FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Rebecca De Pas, manager of Ex Oriente Film.

An interview with Rebecca De Pas, manager of the Ex Oriente Film program, a training program for documentary filmmakers of the East European region, and the East European Forum pitching at the East Doc Platform. De Pas gives us an overview of the activities of Ex Oriente Film and the criteria for participants, as well as an overview of this year’s edition of East Doc Platform, and more.

The East Doc Platform (EDP) is the largest co-production, funding and distribution platform tailor-made for Central and East European documentaries. Every year, connecting 120 East European filmmakers to more than 100 key decision makers – producers, broadcasters, distributors and festival programmers from around the world.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Hissa Hilal, protagonist of the film The Poetess.

An interview with Saudi poet Hissa Hilal, the protagonist of the documentary The Poetess, directed by Stefanie Brockhaus and Andy Wolff, which screened at the 2018 One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. In this interview, we talk about her documentary, how she was approached by the directors, her initial reservations in shooting a film about her life, and the relationship that she established with the directors, especially Brockhaus, during the filming. But we also take this opportunity to talk about the importance of poetry in Saudi Arabia; clearly, as implied by the fact that, as explored in the film, poetry is the subject of the country’s most popular TV show, slightly reminiscent of its X-Factor western equivalent, poetry is very important. But what about women in poetry? Hissa Hilal tells us that she, herself, was quite established before becoming a participant on this show, but that before then she used a pseudonym and nobody knew her true identity. We also talk about some pressing themes of the Arab world and Arab culture, such as the segregation of the sexes, and the meaning of the term “fatwah,” which was the topic of one of her courageous poems from the show.

The Poetess: A woman’s mere public appearance is a violation of morality in conservative Saudi Arabia. Saudi poetess Hissa Hilal did the unimaginable – she starred in a television show. Million’s Poet is no ordinary talent contest. The superstars sought among contestants from Muslim countries do not have to sing or dance, but to recite their own poetry. The professional and lay jury decided that Hissa would become the first woman to take part in the contest, and her bold poems soon made her a star of Western and Arab media. Her open criticism of conservative norms and religious gender taboos earned her enthusiastic applause, but also death threats. The film presents the story of a woman who is able to combine her deep religious beliefs with profound criticism of theocratic dogma.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Marc Pierschel, director of the film The End of Meat.

An interview with Marc Pierschel, director of The End of Meat, a documentary presented at the 20th One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. The documentary, simply put, looks at what would happen if we all stopped eating meat. Despite the sensitive issue, Pierschel tells us that he did not want to be too pushy and just present people with the facts. One of the things that The End of Meat shows is that there has been a rise in vegan products and veganism in general. The rise in accessibility to vegan products has also coined a new term, “flexiterians,” and, for instance, led some butchers to make vegan products themselves. But the film examines the issue on a global scale, and in this interview, we talk about some of the specific things addressed, such as the current situation of meat products in India, and people beginning to take in non-traditionally domestic animals into their homes, proved by the popularity of Esther the Wonder Pig. Pierschel himself has been a vegan for many years and recognizes meat consumption as a critical issue, therefore, his hope is that this film will get people talking.

The End of Meat: What would the world look like if everyone gave up on meat? Can such a scenario even be conceived? What about the animals themselves? German director Marc Pierschel crosses continents to chart the mutual influence of the animal industry and the shape of our society. The starting point of his exploration is Germany, where the wind of change has so far been strongest. Large chain stores have pure vegan sections, and more and more vegan restaurants are emerging throughout the country. But are people really capable of consistently replacing meat with meatless products? What are the stories of those who have chosen to make this change? The documentary seeks answers among the scientists who create meat products without meat, philosophers who ask ethical questions about the cohabitation of humans with animals, and the animals themselves, liberated from large-scale farming and slaughterhouses.

To know more about the documentary, click here.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Margarita Cadenas, director of the film Women of the Venezuelan Chaos.

An interview with Margarita Cadenas, director of the documentary Women of the Venezuelan Chaos, which was featured in the program of the 20th One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival of Prague, Czech Republic. The documentary explores the current chaos experienced in Venezuela, which according to Cadenas is a situation that has progressed over the years, and began while Hugo Chavez was still in power. In making this documentary, the director wanted to explore the lives of real people, and she chose five women who would help explore five themes: health, shortage, political imprisonment, and fear. In this interview, Cadenas talks about finding the women whose stories make up the fabric of the film, and comments on the way in which the Venezuelan situation is covered by the global media at large.

Women of the Venezuelan Chaos: The stories of these five Venezuelan women are very different, but all have one thing in common: they are evidence of a serious social, economic and political crisis in their country, which is on the brink of complete collapse. The food shops are empty and the government has introduced rationing. There is no medicine in the hospitals, and doctors must choose who to treat and who to leave. Crime is skyrocketing. Political prisoners remain behind bars, and corruption and injustice are spreading deeper into the system. The government is trying to conceal from the world and its own citizens the fact that the state is suffering its worst crisis in the last 200 years. Director Margarita Cadenas has created a unique film about the true state of affairs. It depicts the stories of five women of different generations and social strata who are trying to cope with the chaos in their country.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Elizabeth McIntyre, director of Sheffield Doc Fest.

An interview with Elizabeth McIntyre, director an CEO of Sheffield Doc Fest, from the 20th One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival, where she was one of the international jurors. McIntyre reveals that this is her first time at One World. She talks about her experience here in Prague and singles out a film that she was particularly struck by, the Czech/Slovak co-production When the War Comes, directed by Jan Gebert. McIntyre also talks about her background in English literature and how it helped and influenced her own filmmaker. “I have always loved storytelling,” she says, “and how it helps you find your place in the world.” Interestingly, the tagline of the upcoming edition of Sheffield Doc Fest is “What’s Your Story?,” which prompts us to ask her for a brief overview of the festival.

For more information on the Sheffield Doc Fest, which will take place this year on June 7-12, click here.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Pau Ortiz and Maria Nova Lopez, director and producer of the film The Other Side of the Wall. 

The feature documentary The Other Side of the Wall had its Czech premiere at the 2018 One World Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. We met up with director Pau Ortiz and cinematographer and producer Maria Nova Lopez to talk about it. Ortiz describes the film as a “touching movie about two young siblings that fight with the power of the law.” As young people from Honduras, whose mother was imprisoned, it is remarkable to see them find the strength they need to carry on against many struggles. As the director says, “the film is also about boarders.” Nova Lopez also talks about how the protagonists reacted to the cameras and adds that “I myself, when I watch the film … realize how close I was.” Originally intended to be a short film, the filmmakers were inspired to follow the entire journey of the family through their struggle. They talk benefit from a fair share of good luck, and among other things, share with us a happy ending that reveals how the power of a film can have a direct effect on the real world.

The Other Side of the Wall: An intimate documentary drama that follows a six-member family from Honduras who fled to Mexico in search of a better life. But everything goes wrong when the mother is arrested on dubious charges. They should be focusing on school, their love lives, friends and typical teenage problems. Instead, 18-year-old Alejandro has become the family’s breadwinner and 13-year-old Rocio the carer of their younger siblings. When the news comes that their mother will have to spend 10 years in prison, the tension between the older siblings increases. Their immigrant status also doesn’t help, nor does the fact that Alejandro and his girlfriend are expecting a baby of their own. Will they have to return to Honduras without their mother or risk a visit to the United States, whose new presidential administration is hostile to immigrants from Mexico?

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Alexander Kleider, director of the film Berlin Rebel High School. 

An interview with Alexander Kleider, director of Berlin Rebel High School, screened at the 20th One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. The film talks about a very unusual but inspiring high school establishment for young people who never finished high school, and presents and alternative model of education countering the hostile ones of German state schools. One way in which it does this is by distancing the concept of learning from that of pain, or of learning as a painful experience. “In state schools,” Kleider explains, “we don’t learn in a positive way. Learning is always connected to marks and results and that stresses the students.” The stress and competitiveness of the situation impact the students, and the impact extends to such further problems associated with school as bullying. Berlin Rebel High School also follows lives of the students and teachers and documents the development of a new way of learning that is part of the delight of the documentary. Kleider himself often shot unaware of what would be developed next, an intense process for which he suffered through “many sleepless nights.” Nonetheless, the warmth of the school community extended to the filmmaking process and, in any case, as he tells us in this interview, “I could never make a documentary about people who don’t want to be filmed.”

Berlin Rebel High School: This high school has no headmaster and no grades. The teachers are paid by the students, who set the curriculum and manage the day-to-day running of the school. Hanil, Lena, and Alex never finished high school. Although they’re now over 20, they decide it’s time for a change. They enroll in an unconventional school, the only one of its kind in Germany. In the absence of the usual school hierarchy and classroom pressures, the new students are initially enthusiastic, especially about the community life at this peculiar educational institution. But at the end of the day, they have to pass the same final exam as in all other German schools. And they only have two years to prepare. Will they succeed?

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Carol Salter, director of the film Almost Heaven. 

Director Carol Salter presented her film, Almost Heaven, at the 20th One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. The documentary tells the story of a young Chinese girl who learns about friendship, love and caring for the dead as she learns to become a mortician. “It was fear and intrigue that took me to China,” Salter tells us. In this interview, she talks about meeting her young protagonist and how she was able to establish a level of trust with her and the funeral parlor despite the fact that she did not speak in Chinese. “Access in documentary is always a challenge … and death is always a taboo subject, especially in China.” She also talks about shooting the film on her own, and the benefit of “self-shooting” to make Almost Heaven. Salter also reveals the personal reasons for making the documentary, such as dealing with loss and her own mortality.

Almost Heaven: A deeply personal documentary set against the unusual backdrop of a Chinese funeral home that follows the story of Ying, a teenager for whom this place represents a first job, friendship, and also boredom. Ying Ling is only 17 years old and works in one of China’s largest funeral homes, where she and her peers learn the precise work of washing the dead and arranging the funeral ceremony. Early years of life intermingle with the end of life and the painful emotions of relatives. Ying, however, remains a teenage girl with all the joys and sorrows this brings. She takes time to play video games, experiences her first love, but also a painful separation from her parents and a fear of ghosts. Can these different worlds merge into one?

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews director Kim Longinotto at the 2018 One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague.

An interview with the great documentary filmmaker Kim Longinotto, who was the subject of a retrospective at the 20th One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival in Prague, Czech Republic. Longinotto opens the interview by speaking about the project she is working on at the moment, which will be based on the life of Italian photographer Letizia Battaglia, whom she describes as a rebellious woman, as many other women of her previous films. We also talk about her beginnings, from her years in boarding school to working with her father, who was a photographer as a child. Despite her early encounter with photography, she insists that she used to hate cameras, and didn’t want to have anything to do with them. Years later, she kickstarted a remarkable career of many award-winning documentaries, including Sisters in Law (2005), Pink Saris (2010), and Dreamcatcher (2015), screened at One World this year. Longinotto talks about her working method, which entails always knowing what she’s got while she’s filming, and waiting for a moment that would allow “people to feel stronger,” rather than come away from the film feeling hopeless. she also talks about traveling to distant places to make her films, and why she often struggles to find a story worth telling that is closer to her own home, and shares with us her thoughts on cinema in general, including how people connect personal with films, liking “films where people leap out of their own cultures and transform their lives,” whether one has to agree with a film ideologically to deem it a good film, and more.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Moritz Riesewieck, co-director of the film The Cleaners.

Martin Riesewieck presented his documentary The Cleaners, which he co-directed with Hans Block, at the 2018 One World International Human Rights Documentary Film Festival. The Cleaners was the opening film of this year’s festival and screened at two different venues in Prague, Czech Republic, at almost simultenously. Both screenings were also sold out, and the question and answer sessions that followed the film at them revealed that this is certainly a documentary that will get people talking and start debate. That, of course, is the aim of the filmmakers, who examine the little talked about issue of the people who rid our social media of inappropriate content. The subject is problematic, and as Riesewieck highlights in this interview, the question is, “we are so worried about our democracy in the analog world; why aren’t we as concerned about the digital world?” The Cleaners specifically focuses on this activity and the way in which it operates in the Philippines, which is a hotspot of the industry and is used by the main social media companies. In this interview, Riesewieck gives us a detailed overview of the situation and why it is indeed time to raise awareness about and to start talking about it. He also talks about whether he believes the film will cause some type of backlash and anger people, especially once it is made available on the internet, and much more.

The Cleaners: Any video can be uploaded to the web through social media. This does not, however, mean that all such material will remain there. Tens of thousands of “cleaners” work behind the scenes to ensure that only approved content is accessible to users. The role of cleaners, hired by companies such as Facebook or Google, is to search for and delete inappropriate content. Although they work undercover, the filmmakers have managed to contact some of the “content moderators” working in the Filipino capital of Manila. Their experiences include the appealing ordeal of finding child pornography or recordings of Islamic murders. The gradual devastation of the moderators’ psyches is not the only problem within this profession. Another flaw is that content is often deemed inappropriate if it does not suit the governments of individual countries or if, for instance, it tells about the reality of wartime conflicts in an alarming manner. At which point does the effort to prevent the spread of evil become dangerous censorship?

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