FRED Film Radio - English Channel

“Nostalgia for the Future” starts from the archives of Chris Marker, pivotal figure in modern filmmaking, that are partially disclosed. The director Brecth Debackere talks with us about his approach to that material and the way he decided to tell the story of Chris Marker from his archives, not in a classic way, for sure.

The phrase “Nostalgia for the Future” captures a compelling tension between longing for what has been and hopeful anticipation of what is yet to come. Modern filmmakers invoke this concept by referencing historical archives and personal histories while simultaneously questioning the direction of future society. Such films serve as reflections, urging audiences to consider how past and future continuously shape our present experiences. This theme has become increasingly relevant in a world where rapid technological change prompts us to revisit memories while dreaming ahead.

A key aspect of “Nostalgia for the Future” involves the creative use of archives and historical materials. Brecth Debackere often incorporates vintage footage, personal letters, and photographs to construct layered narratives that challenge traditional storytelling. By doing so, he offers viewers a chance to revisit bygone eras while contemplating what lies ahead. The process of working with archival content highlights the fluidity of memory and underscores the idea that our identities are shaped by both history and forward-looking aspirations.

Combining visual archives with voices and writings of thinkers like Chris Marker, Brecth Debackere invites audiences to explore the complex layers of human experience. This approach underscores the notion that understanding oneself involves a continuous dialogue between what has been and what could be. It reminds us that our relationship with time is multifaceted, blending a fondness for the past with an optimistic gaze toward the horizon. As filmmakers continue to experiment with archival materials and philosophical insights, they invite us all to reflect on how we shape and are shaped by the interplay of memory and aspiration.

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During the 79th edition of the Cannes international Film Festival we spoke with the director Alexander Murphy for the movie “Tin Castle“, presented in the Semain de la Critique section. This heartfelt documentary is a deep exploration of love and community of who lives at the the margins of society such as the Irish travellers, a culture who are not known as they should and that often have a stereotypical narration that surround them. By focusing on the O’Reillys and their 10 children, the film showcases a vibrant world often misunderstood or overlooked by mainstream society, seeking meaningful interactions with families willing to share their worlds.

During our interview with FRED Film Radio, the director Alexander Murphy explained how the “Tin Castle” documentary feature emphasize the significance of love, community, and identity, in a research that took years in building trust within the community in order to capture genuine moments that challenge stereotypes.  Murphy indeed emphasized that truly understanding the community required time, trust, and genuine love, all elements he fostered through repeated visits and heartfelt conversations. As he immersed himself within the family’s daily life, Murphy realized the film was evolving into a portrayal of love’s resilience amidst hardship, rather than just a documentary about poverty.

One of the core aims of “Tin Castle“, says director Alexander Murphy, was to challenge false narratives surrounding the Irish Traveller community, showing that most of these people are yearning for freedom, pride, and acceptance, often hiding their true selves due to social pressures, but highlighting nonetheless also their struggles of stigma and their efforts to preserve culture. An unique narrative approach that allows viewers to see beyond stereotypes and appreciate the richness of their traditions and humanity, highlighting the love and warmth that define their family life.

At the heart of “Tin Castle” is a reflection on what truly constitutes a home. Director Alexander Murphy describes the concept as more than just a physical space: it’s about belonging, love, and the bonds shared among family members. Through the intimate moments captured with the children and their interactions, the film suggests that home is where love resides, regardless of the size of the dwelling or societal status. Ultimately sheding a light on the Irish Traveller community through intimate storytelling and stunning visuals, “Tin Castle” is a film that reveals that embracing love and community is a universal message that transcends society margins and enriches our understanding of what it means to feel truly at home.

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During the 79th edition of the Cannes International FIlm Festival we spoke with director Olivier Clert for the film “Lucy Lost“, presented at the festival among the Special Screenings. The animated feature is an enchanting tale of identity, magic and imagination, exploring how personal life can largely be shaped by external perceptions and combining folklore, animation techniques, and emotional depth to create a unique cinematic experience.

During our interview with FRED Film Radio, director Olivier Clert stated how “Lucy Lost” tries bridging cultural influences from European, American, and Japanese animation, blending digital innovation with traditional techniques and carefully crafting an aesthetic that evokes a fragile, vulnerable atmosphere aligned with the story’s emotional core. The film explores Lucy’s struggle, a white haired girl journey that lives in an ambiguous island where magic may or may not exist, emphasizing the crucial role that imagination has in childhood.

The director Olivier Clert chose to switch several things from the book that “Lucy Lost” is based on, better capturing the essence of childhood’s mysterious bond with the fantastical and stressing the attention also on how human connections are the one thing that can save each other.

By doing so, “Lucy Lost” invites viewers into a world where the universal nature of childhood, wonder and resilience become the key to reach a deeper understanding of ourselves as well as of the world that surround us.

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During the 79th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival we spoke with the Director Yukiko Sode and actors Yukino Kishii and Asano Tadanobu from the film “All the Lovers in the Night“, an intimate exploration of solitude and connection presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. This film offers a nuanced look at human relationships through a poetic lens, centering on the quiet struggles of solitude in the japanese society and on the search for genuine connection that we all bear within us, from all over the world.

During our interview with FRED Film Radio, the director Yukiko Sode explained how the film explores how individuals grapple with internal conflicts and societal expectations, portraying love not as a solution, but as a potential culmination of personal growth and understanding. Through its poetic storytelling, “All the Lovers in the Night” challenges viewers to reflect on the nature of intimacy and authenticity, opening to the reflection on how a deeper appreciation of ourselves can channel love in both being a mirror and a catalyst for self-awareness.

Actors Yukino Kishii and Asano Tadanobu spoke about the striking aspect of the film of the symbolic use of light and darkness, which is intricately woven into the visual narrative, mirroring the characters’ internal struggles and secrets and highlighting how what is seen and unseen shapes our perceptions and relationships.

As stated by the director Yukiko Sode, all this narrative aspects emerge also from the “All the Lovers in the Night” visual approach, especially in the choice to shoot on 16 millimeter film, underscoring its quest for authenticity. By blending poetic visuals with profound themes, the film invites audiences to contemplate the delicate dance between solitude and love, stressing the attention on light and dark, both visually and thematically and making it a resonant piece that celebrates the complexity of human inner life.

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Marine Atlan, known for her outstanding work as a cinematographer (for instance on “Summer Scars”, “Thunder”, and “The Rapture”), debuts as a director with the fascinating and lively “La Gradiva”, which takes us on a school trip to Pompeii with a group of privileged last year high schoolers led by their passionate Latin teacher (Antonia Buresi), who prompts them to read the traces of the past, to reimagine the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, while shaken by their own desires and fantasies and frustrations. The film, also running for the Camera d’Or of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, just won the Grand Prix of the Critics’ Week.

We talk about the idea of having the antique figure of the Gradiva from Wilhelm Jensen‘s novella, famously analysed by Sigmund Freud and later taken to the silver screen by Alain Robbe-Grillet, continue to walk alongside a group of young people of our time, thus adding another layer of history. Marine Atlan explains how she and Anne Brouillet worked on creating a polyphonic script for this ensemble piece, and that she wanted the film to be full of life and embrace both the documentary-like descent into the story of the 2000-year-old ruins and the melodrama coming from the youths as well as the lyricism of certain aspects of the story.

The French director tells us more about using a photo instead of a bas-relief to represent a moment in time captured by an image and the secrets it bears, as well as the need of the character of Tony (Colas Quignard) to recreate a personal, family mythology. We linger on the specific figure of this despondent, young wanderer as opposed to (or as complemented by) that of his seductive best friend James (Mitia Capellier), representing “absolute privilege,” reminiscent of the central character in “Teorema”, on whom many of the participants in the school trip project their fantasies and whom they desire as much as they resent him.

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Avril Besson, who just presented her first feature, “Marvelous Mornings” (original title: “Les Matins merveilleux”), amongst the Special Screenings of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, is full of surprises – and “the funniest person I know”, adds her lead actress India Hair. Who would have thought that the sad event which sets her character in motion happened to her in the same, wacky way, and that she would succeed so well in her resolve to turn that grief into a comedy – to “put some fun into it”.

As the French director (and contender for the Camera d’Or) revealed when we met her and India Hair on the Croisette – an already merry duo made even merrier by actress Raya Martigny‘s joining us mid-interview –, many of the key elements in the profoundly existential and human, but also quirky and indeed fun tale she tells here were borrowed from real life, including the disco geek played by Eric Cantona and the trans waitress embodied with utter charisma by Raya Martigny.

At the centre of the story is a terrific character, a slightly candid and reserved but always open-minded and ready-to-try young woman which offers us the opportunity to finally discover India Hair in a lead role, much to our delight. “[Charlie] had been with me for while, says the actress, because I’ve been there since the beginning of the [writing] process, so she’s part of me. For me, she’s a mixture of Avril’s fun, outgoing nature – and she put a lot of that in Charlie – and also there’s a lot of childhood in there. She makes me think of a child who is open to meeting people, to experiences, and who has no prejudgements, so she just looks at people with tenderness, and I find that incredibly important, and it helped me, in my life, to look at things with more tenderness.”

We talk about the film’s very well written, fun, and slightly absurd script and dialogues, about Avril Besson and India Hair‘s collaboration, about the title of the movie, borrowed from a song, about the need to reset.

Raya Martigny joins us, and starts by underlining how well she felt represented by the trans woman character Avril Besson created: “The world just wants us to be one way, and it’s always about identity, when our life is in fact not just about this: we fall in love, we walk down the street, we are just normal people too, and that’s what we need to show more, and that’s what we do in this movie: it’s just not about identity, it’s about emancipation between two women and just acceptance and love and so many beautiful things that are important in life.” Avril Besson chimes in and suggests that by taking out the violence and the identity aspect, she is “much more in the reality of being transgender”, pointing out that the real-life counterpart of the character of Marina “lives a beautiful life, exactly like any other woman, and it’s exactly when you start taking the violence out of the equation that you can see the people’s hearts.” “If you’re just talking about how someone reacts to violence,” she adds, “you can’t see their heart and the beauty that’s in it, and I really wanted to see the beauty.”

The post ‘Marvelous Mornings’, an interview with director Avril Besson and actresses India Hair and Raya Martigny appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Global Critics Cannes Voice, hosted by internationally renowned film critic Rita Di Santo, is the daily podcast of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, produced by FRED Film Radio directly from Cannes.

Each episode takes listeners inside the Festival with exclusive and thoughtful conversations with leading international film critics, and in-depth analysis of the year’s most anticipated films.Rita Di Santo and her guests bring to life the unique atmosphere of Venice, offering a rare insider’s view of the stories, talent, and cinematic moments that make the Cannes Film Festival one of the world’s most celebrated cultural events.

In this episode of Global Critics Cannes Voice

In this episode of Global Critics Cannes Voice Rita Di Santo hosts: Volodymyr Chernyshev (LB.ua, Ukrainska Pravda) and Tilda Li (World Screen, China)

The post Highlights and film critics from the 79th Cannes Film Festival – episode 20/05 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Presented in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, “I’ll Be Gone in June” marks the feature debut of German filmmaker Katharina Rivilis, who transforms personal memory into an intimate reflection on adolescence and historical uncertainty.

The film follows Franny, a German exchange student who arrives in Las Cruces, New Mexico, shortly before the events of September 11 reshape both the United States and the global political landscape.

Franny initially carries with her an imagined version of America shaped by cinema, television, and popular culture. What she discovers instead is a quieter and more fragile reality: a desert town filled with young people whose lives exist far from the mythology of New York or Los Angeles.

For Katharina Rivilis, the story emerges directly from her own experience: “I was also an exchange student in that same place during that year,” she explained.

Yet the director insists the film is not strictly autobiographical. Rather than reconstructing exact events, she describes the project as a “collective memory” shaped by her own recollections alongside those of friends and fellow exchange students.

The origins of the film began years later, when Katharina Rivilis returned to New Mexico in 2018 with a friend working on a travel guide.

Revisiting Las Cruces after many years transformed her perception of the place entirely. What had once survived only as fragmented teenage memories suddenly reappeared with cinematic clarity.

“I saw these landscapes again and thought: this needs to become a film,” she recalled.

The vastness of the desert, the endless horizon and the unique quality of light left a profound emotional impact on the filmmaker. Katharina Rivilis repeatedly described New Mexico as a place of longing, both physically expansive and emotionally disorienting.

She compared the region’s atmosphere to the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, emphasising the almost unreal intensity of the landscape and sky.

“There is something magical in this light,” she said.

For the director, returning there also meant reconnecting with a younger version of herself. Encounters with former classmates and host families created the strange sensation of entering a time capsule where emotional memory and present reality overlapped.

That tension between nostalgia and rediscovery permeates the entire film.

One of the most compelling aspects of “I’ll Be Gone in June” is its perspective on the United States as both fantasy and lived reality.

Franny arrives carrying the symbolic promise of the “American dream,” an idea exported globally through decades of cultural influence. Yet Katharina Rivilis was interested precisely in the gap between that dream and the everyday experiences of the young people she encountered in New Mexico.

“Reality is much harder,” the director observed.

The film portrays a generation growing up with limited opportunities despite living inside one of the world’s most mythologised nations. Katharina Rivilis noted how difficult it can be for many young people in New Mexico to leave the state or access higher education, particularly compared with European systems where university education is often publicly accessible.

At the same time, the filmmaker avoids reducing America to disillusionment alone. She remains fascinated by the energy and determination associated with the American ideal, even as she acknowledges its inequalities and contradictions.

That ambiguity becomes central to Franny’s perspective throughout the film. America appears simultaneously seductive, fragile and emotionally inaccessible.

Although the September 11 attacks shape the atmosphere of the film, Katharina Rivilis deliberately avoided making “I’ll Be Gone in June” directly about 9/11 itself.

Instead, the historical event gradually enters the emotional texture of daily life, mirroring how adolescents experience political change before fully understanding its ideological dimensions.

“It was a time of extreme insecurity,” Katharina Rivilis reflected.

For the director, the attacks marked not only a geopolitical rupture but also the symbolic beginning of the twenty-first century. She described the period as one dominated by uncertainty, fear and the sensation that an era was ending.

Importantly, Katharina Rivilis also connects those emotions to the present day. During the interview, she drew parallels between the post-9/11 atmosphere and contemporary global anxieties shaped by pandemics, wars and political instability.

“We constantly feel like we are living in moments of crisis,” she observed.

Within the film, that collective insecurity remains largely atmospheric rather than explicit. Franny senses the world’s emotional transformation before fully understanding it politically, allowing the film to preserve the perspective of adolescence rather than historical analysis.

Ultimately, “I’ll Be Gone in June” is less interested in historical reconstruction than in emotional perception.

Katharina Rivilis portrays adolescence as a state of heightened sensitivity in which political transformations are first felt through atmosphere, uncertainty, and emotional dislocation.

Franny’s journey through New Mexico becomes both personal and collective: a confrontation with the collapse of cultural illusions and the beginning of a more fragile awareness of the world.

The result is a film suspended between memory, history and longing, where landscapes become emotional archives and youth itself appears inseparable from the feeling that everything is about to change.

The post “I’ll be gone in June”, interview with the director Katharina Rivilis appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

“Original Wound” emerges as one of the darkest and most emotionally unsettling films of the Indonesian collaborative program Next Step Studio.

Co-directed by Myanmar filmmaker Sein Lyan Tun and Indonesian director Shelby Kho, the short film centres on a brother and sister left alone in the family house after their mother’s death. As memories resurface, grief becomes increasingly unstable, exposing emotional wounds that neither character fully understands in the same way.

For Sein Lyan Tun, the project began through a shared emotional territory discovered during the writing process with Shelby Kho.

“We were trying to find a common ground,” he explained, “We both had experiences connected to family, trauma, parents and siblings.”

That mutual recognition gradually shaped a story centred not on explicit confrontation, but on the lingering psychological effects of emotional manipulation, abuse and silence within family structures.

The film avoids definitive explanations. Instead, it constructs a fragmented emotional space where memory itself becomes unstable and contradictory.

One of the most striking aspects of “Original Wound” is the way the brother and sister remember their mother differently. Their emotional realities overlap, but never fully coincide.

For Sein Lyan Tun, this fragmentation reflects the impossibility of absolute truth inside families.

“Sometimes parents say things to make you happy,” he observed, “but when you grow up, you realise those words were painful.”

The director repeatedly returned to the idea of swallowed emotions: experiences that remain unspoken for years yet continue to shape personal identity from within.

In “Original Wound”, trauma is never presented as a completed event. Instead, it exists as an ongoing process, constantly resurfacing through memory, silence and emotional repetition.

The mother’s absence paradoxically intensifies her presence throughout the film. Even after death, her emotional influence continues to structure the relationship between the siblings, separating them even while forcing them back together.

That contradiction becomes central to the film’s emotional tension: the simultaneous desire for connection and escape.

The domestic setting in “Original Wound” functions almost like another character.

Throughout the interview, Sein Lyan Tun described the house less as a physical location than as an emotional environment where unresolved trauma continues to circulate.

“Sometimes you swallow things, sometimes you speak them out,” he reflected. “But the suffering continues.”

The film’s claustrophobic atmosphere reinforces this sensation of emotional entrapment. Rooms feel closed, heavy and psychologically charged, as though the past itself remains embedded within the architecture.

For the director, this dynamic also carried a broader metaphorical dimension connected to political and social realities.

Comparing family structures to authoritarian systems, he described the mother figure as resembling a form of power that cannot easily be escaped.

“The mother is like the government,” he said. “The children are like the people.”

This political undercurrent remains subtle throughout the film, but it deepens the sense that personal trauma and larger structures of control often mirror one another.

Rather than relying heavily on dialogue, “Original Wound” communicates primarily through atmosphere, tension and emotional ambiguity.

Sein Lyan Tun explained that the filmmakers were less interested in providing clear psychological explanations than in creating an experiential emotional space for the audience.

The result is a film built around sensations: discomfort, emotional suffocation and the constant feeling that something unresolved remains trapped beneath the surface.

For viewers who have experienced similar family tensions, the director believes the emotional impact may feel immediately recognisable.

“Some people will watch it and say, ‘I know this pain,’” he noted.

At the same time, he acknowledged that audiences without those experiences may find the film’s emotional logic more difficult to interpret.

That uncertainty is intentional. “Original Wound” does not attempt to universalise trauma into simple catharsis. Instead, it preserves the instability and opacity that often define painful memories themselves.

The post “Original Wound”, interview with the co director Sein Lyan Tun appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

“Annisa” offers one of the most intimate and sensory experiences among the short films developed through the Indonesian collaborative program Next Step Studio.

Co-directed by Filipino filmmaker Sam Manacsa and Indonesian actor-director Reza Rahadian, the film follows a blind teenage girl living in a crowded neighbourhood in Jakarta as she gradually seeks her voice during a local community festival.

For Sam Manacsa, the central challenge was never to reduce the character to her blindness, but rather to construct the cinematic language around her emotional perspective.

“It was very important that we stayed grounded to the feelings of Annisa herself,” he explained during the interview.

The protagonist is portrayed by a young, non-professional actress who shares the character’s name and many personal characteristics. According to Sam Manacsa, that connection deeply influenced the film’s approach.

Rather than emphasising visual absence, the filmmakers became interested in the richness of sound, texture and emotional perception that shapes Annisa’s relationship with the world around her.

One of the film’s defining elements is its intricate sound design. In “Annisa”, sound is not simply atmospheric support but a primary storytelling tool.

The crowded neighbourhood festival becomes a dense sonic landscape filled with music, voices, movement and overlapping emotional energies. Through this environment, the audience is invited to experience the world in a way that mirrors Annisa’s own navigation of space.

Sam Manacsa revealed that sound was already central during the writing process itself.

“A lot of the script was really us writing the soundscape more than the landscape,” he noted.

The screenplay, only ten pages long, focused heavily on sensory detail. During shooting and editing, the directors continued expanding the sonic layers, searching for increasingly immersive ways to place the audience inside Annisa’s emotional reality.

At the same time, the filmmakers were careful not to isolate the protagonist from her surroundings. The goal was not to portray her as disconnected from the community, but rather to show how she actively inhabits and interprets it.

The festival atmosphere, therefore, becomes both overwhelming and liberating: a chaotic environment where Annisa slowly begins to recognise her own place.

Throughout the interview, Sam Manacsa emphasised that “Annisa” is fundamentally a coming-of-age story.

“All we wanted to talk about was her growing up,” he explained.

The film deliberately avoids framing its protagonist through pity or symbolic representation. Instead, Annisa emerges as a teenager like any other: curious, humorous, uncertain and emotionally sensitive.

Her blindness is part of her experience, but never the totality of her identity.

For Sam Manacsa, maintaining that balance was essential because the emotional heart of the story lies elsewhere: in the universal process of adolescence and self-discovery.

Annisa spends much of her time isolated within familiar routines, often absorbed by her phone and reluctant to step outside her comfort zone. The film gradually follows her movement toward participation, connection and visibility within her community.

That process of being seen and accepted becomes one of the short film’s most delicate emotional threads.

“To find that space and to be accepted is something beautiful,” Sam Manacsa reflected.

The film ultimately suggests that belonging is not simply about social inclusion, but about discovering environments where personal expression becomes possible.

Although “Annisa” is a co-directed work, Sam Manacsa described the collaboration with Reza Rahadian as unusually organic.

The two filmmakers quickly discovered shared sensibilities regarding storytelling, particularly their mutual attraction toward small-scale emotional experiences rather than grand dramatic narratives.

“We really want to focus on the simple things that move our lives,” Sam Manacsa explained.

That common perspective shaped not only the film’s artistic direction but also the production’s atmosphere.

For Sam Manacsa, who primarily works as a production designer and had limited directing experience beforehand, the project represented a major personal leap outside familiar creative environments.

One of the greatest challenges was learning to trust a completely new team assembled largely through Reza Rahadian’s existing collaborators.

“It was really about trusting the process,” he admitted.

That uncertainty eventually gave way to creative openness, allowing the film to emerge through collaboration rather than rigid control.

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