FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Iulia Rugina, director of the film Breaking News.

Director Iulia Rugina talks to Fred about her latest film, Breaking News, which had its International Premiere in the official competition of the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film talks about a news reporter making an in memoriam report about a colleague of his, who died while working with him. The report turns into something far more personal as he develops a relationship with his subject and discovers things about himself as he digs deeper and deeper. Rugina tells us that the film has greater implications than those initially implied by the news world in which the story takes place. She tells us that she tried to make something more human than that with Breaking News. Rugina also talks about how her film clashes with the majority of the Romanian films that have been praised in recent times (the notorious Romanian New Wave), how she worked with the two lead actors of the film, the difference between working on a film that had a bigger budget and her previous ones, and more.

Breaking News: a difficult assignment awaits TV reporter Alex. He must film a memorial portrait for a coworker who died in a tragic accident they both experienced but that only he survived. His colleague’s daughter becomes his guide, although her relationship to her father was more than complicated. Alex becomes an involuntary witness to the girl’s handling of her father’s death, and he also comes to believe that chronicling a person’s life involves more than just a short news report…

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Giorgi Mukhadze, director of the film Waiting for Ana.

Fred Film Radio is media partner of the European Film Promotion (EFP) Future Frames, which presents ten outstanding young directors with their latest work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Director Giorgi Mukhadze, from Georgia, was among those selected at the 52nd edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and he presented his short film Waiting for Ana. In this interview Mukhadze talks to us about the importance of telling stories that may appear to be normal but are rarely candidly represented in contemporary cinema, his influences for the movie (including an interesting Chantal Akerman connection), the way in which he likes his actors to contribute to the overall creative process, his experience of being part of this year’s Future Frames, and more.

Waiting for Ana: their mother’s death becomes the grim pretext for estranged siblings to reunite. Ana and Niko are having trouble reconnecting, and words just seem to get in the way. Then something seemingly insignificant from the past helps them break down the barrier dividing them, and they remember how it was when each other’s presence brought them joy.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Elsa María Jakobsdóttir, director of the film Atelier.

Fred Film Radio is media partner of the European Film Promotion (EFP) Future Frames, which presents ten outstanding young directors with their latest work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Director Elsa María Jakobsdóttir, from Iceland, was among those selected this year, and she presented her short film Atelier at the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In this interview, Jakobsdóttir talks about the desires of being in solitude and silence, her minimalistic touch, the importance of architecture in shaping the style and look of Atelier, how being Icelandic and studying in Denmark impacted her screenwriting, her experience as part of this year’s Future Frames, and more.

Atelier: like a modern utopia, an unusually beautiful structure surrounded by the wilds of nature serves as the location for an encounter between two women. One seeks peace and relaxation, the other is creating an acoustic installation that intrudes upon the motionless calm. Frustration over this unplanned-for cohabitation grows and the differences between dream and reality begin to blur.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

The post Elsa María Jakobsdóttir – Atelier #KVIFF2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Damián Vondrásek, director of the film Imprisoned.

Fred Film Radio is media partner of the European Film Promotion (EFP) Future Frames, which presents ten outstanding young directors with their latest work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Director Damián Vondrásek, from the Czech Republic, was among those selected for this year’s edition and presented his film Imprisoned at the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. In this film, Vondrásek talks to us about the meaning of “imprisonment” as a concept of his movie, the effects of the choice of using a naturalistic style – he mentions, for instance, that he prefers minimalistic acting – in his film, refers to some of his creative influences, his experience of being part of the 2017 Future Frames at Karlovy Vary, and more.

Imprisoned: an offer of a job as a prison educator could help unemployed teacher Jakub resolve a difficult family situation. His father-in-law exacerbates his already low self-confidence, and the man most certainly imagined a different kind of son-in-law. The claustrophobic feelings Jakub experiences at the prison, however, lead him to a single question: Does he want to control others the rest of his life or be controlled by them?

For the official website of the festival, click here.

The post Damián Vondrásek – Imprisoned #KVIFF2017 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Katarina Morano, director of the film Ljubljana – Munchen 15:27.

Fred Film Radio is media partner of the European Film Promotion (EFP) Future Frames, which presents ten outstanding young directors with their latest work at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Director Katarina Morano, from Slovenia, was among them at the 52nd edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, and she presented her short film Ljubljana – Munchen 15:27. In this interview, Morano shares her opinions on the insecurities of this generation that inspired her film, cinema’s abilities of allowing one to examine the moments through a specific perspective, and comments on her experience of being part of the 2017 EFP Future Frames.

Ljubljana – Munchen 15:27 : Mala and Jure live in Ljubljana. They see their present existence as temporary. They’ll forget about work and their apartment when the longed-for moment arrives: the day they leave Slovenia and set out for Germany to find “something better.” But Mala is expecting a baby and it looks like it’s time to start realizing that the temporary may be permanent.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Iveta Grófová, director of the film Little Harbour.

Iveta Grófová presented her feature Little Harbour in the strand of the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Her film talks about neglected children. But in this interview, Grófová underlines that the situations portrayed in her movie are ones that may be experienced in any average family at all. In this interview, we touch base on many elements, including whether or not she set off with the concept of making a poetic film, what it was like for her not only to tell a story where the protagonists are young children but also what it was like to work with child actors, and whether of not it is right to see Little Harbour as, ultimately, a film that, despite everything, has its fair share of optimism.

Little Harbour: under somewhat unusual circumstances, ten-year-old Jarka finds herself a new family when she starts taking care of two abandoned babies. She enlists the help of Kristián, a boy of similar age, to help her prepare baby food in a dirty garden shed. In this poetic film, the children are thus finally able to create the home they never had themselves. But how long will this idyll last?

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Tereza Nvotová, director of the film Filthy.

Tereza Nvotová presented her fiction feature, Filthy, in a strand of the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival dedicated to contemporary Czech films. Filthy deals with the delicate issue of rape through a coming of age drama about a young girl. Nvotová tells us how she prepared for the movie and that she purposefully opted for a naturalistic approach. Furthermore, she talks about the challenges of dealing with this delicate theme within a coming of age drama, and how she ws able to cast the role of her protagonist. Furthermore, in this interview, Nvotová tells us about interesting things that happened during the making of the film, and how her background in documentary filmmaking affected the production of Filthy.

Filthy: “isn’t it partly her fault?” Variations on this dangerous question are put to the heroine of this drama, who has been raped by her teacher. Seventeen-year-old Lena ends up in a psychiatric hospital, but the insensitive staff causes her to withdraw into herself. Tereza Nvotová’s film tells us there are some demons that can’t just be shaken off.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Pat Collins, director of the film Song of Granite.

Filmmaker Pat Collins presented his latest film Song of Granite at the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film tells the story of the life of the legendary Irish traditional music singer Joe Heaney. Collins tells us about the importance of this type of music, especially Sean Nós (a specific style of unaccompanied singing), especially in the Irish-speaking parts of Ireland, where the film is based. He also tells us about how he did not want to make a conventional biographical movie and was also influenced by his own background as a documentarian. Song of Granite is a remarkably immersive experience; sound plays a huge part in its success. We talk about this too, and more – such as his use of archive footage, the choice of shooting in black and white and how he tries to remain open to change throughout every stage of a film production, during which a film may become something with a life of its own.

Song of Granite: his visually meticulous and mesmerizing film revolves around the life of the great traditional Irish singer, Joe Heaney. The power and magic of the songs provide the central motif threading its way through the film. Indeed, didn’t the songs help the residents of this magnificent but desolate Irish landscape to survive and commune with God? And what part of his heart and soul must the artist sacrifice in order to satisfy his inner compulsions?

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Marina Stepanska, director of the film Falling.

Director Marina Stepanska presented her film Falling in the East of the West competition strand 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. At the start of the interview, Stepanska tells that she is quite curious to see how an international audience will react to her film. Why? Because while, to be sure, the film revolves around a blooming romance between a young lady and a young man that is easily universally understood, it is also a film that is marked by Ukrainian elements, a lot of which revolve around the Ukrainian revolution of 2014. Stepanska tells us about a lot of them, and her desire to ultimately make a movie that would represent normal Ukrainian people, which she claims is something that is increasingly rare. Her decision to do so is reflected, for instance, in the way in which she decided to cast two actors in the lead who had never acted in a feature film before. Nonetheless, as mentioned, the film does have a universal dimension, and even an optimistic one, which she also discusses.

Falling: young Anton has just been released from the rehab centre where he had sought treatment for alcoholism and drug addiction. His grandpa, a man of stern principles who brought him up from a young age, takes him off to the country, far from the lure of the big city. One night Anton meets Katia, who, like him, is trying to find her bearings in life, although at least one thing should be clear in her mind: She is shortly to be leaving for Berlin with her boyfriend Johann, a German photojournalist she met during the Maidan demonstrations. Her encounter with Anton, however, brings a new impulse into her life and profoundly affects both of them… The debuting Ukrainian director uses remarkable sensitivity in her depiction of the fragility of fledgling emotion, to a great extent aided by the finely nuanced performances of the leads. In a broader context Marina Stepanska’s psychological drama is also a strong statement on the current young generation as it tries to find its place in post-revolutionary Ukraine.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Bohdan Slama, director of the film Ice Mother.

Ever heard of ice swimming? This peculiar sport is what triggers the transformation of an older lady, the protagonist of Ice Mother by Bohdan Slama, presented in the special strand of the 52nd Karlovy Vary International Film Festival exhibiting Czech films of the 2016-2017 season. Bohdan is more than happy to talk to us about ice swimming and even tell us a story of how this important element of the film affected the lead actress of the movie, Zuzana Kronerova. But he also talks to us about the representation of older people in cinema, which is somewhat rare in cinema at large, and the element of the family in his movie. As he says, Ice Mother is a film that represents a message that is really important to him: “no matter how difficult life may be, it is important to have a feeling of hope.”

Ice Mother: is there an age limit to changing your life? And once you decide to go ahead with it, will your nearest and dearest try to dissuade you? In Bohdan Slama’s new tragicomedy a sixty-year-old widow finally manages to shake off the influence of her selfish sons in order to begin a new life with a hardy nonconformist. But any kind of change is going to cost something.

For the official website of the festival, click here.

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