FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Nicolò Comotti interviews Marie Garel-Weiss, director of the film The Party’s Over.

Marie Garel-Weiss tells us the origins and the get-go of her first feature The Party’s Over, here in Lecce’s European Cinema Festival in its official competition. The Party’s Over is a study on addiction as well as today’s youth, with its paradoxical ways of living and struggling. Brilliantly performed by Zita Hanrot and Clémence Boisnard, The Party’s Over is a powerful work that sheds a refreshing and original light on a topic that is too often overlooked or dangerously simplified.

The Party’s Over is the story of a revival, that of Céleste and Sihem. Having arrived on the same day at a rehab facility, they will seal an indestructible friendship. It will be as much a force as an obstacle when, expelled from their shelter, they are left on their own, facing the true world and its temptations. The real fight will then begin; fight for sobriety and freedom, fight towards life.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Nicolò Comotti interviews Bas Keizer, actor of the film Cobain.

Bas Keizer shares his memories on the set of Nanouk Leopold’s latest work Cobain. As his very first time as an actor, Bas has only profited from this experience: he will continue to act while learning about shooting and being a filmmaker.

Cobain (15) tries to get his pregnant mother Mia to quit her self-destructive lifestyle. When she refuses to clean up her act, Cobain takes over.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Nicolò Comotti interviews Michael Onder, director of the film Taksim Hold’em.

Michael Onder, director of Taksim Hold’em, is here in Lecce at the 19th edition of the European Cinema Festival. Taksim Hold’em is a wonderfully written and brilliantly sharp comedy, which finds remarkable depths and strengths while being physically confined in a comfortable middle class apartment in Instanbul. Softly attenuated by double-glazed windows, the clashes in Taksim square are just a distant noise. What we are left with are the clattering and hilarious contradictions that imbue Onder’s characters. Their morals and consequent actions are at stray, laid bare on the green felt of a poker table.

Taksim Hold’em: On a Saturday night in Istanbul, despite the pleas of his fiancée, cynical Alper refuses to join the anti-government protests happening on his doorstep. He just wants to stay home for his weekly dose of poker, played with his regular crew of high-school friends. Alper’s game is threatened as his friends set off on a series of passionate, and at times ill-thought-out, squabbles on whether they should join the demonstrations or not.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Michael Onder – Taksim Hold’em #fceLecce appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Nicolò Comotti interviews Cemre Asarli, associate producer of the film Yellow Heat.

Cemre Asarli talks to us about her experience as associate producer on the film Yellow Heat, by Fikret Reyhan, here in Lecce’s official competition. Focusing mainly on Yellow Heat‘s festival strategy, Cemre confesses that, ultimately, the most valuable advice for all the producers out there is to simply and firmly believe in the project they are part of. We second that emotion.

Yellow Heat: In a field surrounded and squeezed by increasing industrialization, an immigrant family, deep in financial debt, struggles to survive through traditional farming. Their son, Ibrahim, determined to find his own way, dreams of a different future for himself. Ibrahim is surrounded by not only his family’s feudal circumstances but also the merciless system of the region. However, he finds that it is not so easy to turn a dream into reality. His actions will have many unexpected consequences for both himself and for his family. Yellow Heat aims to tell the story of people who are affected by the change of production relations and in parallel by the change of the capital.

The post Cemre Asarli – Yellow Heat #fceLecce appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Nicolò Comotti interviews director Michael Winterbottom at the European Cinema Festival in Lecce.

Fred has the pleasure to sit down with Michael Winterbottom, here in Lecce’s European Cinema Festival to receive the Golden Olive Tree Award. Winterbottom’s approach to cinema has always given a hard time to critics, who have been struggling to pin him with the conventional “Auteur” label. In turn, Winterbottom’s limitless love for the medium has provided us with a body of work so exciting and prolific that showcases the unique strength of a director capable of achieving the highest results while tackling the most heterogenous topics and styles.

One of the most eclectic and unpredictable directors in contemporary British cinema, Michael Winterbottom is a great narrator who holds the most classical taste along with daring stylistic choices. Highly revered by the world’s most authoritative festivals, he has been awarded in Berlin with In This World and Road to Guantanamo, in San Sebastian with Genova. Here in Lecce, Winterbottom will receive the Golden Olive Tree for his career achievements.

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The UMAQ project interviews Alejandro Moledo (New Technologies & Innovation Officer, European Disability Forum). The UMAQ interviews on Media Accessibility Quality are part of the project “Understanding Media Accessibility Quality” carried out by Gian Maria Greco at the TransMedia Catalonia Research Group of the Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. The UMAQ project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Individual Fellowship grant agreement No 752659. Media partners of the UMAQ project are FRED Film Radio and the Media Accessibility Platform.

Media Accessibility is the research area dealing with the “theories, practices, services, technologies and instruments that provide access to media products, services, and environments for people that cannot, or cannot properly, access that content in its original form” (Greco 2016). Media Accessibility is at the core of the most pressing priorities of the European Commission, such as the European Disability Strategy 2010-2020 and the Digital Single Market Strategy. For a long time, policies involving Media Accessibility have been concerned with quantity, that is, setting quotas for inducing the widespread adoption of media accessibility solutions, e.g. hours per year of subtitled TV programmes. Now that quotas are being met in many EU countries, attention is shifting over to quality. Standardisation is the very instrument through which quality requirements are implemented at a policy level. Unfortunately, accessibility standardisation at an EU level is subject to a fragmented situation due to a plethora of divergent rules. Difficulties in harmonising the various standards, beyond mere differences in terms of national systems, are mainly due to a lack of research: the absence of a theoretical framework for understanding quality in media accessibility. The overall aim of this project is indeed to carry out the first comprehensive analysis of the notion of quality in Media Accessibility and provide a unified theoretical framework for understanding it. Under the hypothesis that Media Accessibility groups a series of practices to manage, transform and transfer data and information, the project will draw on scholarship on data and information quality and investigate if and how it can help to successfully deal with Media Accessibility Quality. The project will boost a coordinated research programme at an international level and enable the creation of a set of recommendations aimed at strengthening EU policies, which will in turn benefit all the stakeholders in the accessibility value chain and facilitate the achievement of a Digital Single Market.

To discover more about the Project, click here.

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PODCAST| Yuko Torihara interviews Atsuko Hirayanagi, director and writer of the film Oh Lucy!.

Yuko Torihara interviews writer/director Atsuko Hirayanagi on her first feature Oh Lucy! an award winning short film turned feature which debut at the director’s fortnight at Cannes Film Festival in 2017.

Oh Lucy!:  The story of an aging Japanese office lady at her second chance to life.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Ruth Kaaserer and Gwendolyn Leick, director and protagonist of the film Gwendolyn.

Director Ruth Kaaserer presented her documentary, Gwendolyn, at the 2018 One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival alongside its protagonist, Gwendolyn Leick, an anthropologist in her sixties who also happens to be an inspiring record breaking weightlifter. “Gwendolyn surprised me constantly,” tells us Kaaserer in this interview, recalling how the project began and how it developed, “she is a very inspiring person. When I met her I knew from the very first moment that we could go somewhere together.” We ask Leick how and why she started weightlifting, and how it has helped her cope with her illness and failing health: “It’s a very important factor in keeping going,” she explains. Leick also tells us whether she was surprised that Kaaserer wanted to make a film about her and whether the cameras ever got in the way of her intense training. She also introduces to us her two writing projects that she is currently working on.

Gwendolyn: This intimate documentary reveals the dramatic life misadventures of 65-year-old Gwendolyn Leick – a unique woman with great inner strength, an immigrant from Western Europe, anthropologist, and world weightlifting champion. What predetermines our life course, the battles we fight, and our moral fibre? Do specific circumstances play a role? These key questions are addressed in this film about the tireless winner Gwen and the momentous challenges she has faced. Formerly from Austria, but long living in London, she is a researcher and writer, as well as a perceptive mother, partner, and friend, who never planned to become a weightlifter. Nevertheless, even in this sport, as in the case of the many other roles she has held in her life, she has achieved success. Inconspicuous but charismatic Gwen is proof that a strong will is enough to overcome any barrier as long as one is willing to accept the rules of the game.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Bálint Révész, director of the film Granny Project.

Director Bálint Révész talks about his documentary Granny Project, which was presented at the 2018 One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. Révész made the documentary in collaboration with two of his best friends, whom he met while studying fine arts in Brighton, U.K. One night, while working on another project, they started talking to each other about their grandmothers, and that is what Granny Project is about. The three grandmothers from different parts of Europe: a Hungarian Jew and holocaust survivor, a German long-time admirer of Hitler, and a former British spy. “The film is about them,” the director tells us in this interview, “and how we see them and how we perceive them.” It is also, he explains, as much about retracing a history of the twentieth century as it is about the transcendental relationship between grandmothers and their grandchildren. Révész also tells us that filming took seven years and, in this interview, he tells us about how the project developed while shooting, but also how it brought them all closer together on a human level.

Granny Project: Three young filmmakers try to revive their grandmothers’ memories in a personal and playful film. They arrange for all of them to meet. A Hungarian Jew, a long-time admirer of Hitler, and a former British spy embark an unconventional road trip. How does family history affect our approach to others and to ourselves? Three young filmmakers from Great Britain, Germany and Hungary take on the serious theme of World War II with a light touch. Each of them has the task of interviewing their own grandmother. Thanks to these ladies’ willingness to play along, the personal stories of women who experienced the Second World War on different sides emerge. The young filmmakers learn through the stories of their grandmothers about their family history, but also about themselves.

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PODCAST| Cristiana Palmieri interviews Rachael Belle Myers, director, writer and producer of the film Curated Illusions.

Rachael Belle Myers talks about the role played in our day to day lives by mobile devices and their profound impact on health and safety. Rachael Belle wants to inspire change to make a difference in the way people deals with social media.

Curated Illusions:  After an accident leaves her with amnesia, Skye Reed tries to use her social media account to rediscover who she is. But when the online version of her life doesn’t reflect her reality, her world begins to crumble as she realises she doesn’t like the person she truly is.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Rachael Belle Myers – Curated Illusions appeared first on Fred Film Radio.