries, Dénes Nagy proves his abilities as a very focused director, thanks to Natural Light, screening in competition at the 71est Berlinale. Dénes Nagy was just awarded with the Silver Bear for Best Director for a film choosing a simple man, a non-hero as its protagonist. Loosely based on Pál Závada’s novel, Natural Light focuses on Semetka, a farmer turned commander during World War II, who doesn’t want to be in charge and would like to run away as soon as he can. Can a man be good and weak at the same time? This is the question Dénes Nagy asks the film and the audience to answer.

Natural Light: World War II, occupied Soviet Union. István Semetka is a simple Hungarian farmer who serves as a Corporal in a special unit scouting for partisan groups. On their way to a remote village, his company falls under enemy fire. As the commander is killed, Semetka has to overcome his fears and take command of the unit as he is dragged into a chaos that he cannot control.

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

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Christian Schwochow, Director of the film Je Suis Karl.

A conversation with German filmmaker Christian Schwochow, director of Je Suis Karl, a Special Gala film of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival. Je Suis Karl explores the connection between the new generation and the rise of alt-right European ideas. In this interview, we talk about the origins of his collaboration with Thomas Wendrich and he also shares his thoughts on the burgeoning alt-right ideals, as well as whether he is a believer in Europeanist ideals. He also talks about integrating new media within his filmmaking style and shares with us his hopes that the film will be viewed by a young audience of the same age range as its protagonists.

Je Suis Karl: Somewhere in Berlin. But not just any time, this is here and now. A postman delivers a parcel and, soon afterwards, everything changes. A terrorist attack rocks a family to the core. Maxi- who loses her mother, her brothers and her home – tries to look forward, but is still deeply insecure. Nothing seems to work. Her father Alex is as traumatised as she is. The certainties of the past have been wiped out and the grief that comes with their loss obscures everything. Meeting another young person seems to help Maxi. Karl liberates her from her paralysis and urges her to conquer her fear. He has organised a meeting of European students who are looking for solutions to the catastrophic situation on the continent. The task he assigns Maxi could be the deciding factor in the success of a grand plan. By joining forces with Karl, Maxi is dancing on a knife edge: today in Berlin, tomorrow in Prague, soon in Strasbourg and eventually all over Europe. Je suis Karl – a political takeover.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Bardia Yadegari, Ehsan Mirhosseini, Directors of the film District Terminal.

A conversation with Bardia Yadegari and Ehsan Mirhosseini, directors, writers and actors of a new film called District Terminal, presented in the Encounters section of the 2021 Berlin International Film Festival. The film revolves around a struggling, drug addicted poet and his growing frustrations and with censorship and lack of opportunities. In this film, the directors talk about the origins of their collaborations and the autobiographical elements of the movies. They also talk the film’s environmental themes, the independent way in which they were able to bring it to life, as well as how they believe this movie differs from the other Iranian works that make the international film festival rounds throughout the year.

District Terminal: Tehran in the near future. Pollution and a lethal virus have reduced the city to a dump and forced the population to emigrate or live in quarantine. Peyman is a poet and a junkie who lives with his mother in a neighbourhood that has been placed under round-the-clock surveillance by quarantine officers. Struggling to survive, Peyman divides his days between spending time with his no-less-bewildered teenage daughter, a woman living in the USA whom he has married in order to emigrate, conversations with his two closest friends Ramin and Mozhgan, and an illicit affair with a girl with whom he is hopelessly in love. Rumours of an imminent war are growing and one by one Peyman’s friends are departing, leaving him alone and tormented by ghosts. In which world does Peyman live, the real or the fictional? In which of the two will he find redemption?

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Radu Jude, Director of the film Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn.

From the first seconds of the film’s screening, Radu Jude’s Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn immediately classified as the director’s most irreverent work. At the 71st Berlinale, the film just won a well deserved Golden Bear for his astonishing depiction of modern Romania ( and today’s world) contradictions, especially when it comes to sex, relationships and women. Divided in three acts or sketches as the director suggests, the final relies on three possibile endings with an endless discussion and so many points of view. Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn is also a very feminist film and it aims at shaking the audience’s consciences and views and at provoking strong reactions as any good film should do.

Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn: Emi, a school teacher, finds her career and reputation under threat after a personal sex tape is leaked on the Internet. Forced to meet the parents demanding her dismissal, Emi refuses to surrender to their pressure. Radu Jude (Aferim!) delivers an incendiary mix of unconventional form, irreverent humour and scathing commentary on hypocrisy and prejudice in our societies.

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

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