FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Etienne Kallos, director of the film The Harvesters.

Etienne Kallos is a passionate director. He loves his films but most of all he loves the actors, that he employed to tell a story of a family.  However, The Harvesters is not just the story of a family,  but of a region of the world, where belonging to the land is the most important thing, and where religion is a tool employed to accept the harshness of life and to find reasons to continue.

The Harvesters: South Africa, Free State region, isolated stronghold to the Afrikaans white ethnic minority culture. In this conservative farming territory obsessed with strength and masculinity, Janno is different, secretive, emotionally frail. One day his mother, fiercely religious, brings home Pieter, a hardened street orphan she wants to save, and asks Janno to make this stranger into his brother. The two boys start a fight for power, heritage and parental love.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Dina Emam, producer of the film Yo Meddine.

Born from Egyptian parents but living and breathing in New York City, first time feature film producer Dina Eman meets FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti to describe her journey into production with Yo Meddine by A.B. Shawky, in competition at the 71st Festival De Cannes. It was the story about a friendship, about certain freaks being cast out of society that convinced Dina that A. B Shawky’s idea was the one she could produce to turn it into a film. In this very moment in history, the lesson we could learn from Yo Meddine is that “we should all look at people like Obama, the little boy in the film, looks at Beshay and everyone he meets along his way”. No more outsiders, only people.

Yo Meddine: Beshay – a man cured of leprosy – has never left the leper colony in the Egyptian desert where he has lived since childhood. Following the death of his wife, he finally decides to go in search of his roots. With his meagre possessions strapped to a donkey cart, he sets out. Quickly joined by Obama, the Nubian orphan he has taken under his wing, Beshay will cross Egypt and confront the world with all its sorrows, its hardships and moments of grace, in his quest for a family, a place to belong, a little humanity…

For the page of the film on the Festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews A. B. Shawky, director of the film Yo Meddine.

A few of us know that in Egypt there is still a leper colony where people with this illness are put aside from society. With Yo Meddine, A. B. Shawky takes this subject into the light to transform it into a story about a great friendship,the one between Beshay and little Obama. Yo Meddine is in competition at the 71st Festival de Cannes and he explains why the topic of leprosy is nowadays more of a social problem than a medical one.

Yo Meddine: Beshay – a man cured of leprosy – has never left the leper colony in the Egyptian desert where he has lived since childhood. Following the death of his wife, he finally decides to go in search of his roots. With his meagre possessions strapped to a donkey cart, he sets out. Quickly joined by Obama, the Nubian orphan he has taken under his wing, Beshay will cross Egypt and confront the world with all its sorrows, its hardships and moments of grace, in his quest for a family, a place to belong, a little humanity…

For the page of the film on the Festival website, click here.

The post A. B. Shawky – Yo Meddine #Cannes2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Ali Abbasi, director of the film Gräns.

The risk of defining Gräns as a horror drama could be limiting it to a certain genre and losing the essence of this film, the second feature by Ali Abbasi, screening at the 71st Festival de Cannes in the Un Certain Regard section. It is more than a horror drama, it’s based on nordic myths and folk tales but it’s a love story about two outsiders finding each other. As Ali Abbasi remarks, they’re both trying to find their place in the world and still deciding who they want to be in life. Gräns is among the most unconventional films to end up in a selection like the Un Certain Regard which is expected to be more classic although attentive towards new “cinematic looks”. It’s not the first time Ali Abbasi is on FRED Film Radio as he was already interviewed once for his first feature film Shelley screening at the Berlinale 2016 in the Panorama section.

Gräns: Customs officer Tina is known for her extraordinary sense of smell. It’s almost as if she can sniff out the guilt on anyone hiding something. But when Vore, a suspicious-looking man, walks past her, her abilities are challenged for the first time ever. Tina can sense Vore is hiding something she can’t identify. Even worse, she feels a strange attraction to him. As Tina develops a special bond with Vore and discovers his true identity, she also realizes the truth about herself. Tina, like Vore, does not belong to this world. Her entire existence has been one big lie and now she has to choose: keep living the lie or embrace Vore’s terrifying revelations.

For the page of the film on the Festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Victor Polster, actor of the film Girl.

Victor Polster is a professional ballet dancer and with Girl he signs his debut on the big screen. Girl is Lukas Dhont’s first feature film and it’s screening at the 71st edition of Festival de Cannes. Victor plays Lara, a teenage girl born in a boy’s body who’s not only struggling to prepare for the operation that will finally turn her into a “girl” but she’s also working hard to become a prima ballerina at a prestigious ballet school. Polster reveals that he auditioned for a supporting role and ended up becoming the protagonist.

Girl: Determined 15 year old Lara is committed to becoming a professional ballerina. With the support of her father, she throws herself into this quest for the absolute at a new school. Lara’s adolescent frustrations and impatience are heightened as she realizes her body does not bend so easily to the strict discipline because she was born a boy.

For the page of the film on the Festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Lukas Dhont, director of the film Girl.

It was 2009 when Lukas Dhont saw an article in a Belgian newspaper about a 15 year old girl who wanted to become a ballerina but was born in a boy’s body. He was immediately attracted and the result of his interest is his first feature film, Girl, screening at the 71st Festival de Cannes in the Un Certain Regard. On FRED Lukas Dhont declares how his film not only wants to describe the struggle of the teenage years but also how a person so young can be so determined in life so to work hard enough to become the perfect dancer and to face a transition into another gender. In order to explore the concept of genre and sexual orientation Lukas looked for a protagonist that could be at the same time an amazing dancer and an exceptional dramatic actor. After searching and searching, in a ballet school he then found Viktor Polster and Lara, the film’s main character, was born.

Girl: Determined 15 year old Lara is committed to becoming a professional ballerina. With the support of her father, she throws herself into this quest for the absolute at a new school. Lara’s adolescent frustrations and impatience are heightened as she realizes her body does not bend so easily to the strict discipline because she was born a boy.

For the page of the film on the Festival website, click here.

The post Lukas Dhont – Girl #Cannes2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Bénédicte Prot interviews Samal Yeslyamova, actress of the film Ayka.

Kazakhstan’s Samal Yeslyamova, the main actress of Ayka, tells us about the utter centrality of her role, with the camera always on her, the physical intensity of it, and her work with Sergey Dvortsevoy. Her committed and courageous performance owed her the Best Actress Award of this 71st edition of the Cannes Film Festival.

Ayka just gave birth. She can’t afford to raise a child. She has no job, debts to be paid, not even a room of her own. But there is no way to suppress her natural instincts.

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PODCAST | Bénédicte Prot interviews Sergey Dvortsevoy, director of the film Ayka.

One of the last movies to screen in competition in Cannes this year was Ayka. As he exited the gala screening of the film, FRED met with Kazakh filmmaker Sergey Dvortsevoy, already awarded in Cannes in 2008 (Prix Un Certain Regard for Tulpan), to ask him about the painstaking journey of the title character, also experienced by the viewer, and the rhetorics of the body in relation to repulsion (well accentuated by the sound work), which seems to corroborate a discourse on the rejection of the foreign body or organ, by the young mother in denial as well as by the Russian society towards the Kyrgyz illegal that she is. Starring Samal Yeslyamova – Award for Best Actress, Cannes 2018.

Ayka just gave birth. She can’t afford to raise a child. She has no job, debts to be paid, not even a room of her own. But there is no way to suppress her natural instincts.

The post Sergey Dvortsevoy – Ayka #Cannes2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Rohena Gera, director of the film Sir.

Rohena Gera, director of Sir, has always been interested in class issues in her society and with this film she faces them from a different perspective. As she tells us, it is time to talk about that in Indian society, and she wants to do her part.

Sir: Ratna works as domestic live-in help with Ashwin, a man from a wealthy family. Although Ashwin seems to have it all, Ratna can sense that he has given up on his dreams and is somewhat lost… On the other hand, Ratna who seems to have nothing, is full of hope and works determinedly towards her dream. As these two worlds collide and the two individuals connect, the barriers between them seem only more insurmountable…

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Tillotama Shome and Vivek Gomber, actors of the film Sir.

Tillotama Shome and Vivek Gomber, the lead actors of the feature film Sir, talk passionately with us about the film and the experience of doing it together. They share their thoughts on their own personal rules in any acting job and about helping each other on set, as if one actor shines the other does so too.

Sir: Ratna works as domestic live-in help with Ashwin, a man from a wealthy family. Although Ashwin seems to have it all, Ratna can sense that he has given up on his dreams and is somewhat lost… On the other hand, Ratna who seems to have nothing, is full of hope and works determinedly towards her dream. As these two worlds collide and the two individuals connect, the barriers between them seem only more insurmountable…

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