FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Joaquin Phoenix and Lynne Ramsay, actor and director of the film You Were Never Really Here.

It took You Were Never Really Here one year from Cannes 2017 and the courage of a small local distributor to finally be released in Italy and for the occasion Fred’s Chiara Nicoletti meets director Lynne Ramsay and protagonist Joaquin Phoenix, in Rome to present the film. As the film focuses on a very delicate balance between tenderness and brutal violence, Joaquin Phoenix and Lynne Ramsay discuss violence as the solution to fight violence, what it means to be a pacifist and above all, declare their personal fears and defects. It’s an excess of empathy, the key that makes Joaquin Phoenix able to play so many difficult and tormented characters with such deepness and catharsis.

You Were Never Really Here:  A traumatized veteran, unafraid of violence, tracks down missing girls for a living. When a job spins out of control, Joe’s nightmares overtake him as a conspiracy is uncovered leading to what may be his death trip or his awakening.

For the official website of the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Cristiana Palmieri interviews Santiago Fouz Hernández and Alfredo Martínez Expósito, curator and collaborator of the Bigas Luna Tribute.

Hear from two international experts on Spanish cinema how Bigas Luna’s work contributed to radically change the perception of Spanish culture, marking the beginning of a new identity, where past and present coexist in a multifaceted and appealing cultural framework.

Bigas Luna Tribute includes Luna’s critically-acclaimed “Iberian Portraits Trilogy”: Jamón, Jamón (1992) (which launched the career of Penélope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Jordi Mollà), Golden Balls (1993) and The Tit and the Moon (1994); as well as the posthumous documentary Bigas x Bigas (2017), based on his video-diaries. The trilogy offers a complex depiction of a Spain in transition, where older customs and stereotypes associated with the rural, simpler past survive alongside newly introduced European/global, capitalist values.

To discover more about this event, click here.

The post Santiago Fouz Hernández, Alfredo Martínez Expósito – Bigas Luna Tribute #SpanishFilmFest appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Director Sandra Vannucchi talks about the film Girl in Flight – 2018 EFA Young Audience Award finalist.

Director Sandra Vannucchi talks about shooting Girl in Flight, the idea for the film which is partly based on personal experience, working with the two girls and how their relationship with each other changed during the shoot, being inside a Roma camp, studying filmmaking and more…

Girl in Flight:  Inspired by real events, Girl in Flight is the story of 11-year old Silvia whose life at home is consumed by her mother’s clinical depression. When no one will take the time to fulfill her dream to visit Rome, she runs away, determined to see it for herself. On a train she meets a Roma girl, Emina, and begins following her through the streets of Rome to her gypsy camp. Shot in a real Roma camp using non-actors, the film also features the Italian stars Donatella Finocchiaro and Filippo Nigro. Girl in Flight’s beautiful imagery, captured by award-winning cinematographer Vladan Radovic (Donatello award for Anime Nere, 2015), reflects the tender, frightening and exciting emotional journey of a young girl coming into her own.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Sandra Vannucchi – Girl in Flight #YAA2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Director Selma Vihunen talks about the film Hobbyhorse Revolution – 2018 EFA Young Audience Award finalist.

Director Selma Vihunen talks about shooting Hobbyhorse Revolution – how she first found out about the community and its activities, how much time she spent with the girls and how many hobbyhorses she owns herself…

Hobbyhorse Revolution:  Hobbyhorse Revolution is a funny and moving film about the power of imagination and the strength of a community. The film follows three young girls, Aisku, Elsa and Alisa whose lives have been transformed by their new interest: hobbyhorses. Despite a lack of understanding by some, the girls bravely and spiritedly pursue their hobby. Playing with hobbyhorses is a traditional children’s activity, but today’s Finnish teenagers have created a versatile hobby around it, raising the scene to a whole new level. The hobbyists’ are unofficially organised, working on a voluntary basis. On the hand they are active online with their Instagram accounts, blogs and forums while on the other they practise the sport by exercising outdoors in woods and parks – and they are serious. They are an ever-growing group that trains determinedly and organises nationwide competitions. Every handcrafted hobbyhorse has its own name and personality. The age range of hobbyists’ is continuously expanding with the eldest now over 20 years old. The hobbyhorse fever is now spreading abroad as well.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Selma Vihunen – Hobbyhorse Revolution #YAA2018 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Director Berni Goldblat talks about the film Wallay – 2018 EFA Young Audience Award finalist.

Director Berni Goldblat talks about shooting Wallay in France and Burkina Faso, in the heat of Africa, in the water with crocodiles and much more…

Wallay:  Ady, a 13 years old boy, no longer listens to his father who raises him alone. The latter, running out of resources, decides to entrust Ady to his uncle Amadou for the summer. Uncle Amadou and his family live on the other side of the Mediterranean sea… in Burkina Faso! There, at 13 years, one must become a man but Ady, persuaded to go on holidays, understands things differently…

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Ofir Raul Graizer, director of the film The Cakemaker.

Ofir Raul Grazier is a food lover, he works with food, he is a cooking teacher and so his first film has food as the main character. With a guerrilla production, he created a film that was made with nothing, has been selected in more than 30 festivals and has been bought all over the world, with a US remake on the way. Not bad for a film that nobody wanted to finance….

The Cakemaker: Berlin. Thomas is a pastry cook and one of his regular customers is Oren, an Israeli engineer, whose wife and son live in Jerusalem. Thanks to Thomas’ wonderful cakes, the two fall in love. But one day Oren suddenly stops coming to the shop. Thomas decides to go to Jerusalem to understand the reasons behind his disappearance. There he goes to the coffee shop run by Anat, Oren’s wife, and, pretending to look for a job, he becomes the new dishwasher. When his talent as a pastry cook comes out, the doors of the kitchen open for him. But Moti, Oren’s Orthodox Jewish brother doesn’t look kindly on Thomas. Very soon Thomas’ cakes are a success with the customers, while the relationship between Thomas and Anat become less professional, and more adventurous and intimate…

The post Ofir Raul Graizer – The Cakemaker #LFF18 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews director Robin Campillo.

Robin Campillo has been celebrated at Lovers Film Festival, with a retrospective and a masterclass. He revealed all the stories behind his films, and explained his idea of cinema and the politics of it. From The Revenants to 120BPM, through his life as an editor and being a friend of Laurent Cantet, to his most loved and hated aspects in the life of a filmmaker.

The post Robin Campillo #LFF18 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Steve Mclean, director of the film Postcards From London.

Steve Mclean tells us about the construction of Postcards From London, where all the rules and classic conceptions about hustlers in film have been rewritten. The pace, the visuals and the tone are completely new to that topic and the narrative approach gives the film an unforgettable identity.

Postcards From London is set in modern-day London and is the sequel to the cult film Postcards From America, which was set in the back streets of New York. Jim is a good-looking provincial boy, as beautiful as a Greek god but with few prospects in life, who decides to move to London to seek a better future, since there are not many opportunities in his dreary little hometown in Essex. But his first contact with the big city is catastrophic: in fact, he is robbed, left penniless and spends his first night in a cardboard box. He then meets the Raconteurs, a very particular group of male escorts from Soho, who love art and have unique style and extremely refined taste. Jim discovers a world of the night previously unknown to him, and is irresistibly attracted. He soon becomes the most sought-after muse of all the artists in London. But a rare psychosomatic condition prevents him from climbing the ladder of success: he suffers from Stendhal syndrome, which causes fainting and hallucinations when he encounters a great work of art…

The post Steve Mclean – Postcards From London #LFF18 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Anucha Boonyawatana, director of the film Malila: The Farewell Flower.

Anucha Boonyawatana has a delicate voice, as his film is. The love story he narrates develops at a slow and mesmerising pace. The art of Bai Sri is so complex and fascinating but tragic in its own way, as the love between the two characters will be. We will discover traditions of meditation and some unexpected harsh ones, as Anucha tells us.

Malila: The Farewell Flower: Bai Sri are elaborately-folded flower arrangements, made with banana leaves and jasmine blossoms, symbolizing love and virtue in Thai Buddhist philosophy. Though visually stunning, they tend to wither very fast. Pitch and Shane, who once were lovers, know this only too well. After being separated for many years, they revive their relationship by making these floral ornaments together. While Shane is still recovering from the end of his marriage and the death of his daughter, Pitch is struggling with his own tragedy: he has just discovered he is terminally ill. To escape from the pain they are both suffering, they decide to return to the times they were together, a past that has never seemed so far off: past and present alternate like a hallucination. But when Shane finds out that Pitch is dying, he decides to become a Thai monk for life. A movie with an elegiac and melancholy tone, poised between existential pain and the contemplation of that pain.

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley, directors of the film Permanent Green Light.

Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley unite their creativity on a project that stays in the realm of Cooper’s tradition but takes a step back from the queer side of it to show the infinite discomfort teenagers suffer and the lack of answers to their needs. Inspired by real events that happened to an Australian teen, Dennis Cooper and Zac Farley tell us about the philosophy of Permanent Green Light’s  narrative and the experience of working on a super-tight budget in a short time with non-actors kids, building up a team for a common goal.

Permanent Green Light: Roman is a teenager who is planning to blow himself up in public. He has no terrorist aims: this act will be his last and shocking attempt to escape from the empty life that awaits him in the future and to overcome the depression that grips him. He is surrounded by alienating suburbs, where apathetic young people are apparently detached from reality. With them he creates a group aimed at self-detonation. The acclaimed (and controversial) American writer Dennis Cooper, together with video artist Zac Farley (with whom he had previously worked on the feature film Little Cattle Towards Glory), brings to the big screen the disturbed and disturbing universe which is a feature of his books. The starting point of the film is a real event: the accidental death of an Australian teenager who declared himself a jihadist and blew himself up in a failed terrorist attack. Cooper and Farley turn this little-known, tragic anecdote into a contemporary parable, where a spectacular and deliberately chosen death seems to be the only way to fill the void of a purposeless life.

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