FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Hiroshi Okuyama, director of the film Jesus.

Director Hiroshi Okuyama presented his feature film, Jesus, in competition at the 3rd International Film Festival and Awards of Macao. The film draws inspiration from the director’s own past memories and as he explains in this interview, it was also a way for him to understand what happened and how people around him behaved at the time. But we also talk about his thoughts on religion, given that in the story, the young protagonist interacts with an imagined little Jesus.

Jesus: Yura is a young boy whose family leaves Tokyo to live with his grandmother in the snowy countryside. Not only must he fit in at a new school, but it’s a Christian one. At first he is puzzled when he and his classmates are called to “worship,” but he gradually adjusts to his new environment. One day, in the middle of a prayer, he sees a very small Jesus appear before him. Each wish Yura makes to Jesus comes true, and he starts to have faith in the power of the Lord.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Hiroshi Okuyama – Jesus #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Aenne Schwarz, actress of the film All Good.

Actress Aenne Schwarz talks about All Good, directed by Eva Trobisch, which was featured in the competition program of the 3rd International Film Festival of Macao. She plays the role of the protagonist of the film, Janne, who, in short, is raped but refuses to let the experience put her in the position of a victim. In this interview, Schwarz talks about this as well as her own thoughts on the narrative that is used to talk about rape and whether working on this film helped her see things from a different perspective. We close this interview by also asking her simply why it is that she acts.

All Good: “If you don’t see any problems, you don’t have any” is Janne’s attitude regarding the fact that her new boss’s brother-in-law has forced himself on her one night after a party. She keeps the incident under wraps and lets everything take its normal course. Her silence has consequences, though, and not just for her relationship with her boyfriend.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Aenne Schwarz – All Good #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Eva Trobisch, director of the film All Good.

Director Eva Trobisch presented her film, All Good, in competition at the 3rd International Film Festival in Macao. All Good deals with sexual abuse, and this has been one of the talking points of the film, but in this interview, Trobisch surprisingly tells us that sexual abuse only entered the story in the second or third draft of her script. Here, she also talks about society’s way of talking about rape and the fact that the protagonist of All Good refuses to be a victim. We end the interview by asking her what it is that drives her to make movies.

All Good: “If you don’t see any problems, you don’t have any” is Janne’s attitude regarding the fact that her new boss’s brother-in-law has forced himself on her one night after a party. She keeps the incident under wraps and lets everything take its normal course. Her silence has consequences, though, and not just for her relationship with her boyfriend.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Eva Trobisch – All Good #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Jury member Paul Currie.

Filmmaker Paul Currie was a member of the jury for the competition of the 3rd International Film Festival in Macao. He talks about his experience here and we discuss the potential of establishing a bridge between the Chinese film industry and the Western one. Given that the competition here in Macao focuses on highlighting the works of first or second-time directors, we ask Currie to share with us the experience of directing his first film, what it felt like and what were the challenges we encountered. Likewise, we also talk about the challenges of preserving a director’s vision and the compromises that are often made in filmmaking, among other things.

The post Paul Currie #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Vasan Bala, director of the film The Man Who Feels No Pain.

Director Vasan Bala presented his film, The Man Who Feels No Pain, in competition at the 3rd International Film Festival and Awards Macao. The film is at once a tribute to the martial arts movies that he loves – and he enthusiastically shares a short beginners’ guide to the genre in this interview – but also draws inspiration from his own past and memories. Its protagonist, as the title suggests, is a young man who feels no pain and who grows up on a diet of martial arts videos, eventually learning how to fight. The condition he has is a metaphor, Bala explains, for the views on pain within a patriarchal society. Here, he tells us about that but also about other interesting aspects of the film, such as the music and his actors, who really had to put in quite an admirable physical performance.

The Man Who Feels No Pain: A boy called Surya suffers from a rare disorder called Congenital Insensitivity to Pain. The condition is life-threatening but he escapes his condition with the help of his only friend Supri, his mischievous grandfather Ajoba and a host of martial-arts films on VHS. He is inspired to become a vigilante as a result of one tape in particular in which a one-legged man called Karate Mani fights off 100 combattants. When he is an adult, Surya returns to the neighborhood of his childhood and begins a strange series of adventures involving Supri, Mani and Mani’s evil twin brother Jimmy.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Vasan Bala – The Man Who Feels No Pain #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Aaron Kwok, Talent Ambassador at the 3rd edition of the International Film Festival and Awards in Macao.

Actor, singer and dancer Aaron Kwok – who is considered one of the “Four Heavenly Kings” of Hong Kong – was one of this year’s Talent Ambassadors at the 3rd edition of the International Film Festival and Awards in Macao. We ask him what being in this role meant and in his answer he also tells us why he believes that Macao is an excellent setting for an international film festival such as this. He also gives us his definition of acting as well as his different approaches to singing and acting. For Kwok, learning is important and one of the things he likes the most about his profession is the constant possibilities for learning that he offers and he explains that cinema, for him, is a dream that can deeply affect one and influence one’s life.

The post Aaron Kwok #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Jury President Chen Kaige.

The great Chinese filmmaker Chen Kaige was jury president for the competition of the 3rd International Film Festival and Awards Macao. In this interview, he talks with us about what he thinks of this festival, sharing with us his surprise at its quality and the quality of the film, especially considering that it is only its third edition after all. In addition, he shares with us his views about the current situation of Chinese cinema and whether it is on par with the Chinese cinema of his generation.

The post Chen Kaige #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Luána Bajrami and Matteo Perez, actors of the film School’s Out.

School’s Out, the new film directed by Sébastien Marnier, was featured in the competition of the 3rd Macao International Film Festival and Awards. We spoke with two of its young actors, Luána Bajrami and Matteo Perez, who are part of a mysterious group of tightknit friends from an elite class who drive the narrative of the film. We ask them about how they were able to achieve such closeness with their fellow cast members, whether they were aware with the many serious themes and issues that the film tackles and what they believe are the challenges of making the transition from childhood to adulthood.

School’s Out: A high school teacher throws himself from the classroom window before the terrified eyes of his students. Despite the tragedy, six of them remain oddly cool and unemotional. Pierre, the new substitute teacher, notices the hostile behaviour of this close-knit clique. Smart and precocious, the six teenagers seem to be preparing a mysterious plan after school. Pierre becomes obsessed with them and is quickly sucked into their sinister game. His life soon turns into a nightmare.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Luána Bajrami, Matteo Perez – School’s Out #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Qiu Sheng, director of the film Suburban Birds.

Director Qiu Sheng presented his debut feature film, Suburban Birds, in competition at the 3rd International Film Festival of Macao. In this interview, he talks about how the film was based on his own memories and influenced by Kafka. We also talk about the challenges he faces in making his feature debut and he reveals that he believes he making films is perhaps the only thing he knows how to do. Furthermore, given the fact that in Suburban Birds, Qiu Sheng plays with narrative structure and makes use of devices not commonly associated with conventional filmmaking, we ask him whether he would define himself as a filmmaker who “trusts his own audience.”

Suburban Birds: Some ground subsidence has occurred in a suburban area and a team of engineers, including Hao, is dispatched to investigate the cause. After days of wandering around in the empty suburb looking for answers and carrying his heavy gear, Hao walks into a primary school where he finds a diary chronicling the story of a boy and the separation of what seems to be an intimate friend group. As he reads on, Hao discovers that this diary might contain prophecies about his own life.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Qiu Sheng – Suburban Birds #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Milko Lazarov, director of the film Ága.

Director Milko Lazarov presented his second feature, Ága, in the competition of the 2018 Macao International Film Festival. The film appears to take place in an Innuit community – yet it is all from the imagination of the director himself, who through this story tries to paint a more universal picture, a metaphor for the last people on earth and themes that remind us of family, love and the apocalypse. We talk about all this in our interview with him, as well as his choice to shoot the film in 35mm and the challenges to film in a dangerous, icy setting. Lazarov also discusses the reason why it took him five years to complete a new film, following his acclaimed 2013 award-winning feature debut Alienation.

Ága: In a yurt on the snow-covered fields of the North, Nanook and Sedna live following the traditions of their ancestors. Alone in the wilderness, they look like the last people on Earth. Nanook and Sedna’s traditional way of life starts changing – slowly, but inevitably. Hunting becomes more and more difficult, the animals around them die from inexplicable deaths and the ice has been melting earlier every year. Chena, who visits them regularly, is their only connection to the outside world – and to their daughter Ága, who has left the icy tundra a long time ago due to a family feud. When Sedna’s health deteriorates, Nanook decides to fulfill her wish. He embarks on a long journey to find Ága.

<span data-mce-type="bookmark" style="display: inline-block; width: 0px; overflow: hidden; line-height: 0;" class="mce_SELRES_start"></span>

The post Milko Lazarov – Ága #IFFAM2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.