FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Luke Lorentzen, director of the film Midnight Family.

To listen to the interview, click on the ► icon on the right, just above the picture

An interview with Luke Lorentzen, director of Midnight Family, screened at the 2019 Transilvania International Film Festival, a documentary about a family running a for-profit ambulance in Mexico City. In our conversation, he talks with us about the origins of the subject and the intensity of filming and being in the midst of some real, dramatic moments. We also talk about his working method, shooting as a one-man crew, when he knew he had enough material to wrap up the shoot and more.

Midnight Family: The Ochoa family runs a for-profit ambulance in Mexico City, competing with other EMTs for patients in need of urgent help. While making a living in this cutthroat industry, they struggle to keep their financial needs from jeopardizing the people in their care. When a crackdown by corrupt police forces the family to try legitimizing their operation, their desperate financial situation pushes them into questionable practices…

The post Luke Lorentzen – Midnight Family #TIFF18 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews José Esteban Alenda, co-director of the film Not the End.

An interview with José Esteban Alenda, who co-directed with his brother César Esteban Alenda the film Not the End, presented at the 2019 Transilvania International Film Festival. This time-traveling drama is about a socially awkward man trying to rewrite the tragic fate of his romance with his girlfriend. The director talks with us about the interest in the time traveling element from which the film was born, and the challenges but also benefits of the self-imposed limitations that he and his brother placed on themselves in the making of this film and that they regularly place on themselves in the making of all of their movies. He also reveals to us that the film was shot in 24 days, gives us some details of the working method of his collaboration with his brother and more.

Not the End: When the shy, socially-awkward Javier meets vibrant, outgoing and fun-loving Maria, it’s the start of a beautiful romance. But fifteen years later their relationship is more than sad. Javier realizes he must travel back in time to rewrite their destiny and avoid the miserable existence they’re living. Together, they reminisce and relive the magic of the first day they met, fifteen years earlier…

The post José Esteban Alenda – Not the End #TIFF18 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Dorottya Zurbó, director of the film Easy Lessons.

Filmmaker Dorottya Zurbó talks with FRED about her new documentary, Easy Lesson, about a Somalian teenage refugee as she adapts to life in Hungary. The film was screened at the 2019 Transilvania International Film Festival in Cluj, Romania. Zurbó talks about meeting her protagonist, whose name is Kafia, and provides us with an overview of her trials and tribulations within the film. She also discusses such topics as the camera as a tool for interaction between filmmaker and protagonist of the film, i.e. as a means for communication.

Easy Lessons: Easy Lessons is the poetic journey of Kafiya, a beautiful girl who on the brink of adulthood breaks up with everything she grew up with in Somalia. Cultural values, taboos and dogmas fall apart in the most casual situations as she tries to adapt to a new life in Europe, Hungary. Her Mum helped her escape her fate, but how can Kafiya explain the changes she lives through to her most loved one? She wants to do it for a sense of duty, but how… This inner struggle becomes the film itself and maybe the only possible form of confession.

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The post Dorottya Zurbó – Easy Lessons #TIFF18 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Cristiana Palmieri interviews Tonia Mishiali, director and screenwriter of the film Pause.

Tonia talks about mixing drama and humour with reality and dreams throughout the film, and how she strikes the right balance to keep all these ingredients in the precise proportion.

Pause: Cypriot director Tonia Mishiali’s striking debut feature centres on a working-class housewife going through menopause and suddenly fed up with the everyday oppression of domestic servitude. Stella Fyrogeni is marvellous as the subdued, tragically stifled Elpida, who chafes at the exhausting drudgery and emptiness of her life and actively fantasises about violence against her brutishly uncaring and frequently cruel husband. Spiked with black humour, the banality of this domestic drama escalates to a satisfying final twist.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Tonia Mishiali – Pause #SydFilmFest appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Cristiana Palmieri interviews Marianna Economou, director of the film When Tomatoes Met Wagner.

Marianna talks about her motivation to make the documentary and how meeting the people in that tiny community made a huge impact on her, both at professional and personal level.

When Tomatoes Met Wagner: Aleco and Christo are cousins who run an organic farm in rural Greece, growing tomatoes with the help of some hard-working old ladies – and classical music blasted across the fields. Packing their lovingly grown produce as expensive specialty meals for overseas consumers, they struggle to compete in a trendy market. Marianna Economou’s documentary is an engaging, funny and melancholy study of hope amidst financial crisis.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Marianna Economou – When Tomatoes Met Wagner #SydFilmFest appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Cristiana Palmieri interviews Ásthildur Kjartansdóttir, director and screenwriter of the film The Deposit.

In the interview Ásthildur talks about her strong motivation “to explore the fine line between kindness and cruelty when our self-interest is at stake. I want the audience to face themselves – to look in the mirror and ask themselves how they would react in Gísella’s situation. Just like the book did to me.”

The Deposit: Kjartansdóttir’s intelligent adaptation of Auður Jonsdottir’s 2006 novel looks at the relatively new phenomenon of immigration in Iceland. After quitting her newspaper job, Gisella decides to write about meaningful topics, such as the terrible living conditions of migrant women Marisol, Abeba and Luna. Her decision to invite them into her house frames a rewarding drama about idealism, respect and the priceless human quality of empathy.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Ásthildur Kjartansdóttir – The Deposit #SydFilmFest appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Cristiana Palmieri interviews Elena Tikhonova, director and screenwriter of the film Caviar.

Elena talks about how the script came along after realising that stories she was hearing from her friends were perfect ingredients for a comedy.

Caviar: Nadja, a Russian living in Vienna, is a translator for boorish billionaire oligarch, Igor. When Igor impulsively resolves to build an ostentatious villa on the Danube Canal, he sets out to bribe local officials into redeveloping the area. Meanwhile Nadja, her girlfriend and her hipster nanny plot to dob them in and steal the bribe money. In her debut feature, director Elena Tikhonova doesn’t hold back on the raunchy hijinks.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Elena Tikhonova – Caviar #SydFilmFest appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Cristiana Palmieri interviews Esther Rots, director and screenwriter of the film Retrospekt.

Esther talks about sensory cinema, her non-linear and non-chronological cinematic style, where the visual aspect is deliberately incoherent to offer an interpretation of life events by bringing both the audience and the protagonist into the same emotional space.

Retrospekt: Stars Circé Lethem and Lien Wildemeersch are electrifying as a caregiver and her charge, an unstable survivor of abuse, who develop an unhealthy co-dependency. This tragic but enigmatic story, told over multiple fragmentary timelines, is as riveting as it is unsettling.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Esther Rots – Retrospekt #SydFilmFest appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Cristiana Palmieri interviews Carolina Hellsgård, director of the film Endzeit – Ever after.

Carolina talks about how the comic novel on which the film script is based inspired her to make a film where she could mix zombie apocalypse elements with fantasy and dreamy worlds to create an atmospheric film.

Endzeit-Ever after: It’s two years since a devastating plague almost obliterated humanity. Frightened 20-something Vivi and fearless zombie killer Eva embark on a desperate journey to what they believe is a safe haven. Created by a cast and crew consisting almost entirely of women, Endzeit – Ever After usurps zombie film conventions and creates a gripping, unpredictable and emotionally powerful fairy-tale in which nature itself is a central character.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Carolina Hellsgård – Endzeit-Ever After #SydFilmFest appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Eliza Capai, director of the film Your Turn.

Eliza Capai talks with passion about the different phases of creation of the project, especially how the editing (which is one of the most astonishing formal aspects of the film) was created, in the end. But the strength of her film lays in the content and in her lead characters and voices who create a new way of storytelling for documentaries. At the end of the interview Eliza makes a call to us, the audience, for helping the diffusion of the film: a brave and original idea of self distribution.

Your Turn: In the moment when Brazil’s political, economic and morale crisis deepens, the students rise as a light beam and renovation in the country. The documentary feature film, Your Turn, follows the student fight in its most vigorous moment since the military dictatorship. Inspired by the language of the movement itself, which makes use of groups, so there is a collective voice instead of an individual one, the documentary will be conducted by the narratives of three students, representing central points of the fight. The construction of these lines, which fight for space and time, will expose the movement’s conflicts, demonstrating its complexity. At the same time, they will be responsible for uniting the editing of the occupations’ and marches observed scenes, which took place between 2013 and 2018 all over Brazil, elucidating the movement’s own character.

The post Eliza Capai – Your Turn #SIFF2019 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.