FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Daisy Asquith – director – After the Dance

FRED’s Matt Micucci meets director Daisy Asquith, whose documentary AFTER THE DANCE screened at the 60th Cork Film Festival.

A very personal documentary, Asquith talks to FRED about the challenges of making it and the opposition she encountered from members of the family who were reluctant of her exposing such a personal and obviously delicate part of their family history.

But we also talk about the significance of AFTER THE DANCE in view of its portrayal of the Irish society of the forties and fifties, and the effects it still has on Ireland to this day.

AFTER THE DANCE: In this funny and moving documentary, acclaimed film-maker Daisy Asquith tells the very personal story of her mother’s conception after a dance in the 1940s on the remote west coast of Ireland.

By exploring the repercussions of this act, Daisy and her mother embark on a fascinating and emotional adventure in social and sexual morality. Her grandmother, compelled to run away to have her baby in secret, handed the child over to ‘the nuns’. Daisy’s mum was eventually adopted by English Catholics from Stoke-on-Trent. Her grandmother returned to Ireland and told no-one. The father remained a mystery for another 60 years, until Daisy and her mum decided it was time to find out who he was.

Their attempts to find the truth make raw the fear and shame that Catholicism has wrought on the Irish psyche for centuries. It leads Daisy and her mum to connect with a brand new family living an extraordinarily different life.

After The Dance trailer from Oisin Lunny on Vimeo.

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Simon Pummell – director – Brand New-U

FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews Simon Pummell, director of the film BRAND NEW-U, which had its Irish premiere at the 60th edition of the Cork Film Festival.

Simon talks to us about where the inspiration for the story came from, and how he adapted its very real and current themes of identity crisis, dopplegangers and paranoia within the science fiction genre.

The film looks amazing, thanks to some excellent effects, and despite the fact that BRAND NEW-U did not benefit from the large scale budget of other similar works. We talk how the stunning visual work was achieved, but also how he managed to not let the film be overtaken by it, retaining lots of substance in a story that seeks open interaction with its viewers and aims to be immersive with its meticulous pace and intense atmosphere.

BRAND NEW-U: The organisation BRAND NEW-U identifies networks of Identicals – “people who walk like you, talk like you, but are walking through different, better lives” – and helps their customers make a life upgrade: eliminating the Better-Life donor, and relocating their client to that Brand New life. But errors can occur, and a Brand New life can cost more than expected.

Brand New-U follows Slater as he is forced to move through a series of parallel lives. He becomes more and more obsessed as he tries to find the lover he lost, but what he must find in the end is himself. BRAND NEW-U takes elements of science-fiction movies and thrillers, strips them down, and re-mixes them into a looping dream-logic to create a contemporary allegory of our search for identity and human connection in our rootless, media-saturated worlds.

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Katina Medina Mora – director – You Will Know What To Do With Me

FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews filmmaker Katina Medina Mora, whose film YOU WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH ME had its World Premiere at the 60th Cork Film Festival.

Katina described working on this film as a cathartic process before the film screened at the Gate Cinema – and she tells us why that is, and the mahy personal aspects of the film that led to its development over the lengthy course of eight years.

She also talks about the different choices she made for the film, such as the narrative structure that sees the blooming love story between the leading characters from each of their individual viewpoints or the subtle and yet meaningful visual stylistic choices.

On top of that, we talk about how she cast and worked with the actors themselves, whose excellent performances and the fantastic chemistry they share between them contribute to the beauty and overall impact of the film.

YOU WILL KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH ME: Photographer Nicolás, epileptic since childhood, and is forced to take care of himself and sacrifice a lot, though he lives a normal life. On the other hand, Isabel is a woman who, apparently, has her whole life figured out although her mother is ill and she has no choice but to try to save her. Isabel and Nicolás fall in love in spite of themselves, their demons, their ghosts, and their weaknesses. Suddenly engaged in a relationship none of them would have even dared to imagine, they experience the love, passion, insecurity, fear, and allergy to commitment in this subtle and intelligent love story.

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Hagai Levi – director – The Accursed (Episode 1)

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Hagai Levi, in Rome at the 21st MedFilm Festival to present, as a Special Event, the pilot episode of the 5th episodes Mini-Series THE ACCURSED he completed in 2014.

After creating the well-known Tv Series IN TREATMENT , based on the Israel version BETIPUL which made him famous all around the world, Levi wrote along with co-creator Sarah Treem the Golden Globes winning series THE AFFAIR.

Despite the huge success of THE AFFAIR which is currently programmed by Showtime in USA, Hagai Levi decided it was time to go back to his roots and to Israel to work on The ACCURSED and on a long feature film he has been wanting to do for a long time.

At the MedFilm Festival Hagai Levi will be protagonist of a Master Class moderated by Andrea Fornasiero.

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Kevin Allen – director – Under Milk Wood

FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews director Kevin Allen, director of the film UNDER MILK WOOD, selected as the UK’s entry for best foreign language film at the 2015 Academy Awards. The film was also featured in the programme of the 60th Cork Film Festival.

With this film, Kevin Allen re-imagines the work of DYLAN THOMAS, commissioned by the BBC, and it is a suited production considering last year’s celebrations of his centenary. But is is also quite a dreamlike film that aims to, rather than re-imagine it, straigh on imagine it from scratch, with a distinctive style.

The director talks with us about how he got the film to come together and hoped to make it an interactive experience, which not only stands as a film itself, but a work with a life that will go on, not only with the DVD release of the film, but a vinyl and book to go with it.

Furthermore, we talk about how the cast, headed by RHYS IFENS and which includes CHARLOTTE CHURCH was composed, and how the overall production was meticulously constructed.

UNDER MILK WOOD: Rhys Ifans returns to his South Wales roots with this lusty cinematic remake of the celebrated radio ‘play for voices’ by legendary Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. This beautiful adaptation of Thomas’s iconic classic, stars Rhys Ifans and Charlotte Church.

Very different indeed to the 1972 version, brimming wih Richard Burton gravitas, Allen’s (often very) erotic, surreal cinematic approach explores some of the more visceral elements of the funny, magical dreamscape of Thomas’ seaside village Llareggub (buggerall backwards). The film is lush and enthralling, with the lyricism of the language matched by rich, dreamlike imagery

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Jonas Carpignano – director – Mediterranea

Jonas Carpignano is back on FRED to talk about his film MEDITERRANEA being presented in ROME as the opening film of the 21st edition of the MedFilm Festival and also introducing the LUX FILM DAYS in Rome as the first film to be screened among the three titles in the shortlist ( MUSTANG and THE LESSON).

It is just a coincidence that the title MEDITERRANEA matches with the Festival but it is a fact that the film well represent the festival’s mission of creating a dialogue between cultures. MEDITERRANEA manages to create empathy between the audience and this man whose story is portrayed and that is exactly what director Jonas Carpignano wanted to achieve. “we wanted to put a human face to a big story ” , this is what Carpignano says and did while shooting.

MEDITERRANEA: Ayiva recently left his home in Burkina Faso in search of a way to provide for his sister and his daughter. He takes advantage of his position in an illegal smuggling operation to get himself and his best friend Abas off of the continent. Ayiva adapts to life in Italy, but when tensions with the local community rise, things become increasingly dangerous. Determined to make his new situation work he attempts to weather the storm, but it has its costs.

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Tao Ruspoli – director – Monogamish

Is Monogamy natural for the human being? Tao Ruspoli, director of Monogamish, is rummaging through couples’ lives, affairs, poligamy, poliamory to find alternate ways of mating for life while living our sexuality to the fullest.

MONOGAMISH: Recovering from a heartbreaking divorce, independent filmmaker and son-of-an-Italian-Prince Tao Ruspoli takes to the road to talk to relatives, advice columnists, psychologists, historians, anthropologists, artists, philosophers, sex workers, sex therapists, and ordinary couples about love, sex & monogamy in our culture. What he discovers about his very unconventional family, and about the history and psychology of love and marriage leads him to question the ideal of monogamy, and the traditional family values that go with it.

The post Tao Ruspoli – Monogamish #RomaFF10 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Eddie Tamir – festival director – Jewish International Film Festival

Festival director Eddie Tamir talks about JIFF 2015: a world-class film festival of 60 Australian premiere features, documentaries and TV series from Israel and around the globe. In his own words “The agony and the ecstasy of the Jewish experience condensed into a few weeks”.

Click here to visit the official website of the Jewish International Film Festival.

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James Mullighan – creative director – Cork Film Festival

FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews James Mullighan, creative director of the Cork Film Festival, just a few days before the beginning of its landmark 60th edition.

The previous two editions of the festival saw a considerable evolution in terms of quality of the programme and ambition of the festival’s vision.

This year looks to continue building on what it has already achieved in a number of ways. Not least of all with its expansion of its talents development programme, and the promotion of cinema as a way of sparking up debates, on top of its rich short film programme, exciting music events and fascinating feature films from Ireland and from all parts of the world – not to mention the return to the festival of the LUX Prize. This year the Cork Film Festival turns 60.

James Mullighan talks about this and a lot more of what we can expect in Cork this year, which continues in the tradition of the festival’s motto of “Films, Music, Ideas”

CORK FILM FESTIVAL: Ireland’s oldest film festival and Cork’s flagship cultural happening, the Cork Film Festival lights up and delights the Rebel City in November. In 2015 the Festival celebrates its 60th Edition, taking place 6-15 November.

Its log line is ‘Films. Music. Ideas’. As well as playing a rich selection of the best of contemporary world cinema, it has a lively and varied music on film programme, and a timely event series which uses films to explore some of the burning issues of our time.

The Festival operates out of the Cork Opera House, the Triskel Christchurch, and the Gate Cinema. In 2014 there were 242 films screened – including 93 features (24 Irish) from 51 countries. Competition includes awards for features, shorts and documentaries, with prizes totalling €7,500. There has been many developments for the 2015 Festival: RTÉ is now the Cork Film Festival’s Principal Partner, working with the Festival to raise its profile across all RTÉ platforms in the biggest festival association between RTÉ and Cork City.

Since 2014, the Cork Film Festival is Academy Awards® accredited. The winners of its Grand Prix Irish presented by RTÉ Cork and Grand Prix International will now qualify for the long list of the Academy Awards® for the Animated Short Film/Live Action Short Film category.

The Cork Film Festival will host the Irish premier screenings of the shortlist of three of the EU Parliament’s LUX prize films in November.

The Festival soon will announce two new prizes for documentary, and plans to make Cork the premier destination for factual filmmaking in Ireland. The Festival has announced its plans for its Talent Development Campus, and will welcome over 100 filmmakers from UK, Europe and beyond to join the 50 Irish who benefit from the training.

Click here to visit the official website of the 60th Cork Film Festival

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James Vanderbilt – director – Truth

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets James Vanderbilt, first time director of the opening film of the 10th edition of Rome Film Festival: TRUTH.

Starring Robert Redford, Cate Blanchett, Elisabeth Moss, Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid , the film explores the relationship between politics and journalism and the difficulties to access the real ugly TRUTH about facts.

TRUTH: In the lead-up to the U.S. presidential elections in 2004, veteran CBS News producer and reporter Mary Mapes and the venerable CBS News anchor Dan Rather aired a sensational report on 60 Minutes II that purported to reveal new evidence proving that President George W. Bush had possibly shirked his duty to serve in the Vietnam War by exploiting his family connections and political privilege.

But within days after the story broke, George W. Bush’s military service record was no longer the focus of media and public scrutiny. Instead, it was 60 Minutes, Mapes, and Rather who were under fire for challenging the official version of the story, and now they were facing charges of shoddy journalism.

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