FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Jeremy Renner, actor and Talent Ambassador of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao.

Actor Jeremy Renner (The Hurt Locker, The Avengers) was one of the talent ambassadors of the 2nd International Film Festival & Award Macao. The actor and producer talked about his impressions of the region and his opinion on its potential and its culture; he also reveals that this is his very first time in Macao. We also ask him for an opinion on Chinese movies, and he tells us that although he has not had time to watch many films since he entered the industry, he looks at the regions where directors are doing interesting things, and expects that China will be the place to look out for soon. Renner also talks about the upcoming Avengers movie or, rather, how little he can reveal about it. He does claim that it will be one of the biggest movies ever released and that they are all excited about it. He also shares his views on the recent #metoo movement and whether he prefers working on bigger budget blockbusters, like The Avengers series, or smaller (perhaps more character driven) ones, such as his latest film, Wind River.

The post Jeremy Renner #IFFAM2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Joan Chen, member of the jury of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao and actress of the film The Last Emperor.

Director and actress Joan Chen was one of the members of the jury of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. She is also the star of the Bernardo Bertolucci’s Oscar-winning 1987 feature The Last Emperor, one of the special screenings at this year’s festival. This is where we start our interview, as Chen recalls what it was like to work with the celebrated Italian cineaste and how working on this important film impacted and shaped her subsequent career. Chen also went on to direct movies of her own. Here, she talks about her own experiences as a director and whether she feels the film industry has changed, for better or worse, for female directors.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Lawrence Osborne, author of the novel The Ballad of a Small Player and jury member of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao.

Author Lawrence Osborne was one of the jury members of the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. He tells us that this was his first experience as a juror at a film festival, though he watches more films than he reads books, he prefers this experience to his previous ones at book festivals. However, does this also mean that his activities within the film industry will increase? We also talk about his novel, The Ballad of a Small Player, which is set in Macao, and why he decided to write a novel based on this part of the world.

The post Lawrence Osborne #IFFAM2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Samantha Sartori interviews Anik Datta, director of the film Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo, at the 48th International Film Festival of India, Goa.

IFFI’s journey from 23 countries in 1952 to 100 countries in 2017 With 47 years of existence and over a decade’s presence in Goa, IFFI has grown massively in both quantitative and qualitative terms. In 1952, it started with the participation of 23 countries with over two hundred films’ entries. This year, the numbers have increased multifold to submissions from over 100 countries across the world. IFFI celebrates its 48th this year with a more showbiz and a greater zeal from film artists around the globe. During the festival, we had the pleasure to talk with Anik Datta, director of Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo, selected in the Indian Panorama section. We talked about the making of the movie and other aspects of this epic thriller. A special thanks to the producer Billy Chatterjee who made this interview possible. Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo will open in UK this December, in Sweden soon, and you can see the movie in other festivals around the world.

Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo:  Professor Asimava Bose is a well-known sci-fi writer, a fellow at Oxford University. Every year he returns to Calcutta. His second wife Indrani is an ex-film actress, now runs an NGO. There are many other characters. Asimava’s son, his first wife, Indrani’s daughter, Indrani’s assistant, A film director and others. During one of Asimava’s yearly Calcutta visits he receives a surprise gift, a book Meghnadbodh Kabya from an unknown sender. Curiously, six months before his visit to Calcutta he had received the same book in London. The second time Asimava gets the book, it has a strange effect on him. One morning Asimava does not return from his morning walk. This creates a sensation in the media. Though there are various suspects with possible motives there is not much progress. After a lot of twists and turns the mystery is solved exposing an unlikely perpetrator with an unexpected motive.

To discover more about the Festival, click here.

The post Anik Datta – Meghnadbodh Rohoshyo #IFFI2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Ofir Raul Graizer, director of the film The Cakemaker.

Ofir Raul Graizer talks about his directorial feature debut, The Cakemaker, which was screened in competition at the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. Graizer defines this film as a personal story; here he tells us why. Certainly, his personal connection to the story must have added to his passion for making it, despite the difficulties he encountered in raising sufficient funds to make it, which he explains here. The director also talks about how the film reflects upon the theme of love through the story of the connection between two people who, despite being worlds apart, have both lost someone they deeply cared about. The Cakemaker, as the title might suggest, includes several beautiful shots of food and cakes; this, Graizer agrees, is an important part of the film.

The Cakemaker:  Thomas, a young German baker who runs a popular pastry shop in Berlin, is having an affair with Oren, a married man from Israel who has frequent business visits to Germany. When Oren dies in a car crash in Israel, Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers about his death. Disguising his relationship to Oren, Thomas infiltrates the life of his late lover’s widow Anat who owns a small café in the city and starts to work for her. As his traditional cakes and cookies bring the establishment to life, Thomas finds himself involved in Anat’s life in a far deeper way than he ever anticipated.

The post Ofir Raul Graizer – The Cakemaker #IFFAM2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Sarah Adler and Roy Miller, actors of the film The Cakemaker.

Sarah Adler and Roy Miller star in The Cakemaker, directed by Ofir Raul Graizer. The film was screened at the 2nd International Film Festival & Awards Macao. Roy Miller plays Oren, a german man married to a woman in Israel, Anat, who engages in a romance with a dough maestro working in a cake shop in Berlin, whom he meets with regularly on his business trips to the German capital. Sarah Adler plays Anat. We never see the two of them share the screen together for, as Miller says in his description of the character, a film’s turning point is marked by his passing, which then connects the lives of his wife with his German lover. As explained in this interview, The Cakemaker was a film in which the actors had to connect and experiments with sides of themselves that had nothing to do with their private lives: Miller had to handle the challenge of portraying a tender and physical romance with another man despite himself being straight, while Adler tells us that she does not resemble her character in her private life at all and that it is what she goes through that she could understand. This in turn prompts the question of whether the fact of being taken out of your comfort zone in playing a role for the screen is a good thing because it allows you to experiment and explore parts of yourself you did not know existed. Adler also shares with us that she was approached by the director long before it was being made. The Cakemaker, in fact, as the director himself tells us in our interview with him, took eight long years to make, and Adler was initially approached years before it was finally shot.

The Cakemaker:  Thomas, a young German baker who runs a popular pastry shop in Berlin, is having an affair with Oren, a married man from Israel who has frequent business visits to Germany. When Oren dies in a car crash in Israel, Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers about his death. Disguising his relationship to Oren, Thomas infiltrates the life of his late lover’s widow Anat who owns a small café in the city and starts to work for her. As his traditional cakes and cookies bring the establishment to life, Thomas finds himself involved in Anat’s life in a far deeper way than he ever anticipated.

The post Sarah Adler, Roy Miller – The Cakemaker #IFFAM2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Shekhar Kapur, ambassador of the 2nd International Film Festival & Award Macao.

Filmmaker Shekhar Kapur presided the jury of the inaugural edition of the International Film Festival & Award Macao last year. This year, he returns as a festival ambassador and as one of the programmers of the festival’s Crossfire section, which promotes a cultural exchange between Western filmmakers choosing an Asian genre film and Asian filmmakers choosing a Western genre film to screen during the festival. Kapur chose Stanley Kubrick’s celebrated 2001: A Space Odyssey and tells us why. He also talks about about how his impression of the evolution of the festival. For instance, one of the things he singles out about it is that here, unlike other festivals that he goes to during the year, he can meet people who are not established; he says that when you are an established director, you don’t have much time to meet people because there is always something to do, meetings to attend, interviews, etc. This is something he misses as, he says, “the system starts to be boring” after a while. Besides this, Kapur tells us that he gets positive vibes from the International Film Festival & Awards Macao because he feels there is “a huge desire to make a success of it,” not only in financial terms but also in a cultural term. Kapur also shares with us that he would love to direct a Chinese film and reveals that he is in the early process of setting something up. In his answers, he also shares with us some very interesting and thought-provoking views on cinema in general.

To discover more about the International Film Festival & Award Macao, click here.

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PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Ram Nehari, Moon Shavit and Nitai Gvirtz, director and actors of the film Don’t Forget Me.

“It is a dark rom-com”, this is how Ram Nehari presents his film Don’t Forget Me written by his protagonist Nitai Gvirtz. The film is the main competition winner of the 35th Torino Film Festival and tells the love story between a girl trying to heal from anorexia and a guy with trouble fitting into life. Ram Nehari and Nitai Gvritz reveal that the script is very particular and detailed as it is based on Nitai’s high school best friend’s story and on what Moon Shavit went through dealing with anorexia and eating disorders. Gvirtz describes how they were always sitting down before starting to shoot, trying to find a drive to the film and to make the story as true as possible. The director and actors define the film dark, hardcore and funny as it deals with very heavy topics but face them with irony and in a comic way.

Don’t Forget Me:  Tom, who suffers from an eating disorder and is recovered in a clinic, has gotten her menstrual cycle back. When the doctor tells her it’s a good sign because it means her condition is improving, she panics: the idea of gaining back the kilos she lost scares her to death. It seems like a day to forget but when she meets Neil, a trombone player with socialization problems, everything changes: the two feel a strong connection that is sealed by their shared desire to escape everything which is considered socially acceptable.

For the page of the film on the Festival website, click here.

The post Ram Nehari, Moon Shavit, Nitai Gvirtz – Don’t Forget Me #TFF35 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Sean Baker, director of the film The Florida Project.

Sean Baker talks with us about The Florida Project, closing night film of this edition of the Torino Film Festival. A chat about his love for outsider characters, for people on the fringe of the world. We talked about kids and working with them and on the shooting format to use, that changes everytime as every story requires its own.

The Florida Project: Orlando, Florida. Moonnee is six years old and lives with his young mother at the Magic Castle Hotel, a cheap motel inhabited by penniless families who can’t afford a real home. But the atmosphere is anything but desperate: despite the daily difficulties and the problems which are always lying in wait, Moonee and his little friends have countless adventures, as they explore the terra incognita of theme parks and shops. Watching over this group of little pests and their stricken families is Bobby, who runs the dilapidated motel.

The post Sean Baker – The Florida Project #TFF35 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Jacopo Chessa, director of the Torino Short Film Market.

Jacopo Chessa is happy about the results of the 2017 edition of the Torino Short Film Market. More countries, more films and a larger number of decision makers. Three awards and a general response that paid back for all the work done.

The post Jacopo Chessa – Torino Short Film Market #TFF35 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.