FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Golshifteh Farahani, actress of the film The Song of Scorpions.

The Song of Scorpions screened at the 70th Locarno Festival in Piazza Grande. The film, directed by Anup Singh, stars Golshifteh Farahani as Nooran, a woman whose spirit is taken after suffering a violent attack at the hands of a man. Farahani talks about what drew her to the project, and what she immediately liked about the character. She praises the director, whom she calls a poet, and talks about her co-star, Irrfan Khan. Our conversation goes beyond the film and filming process of The Song of Scorpions itself. Farahani discusses the importance of painful moments and the impact their have on our lives. She also talks about the role of noble arts, whether a work should strive to achieve a sense of timelessness, and, also, whether she ever thinks about how her image is “immortalized” on camera.

The Song of Scorpions: Nooran is learning the ancient art of healing from her grandmother, a scorpion-singer. Aadam, a camel trader, falls in love when he hears her sing. But before long, Nooran is poisoned by a treachery and must undertake a journey to avenge herself and find her song.

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Anup Singh, director of the film The Song of Scorpions.

Director Anup Singh’s latest film premiered in Piazza Grande during the 70th Locarno Festival in Switzerland. In this extensive interviews, recorded over two sessions in different locations, allows us to dig deep into The Song of Scorpions but also into the mind of Singh, who tells us about his ideas on filmmaking, art, life, and some of the topics and elements that inspired his latest film. Singh tells us that the film came to him in a dream, and was inspired by his outrage towards the terrible acts of violence towards women that have taken place in India over the past number of years. This leads to a conversation about the flaws and dangers of a partriarchal society. We also talk about the importance of music, language, and art in this context. How does a film present us with an alternative truth, and how does it do so in The Song of Scorpions? Other topics discussed in this interview include: his screenwriting technique; setting up rhythm and pace during filmmaking; the powerful presence of the desert, which is a character of its own in The Song of Scorpions; the lead performances of the film by Irrfan Khan and Golshifteh Farahani; and much more.

The Song of Scorpions: Nooran is learning the ancient art of healing from her grandmother, a scorpion-singer. Aadam, a camel trader, falls in love when he hears her sing. But before long, Nooran is poisoned by a treachery and must undertake a journey to avenge herself and find her song.

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

The post Anup Singh – The Song of Scorpions #Locarno70 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Turner interviews Kim Dae-hwan, director of the film Cho-haeng (The Final Lap).

Kim Dae-hwan’s Cho-haeng sensitively depicts the doubts and struggles of a couple six years into their relationship who, upon learning they may be having a child, travel home to better understand the nature of their connection and the extent of their growth together. We discussed the origin of the project and Kim’s personal connection to the material and the regions in which Cho-haeng was set, his improvisational methods for extracting a realistic and relatable emotional experience out of modest moments, and what it means to make films about the family as many great South East Asian directors have done before him.

Cho-haeng (The Final Lap): Su-hyeon, a teacher at a private art institute, and Ji-young, a contract worker at a small network enterprise have been living together for six years. To his surprise, Su-hyeon finds out that Ji-young is late for her period and, in view of the birth of his child, he seizes the opportunity to reunite with his family. The couple sets off for Samcheok, at the far end of the east coast.

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Ben Russell, director of the film Good Luck.

Director Ben Russell talks about his latest film, Good Luck, from the 70th Locarno Festival where it screened as part of the international competition. This documentary is a portrait of two mining communities in different parts of the world: Serbian copper miners and gold miners from Suriname. Russell talks about his reasons for making the movie. We also dissect the film and single out a number of elements of Good Luck, including the use of black and white close-ups of the miners and what having shot the film on Super16mm film adds to it..

Good Luck: shot on Super16mm, Good Luck is a portrait of two mining communities operating on opposite sides of a hostile world: the state employees of a 400m-deep underground Serbian copper mine and the Maroon laborers of an illegal gold mining operation in the jungle tropics of Suriname.

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Felix Randau, director of the film Iceman.

Director Felix Randau’s Iceman screened in Piazza Grande at the 70th Locarno Festival. He stopped by FRED’s studio to talk about it. The starting point of the movie is, arguably, the oldest unsolved mystery: that surrounding the death of a body that was discovered years ago and later turned out to have died over 5,300 years ago. Randau tells us why he decided to tell this story in Iceman. He also talks about some of the most daring choices he opted for, most notably, the choice to use an imagined but informed language for the dialogue, and how the actors dealt with this challenge. He also discusses the cinematography and the specific location scouting, which was a lengthy and necessary process.

Iceman: the Otztal Alps, more than 5,300 years ago. A Neolithic clan has settled near a creek where their leader, Kelab, is the keeper of the holy shrine, Tineka. One day, while Kelab has gone hunting, the settlement is attacked and the members of the tribe brutally murdered, including Kelab’s wife and son. The holy shrine is stolen and the only survivor is a newborn baby. Blinded by the pain, Kelab sets out on a journey to seek revenge, and has no other choice than to bring the infant with him. The characters in the film speak an early version of the Rhaetic language. No translation is required to comprehend the story.

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Bénédicte Prot interviews Annemarie Jacir, director of the film Wajib (Duty).

Palestinian director Annemarie Jacir tells us more about her third feature Wajib (Duty) – after Salt of This Sea (FIPRESCI Prize Un Certain Regard, Cannes; Palestine’s 2008 Oscars entry) and When I Saw You (Palestine’s 2012 Oscars entry) -, starting with the interesting Palestinian/Mediterranean wedding invitation ritual which is the reason for the day-long father-and-son road trip accross the streets of Nazareth that the film depicts, as the duo visits one by one the homes of their many future guests, and confront each other, and reunite. Jacir talks about eternal Christmas, white lies, and the universal implications of this very touching story. She also describes the dream-related process which led her to cast, to play the father of Saleh Bakri’s character in Wajib (Duty), his real-life father, Mohammad Bakri.

Wajib (Duty): Abu Shadi is a divorced father and a school teacher in his mid-60s living in Nazareth. After his daughter’s wedding in one month he will be living alone. Shadi, his architect son, arrives from Rome after years abroad to help his father in hand delivering the wedding invitations as per local Palestinian custom. As the estranged pair spend the day together, the tense details of their relationship come to a head challenging their fragile and very different lives.

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Andrei Cretulescu, director of the film Charleston.

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Andrei Cretulescu who’s at the 70th Locarno Festival with his first feature film Charleston. The title refers to the particular music genre and Cretulescu explains how the title was perfect because it can be exported everywhere in the world without being translated. Charleston contains many explicit references to the 70’s Italian comedy and Cretulescu reveals how he grew up with that cinema and how he desperately look for a red and old FIAT 500 that could be function and sustain a road trip. Charleston finally describes how you can even become friends with a love rival when he’s the only one you can share the same pain with.

Charleston: a couple of weeks after the fatal car crash of his wife, Ioana, Alexandru is drunk and alone as he celebrates his 42th birthday. He receives an unexpected visit from Sebastian, a shy and younger man, who had been Ioana’s lover for the past five months. Sebastian wants Alexandru to help him overcome the despair caused by the woman’s death.

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Dominik Locher, director of the film Goliath.

Director Dominik Locher presented his feature film Goliath in the international competition of the 70th Locarno Festival, a film about a young man, soon-to-be a father, developing an addiction to injecting steroids and excessive power training. In this interview he talks about his tackling this sort of addiction; the exploration of the theme of male vulnerability; his actors Sven Schelker and Jasna Fritzi Bauer (who play the central couple of Goliath), and more. Given his personal connection to the Locarno Festival, not only as a Swiss filmmaker, we also ask him to tell us what film he considers to have been the most important of his life (in reference to this year’s edition #movieofmylife initiative): he tells us one title, than another, then a few more, etc.

Goliath: gentle gestures, passionate gazes: separated from the rest of the world, David and Jessy live in a simple two-room apartment in the suburbs. Their love is put to the test when Jessy unintentionally gets pregnant. The thought of becoming a father causes David to panic. When, a few days later, they are attacked in the suburban train and David is unable to protect his girlfriend, David’s fear of not being man enough is confirmed. In desperation, he starts to inject anabolic steroids and gets into excessive power training. His newly acquired muscles initially help him to feel strong and confident. But the effect of the steroids soon turns negative. David develops aggressive and unpredictable traits and becomes a threat to his girlfriend and the unborn child…

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Rana Eid, director of the film Panoptic.

Director Rana Eid talks about Panoptic, her feature directorial debut, which premiered at the 70th Locarno Festival in the Signs of Life competition. Panoptic is Eid’s personal journey through Beirut’s underground, but it is also a film exploring the past and present of Lebanon, with observation on its future; it is a version of the truth. In this interview, she talks with us about the film’s haunting theme of an impossibility of burying the dead; the impact of her work as a sound designer on Panoptic; the importance of information and the danger of a lack of it, and more.

Panoptic: delving into Beirut’s underground, Panoptic explores Lebanon’s schizophrenia. Depicting a nation thriving for modernity while ignoring the vices preventing it from achieving its goal, director Rana Eid examines this paradox through sound, iconic monuments and secret hideouts.

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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PODCAST | Bénédicte Prot interviews Serge Bozon, director of the film Madame Hyde.

Every few years, with the help of his long-term accomplice, scriptwriter Axelle Ropert, actor Serge Bozon turns into an exuberantly imaginative director and delivers a hilarious comedy full of witty dialogues, verging on the absurd whilst being extremely ingenious, and interpreted by brilliant actors who delight us with their masterfully colourful rendition of Bozon’s quirky characters. Madame Hyde is his fifth venture of this kind. Bozon tells us more about the darker side that slowly emerges in this comedy inspired by Stephenson’s famous novel, the choice of a suburban high-school as a setting, the way his various main characters hide/hyde behind certain schemes of thought which are not illogical despite their apparent wackiness, and about the very interesting message on rational thinking at the bottom of it all.

Madame Hyde: Mrs. Géquil is an eccentric teacher despised by her colleagues and students. On a stormy night, she is struck by lightning and faints. When she wakes up, she feels different. Will she now be able to keep the powerful and dangerous Mrs. Hyde contained?

For the official page of the film on the festival website, click here.

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