FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Bénédicte Prot interviews Xu Bing and Matthieu Laclau, director and producer of the film Dragonfly Eyes (Qing Ting zhi yan).

Chinese artist Xu Bing tells us more about the technical aspects of his ambitious film project Dragonfly Eyes and describes how he was able to fabricate a narration based on silent footage selected from myriads of images (filmed in different locations – hotels lobbies, streets, theme park, virtual chatroom…- which only have in common that they are inhabited by Man). We discuss the relationship between data and reality, and the implications of the surveillance camera’s frame. Bing also tells us more about the writing of the humourous texts that accompany this very scary discourse on our society.

Dragonfly Eyes (Qing Ting zhi yan): each of us is captured on surveillance cameras, on average, 300 times a day. These all-seeing “eyes” observe Qing Ting too, a young woman, as she leaves the Buddhist temple where she has been training to become a nun. She returns to the secular world, where she takes a job in a highly mechanized dairy farm. There, Ke Fan, a technician, falls in love with her, breaks the law in an attempt to please her and is sent to jail. On his release, he can’t find Qing Ting and looks for her desperately until he figures out that she has reinvented herself as the online celebrity Xiao Xiao. Ke Fan decides to revamp himself. Chinese artist Xu Bing, known for his installations made of cast or carved letters conveying how easily texts can be manipulated, or made to look deceptively intelligible, ventures into cinema and delivers a remarkable film evading all categorization (even though it is based on the premise that the whole world is incessantly being mapped and analysed and sorted into identifiable subjects and items and phenomena). His ability to create an apparently consistent love-story – emphasis on apparently – from thousands and thousands of surveillance camera footage, by playfully superimposing sounds and dialogues to the silent images, is an essential reminder – especially in the contemporary world, where the overflow of information is paralleled by the supremacy of mainstream ideological conformism – that even in “reality”, there is no such thing as “The Truth”, only interpretations/narratives. Working from data so incessantly and invasively collected, so randomly recorded or on the contrary deleted, data where the individual can only drown at the same time he is always being watched, and so precise that it is reconstitutes a story dangerously similar to reality which actually deeply betrays it, Xu Bing explores the limitations of the fixed, “arbitrary” frame offered by these many eyes staring at us every day, cameras which, by definition, are always on to film what is in front of their cold and square stare whether something is happening or not, in a culture where virtual dangers and catastrophes are sometimes perceived as just as real, and where human connections lose ground to be replaced by fallacies.

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

The post Xu Bing, Matthieu Laclau – Dragonfly Eyes (Qing Ting zhi yan) #Locarno70 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Francisco Noronha interviews Valérie Massadian, director of the film Milla.

Valérie Massadian is a french director who is at the Locarno Festival for the second time, after being here with Nana, which shares with Milla the look on children and their free and wild way of trying to survive in the world.

Milla 17, and Leo not much more, run away to a small town by the English Channel. A love to live, a life to invent. A life to hold on to, always, no matter what.

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

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PODCAST | Jaime Grijalba G. interviews Felipe Hirsch, director of the film Severina.

Felipe Hirsch is a Brazillian filmmaker and play director whose second film, Severina, plays at the Concorso Cineasta del Presente. In this interview he speaks about the plot of the film, the influence of Latin American literature in his work and on the original novel in which this film is based, the importance of working with cast & crew from the rest of Latin America, and about his future projects, both in film and theater.

Severina: a melancholic, aspiring writer and bookseller is shaken by the appearances and disappearances of his newfound muse who steals books from his bookstore. When he discovers that she also steals from other bookstores, he is consumed with jealousy and starts living in a kind of love delirium, on the border between fiction and reality. The closer he gets to her, the more indescribable she becomes and he begins to wonder why she steals, what are her values and who is the older man she lives with. At the end, what is real and what isn’t? And will he find a place in her life as he moves away from his own?

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

The post Felipe Hirsch – Severina #Locarno70 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Leonardo Goi interviews Andrea Magnani, director of the film Easy.

Italian director Andrea Magnani sat with Fred Film Radio to discuss his debut feature, Easy, a delicate, bittersweet road-trip competing in the Locarno Festival’s Cineasti del Presente Section. Tune in to hear Magnani speak about Ukraine’s breath-taking landscapes, his passion for Westerns, and how he crafted such a memorable character.

Easy: Isidoro, known by everyone as Easy, is lonely and depressed. His career as a young go-kart driver was interrupted when he began to gain so much weight he was not able to get into the seat any more. So he went back to live with his mother, and now passes his days in front of the TV, eating diet food. One day, his brother Filo – brilliant and successful – turns up with a job offer for him. It is a simple job, just so he can get out of the house and finally be behind the steering-wheel again: he has to take a coffin from Italy to a small village in the Carpathians, in Ukraine. But this journey to an unknown land can turn out to be much more complicated than planned…

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

The post Andrea Magnani – Easy #Locarno70 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

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.

The post Kim Dae-hwan – Cho-haeng (The Final Lap) #Locarno70 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

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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