Avec Pascal Diot, directeur du Venice Production Bridge, nous avons discuté des résultats obtenus après 15 ans — puisque c’est la 15e édition cette année — d’avoir créé un endroit où les professionnels du cinéma ont plaisir à revenir pour discuter, négocier, échanger et travailler dans une atmosphère à la fois détendue et efficace.

Diot nous dévoile un nouvel événement au sein du Venice Production Bridge, le VPB Location Market, destiné à couvrir l’ensemble de la chaîne de production du cinéma. Les lieux de tournage étaient un maillon manquant, pourtant essentiel pour les producteurs : sans lieu, pas de tournage possible. Le VPB Location Market rassemble des commissions du film et des studios, en créant un événement dédié au sein d’un festival de classe A — une première.

L’événement se tient au Matchpoint Arena, où ont lieu traditionnellement les masterclasses du festival chaque après-midi. La programmation a été adaptée pour le matin : l’espace accueille deux ou trois panels chaque matin, destinés aussi bien aux professionnels qu’au grand public, puisqu’il s’agit d’un lieu ouvert à tous.

Diot confie avoir reçu de nombreuses demandes cette année, notamment pour des panels sur l’intelligence artificielle : submergé de propositions, il n’en a finalement sélectionné que deux ou trois. Pour soutenir le VPB Location Market, il a également créé un panel dédié aux lieux de tournage. Les sections traditionnelles du VPB restent inchangées, comme le Book Adaptation Bridge, limité à 30 participants tenus de venir avec l’intégralité de leur catalogue, ou encore le Venice Gap Financing Market, le marché de coproduction, qui compte déjà plus de 900 rendez-vous prévus sur trois jours.

Deux pays particulièrement chers à Diot sont cette année les pays d’honneur : la Suisse et la Grèce. Il se réjouit de cette double présence, qui correspond pour ces deux pays à un moment charnière. En Grèce, la fusion de plusieurs entités a donné naissance à une structure unique, le Hellenic Film and Audiovisual Centre (EKKOMED), qui devrait considérablement faciliter et soutenir l’industrie cinématographique du pays. En Suisse, les autorités réfléchissent également à revoir et à augmenter leurs subventions afin d’attirer davantage de tournages.

The post Interview avec Pascal Diot, directeur du Venice Production Bridge appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Presented in the Open section, out of competition, at the 83rd Venice International Film Festival 2026, Boatbuilders is set at the head of a remote Maine harbor, where the sixty-some workers of the Brooklin Boat Yard coax wooden planks around a frame, make precise saw cuts, and sand edges for flawless joints, resulting in some of the most stunning and sought-after wooden vessels in the world. Over the course of four vibrant seasons, director Luke Lorentzen tracks the boatbuilders’ meticulous construction of a 56-foot sailboat while embedding us in the lives of these men and their close-knit community. Lorentzen talks about why he chose this story after a difficult previous film, about building the film as an ensemble rather than around a single lead, and about the attention to detail he learned from the boatbuilders themselves.

Lorentzen explains that Boatbuilders was, in part, a deliberate reaction to the film he had made right before it: “I had just finished a film before Boatbuilders that was incredibly meaningful to me but was emotionally very difficult. It was about end of life care in a hospital in New York City. And I knew that I loved filmmaking, but I needed to pick another topic that would be playful and delightful.” That search led him back to a place from his childhood summers: “Maine is a place that I grew up going every summer, and I always just felt really good when I was there. I decided to try and find a story that would ask me to be there for a really long period of time. So I found the Brooklin Boatyard and shot with them for about 16 months. It was just a totally life-affirming, beautiful experience, and I’m hoping the film can give the audience the same thing I was craving, and I think many of us are.”

Trent, the yard’s project manager, emerges as one of the film’s most present figures, but Lorentzen is careful to frame him as part of a larger whole: “Trent stuck out from the very first day of being in Brooklin. He’s such a tender, sweet person, and he’s also just incredible at building things. But it’s really a film about community as well, and it’s not just about one person doing something. It’s about a whole collective of people who each have their own part of the project and can only finish the boat together.” That collective structure, he says, shaped the shoot and the edit alike: “It’s different from any other film I made, in that it’s really an ensemble of many people. Throughout the shooting I needed to really get to know all of the 60 people who work at the boatyard, and in the edit figure out how all of their personalities and the energy of their work together could come through, without it feeling like the film needed a core person to follow.”

Learning to look at the world like a boatbuilder

Asked about the almost hypnotic, meditative quality of some sequences, Lorentzen says it reflects exactly what he was chasing on set: “My goal was to live the story and to be there as much as possible. The yard welcomed me into their family, and I knew that over time that would work its way into the film. I was just looking for things that were satisfying or mesmerizing, things I couldn’t look away from, but not always knowing why.” That quality of attention, he explains, came directly from the boatbuilders’ own discipline: “I was trying to get into a headspace where I wasn’t overlooking things, where small little tensions or small little details mattered. And that really came from the boatbuilders: their job is to be incredibly detail oriented, and I learned how to look at the world through that perspective.”

The post “Boatbuilders”, interview with director Luke Lorentzen appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Liryc Dela Cruz, director of the short film A Brief Encounter, discusses his latest work at the International Critics Week section of the Venice Film Festival 2026. The film explores themes of trauma, tenderness, and human connection amid a backdrop of violence and digital detachment.

Dela Cruz explains that the story was inspired by a conversation about Filipino digital cleaners, highlighting the often unseen labor behind online footprints. The narrative centers on a woman who receives distressing news about loved ones’ suicides, but instead of dwelling on violence, the film emphasizes intimate gestures and human care. He emphasizes that the off-screen tragedies serve as a stark contrast to the gentle physical contact portrayed on screen, aiming to evoke empathy without explicit violence. The filmmaker also notes his intention to capture fleeting moments of connection that stand out amid a flood of violent images in contemporary media.

The director discusses his deliberate use of changing aspect ratios, shifting from color to black and white and from wide to square formats, to reflect the evolving nature of digital identities. He sees cinema as a collective experience that can produce profound emotional responses, especially when depicting moments of tenderness and joy often invisible in mainstream portrayals. Dela Cruz highlights his desire to offer viewers a different perspective—one that celebrates human pleasure and desire beyond suffering, challenging the Western tendency to fetishize poverty and pain. His aim is to create a space where viewers can see others as complex beings capable of feeling and self-determination.

Dela Cruz shares that he is working on a new feature titled Una festa peruviana, a love letter to Rome that explores the presence of bodies in the city’s landscape. Unlike his previous works rooted in his home country, this project reflects his current life in Italy and his interest in how bodies inhabit and reroute through space without invasion but through coexistence. He expresses enthusiasm for his upcoming film and hopes that his recent short, A Brief Encounter, will resonate with audiences by emphasizing subtlety and human connection in a time dominated by images of violence.

The post “A Brief Encounter”, interview with director Liryc Dela Cruz appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Presented in Venice Open – Out of Competition during the Venice Film Festival 2026, The Basics of Philosophy follows John Jorissen, a philosophy professor in the American Midwest working on a book about Spinoza, whose quiet life with his partner Becca and her son Willie is upended when the sudden reappearance of a young man, Miguel Basque, at his estranged father’s funeral forces him to confront a past incident he has never accounted for.

Wracked with guilt and doubting that Spinoza’s God will ever pardon him, Jorissen buys a lethal dose of euthanasia powder even as he asks Becca to marry him. Director Paul Schrader talks about the film’s questions of change and forgiveness, and about how he sees film criticism in the age of the internet.

Asked about the possibility of change, both in the film and in his own filmmaking over the decades, Schrader ties the question directly to the line his character speaks: “As the character says, I think I have changed but I have not been forgiven.” He describes what drew him to that idea: “Can we really change, and can we really forgive ourselves? I thought that was an interesting theme.” He is less convinced, though, that people themselves change very much at all: “If I go back to even the days before I was a filmmaker, when I was a film critic, I don’t think I have changed that much. The mold is cut for us in our childhood, the computer is programmed, and we run that program for the rest of our days.”

Asked how he, a former film critic himself, sees film critics today, Schrader points to the internet as the great disruption: “Film criticism has obviously been changed by the internet. You used to be able to come to a festival and do about 20, 30 things, and that would cover the world. Now you do 10,000 things, and you can’t cover the world. Everybody has a blog, everybody has a website. It’s just huge, in a way. So in order to reach the same number of listeners or readers, you just have to do a lot more work.” He says he still keeps a hand in criticism himself, in a smaller way: “I’m quite active on Facebook because it allows me to be a kind of critic of sorts. I can go to a movie, have an opinion about it, and just post it on Facebook. It’s a way for me to return, in a small way, to criticism.”

The post “The Basics of Philosophy”, interview with director Paul Schrader appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Presented out of competition in the Open section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival, Queer Edward II is set in the spring of 1991, as queer life in Britain faces renewed attack and filmmaker Derek Jarman adapts Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II into a radical protest film. Built from never-before-seen footage shot by Seamus McGarvey on Jarman’s set, the documentary is about the refusal to separate art from life, politics from pleasure. Director Theo Rollason and activist and film advisor Peter Tatchell talk to David Mart about how the archive came to Rollason, Jarman’s legacy as a cultural revolutionary, the reclaiming of the word queer, and the rights their subjects fought for that are once again under threat today.

Asked why this story, for his first feature film, Rollason traces it back to the footage itself: “It’s an entirely archival film and the archive kind of came to me. I was working as an archivist and was asked to give an opinion about this footage that no one had seen for 35 years”. He describes the pull he felt toward one thread within it: “And very quickly, maybe slightly bigheaded of me, I thought this is an amazing film that needs to be made and I really want to make it because I feel a really strong attachment to a particular story within this footage about queer rights in the UK in the late 80s and early 90s which I felt was under told, hadn’t been told enough, certainly not to the extent that I was familiar enough with it”.

Asked to explain Jarman’s importance to viewers who may not know him, Tatchell describes a figure both gentle and radical: “Derek Jarman was an incredible, innovative, pioneering cultural revolutionary. He was polite, charming, but a revolutionary in art, film, and many other forms”. And, he adds, that radicalism always carried a purpose beyond the work itself: “In his films he tried to not only produce great art but also to tell a social message, to have a moral purpose, and in particular to expand understanding and consciousness about the struggle of LGBT+ people, and that for him was really, really important”.

Asked how the meaning of the word queer has shifted since the period the film covers, Rollason describes a term still being contested at the time: “The period that we’re looking at in the film is kind of when queer was still being adopted as a word in the UK. It had come over from America and the Queer Nation, and it wasn’t at all without controversy”. He explains why Jarman embraced it, unlike the label that came before it: “He always had a difficult relationship with what was the gay community, that he always put in scare quotes, because he didn’t feel totally represented by it and it felt maybe too prescriptive for him at times. And I think queer as a term, as a reclaimed term, just felt like something exciting, something more expansive, and something that they could turn around and say, well, screw you if you’re going to call me queer, I am queer”. Tatchell adds that for Jarman the word pointed toward something larger than equality: “So for him, the use of the word queer was a defiant affirmation that he had a vision of something bigger and better, which would not only benefit LGBT+ people, but also straight people as well. So his idea of queer was beyond equality, equality plus, a transformation of society rather than a fitting into it”.

Asked whether the sense of progress on LGBT+ rights felt a decade ago is now being reversed, Tatchell lays out a global picture that is still far from won: “Even assuming the battle was won, it was only won in the West. There are still over 60 countries in the world that criminalize same-sex relations. 12 have the death penalty and 43 have various restrictions on trans people. So globally the battle is far from won”. He describes the backlash now reaching the West as well: “Even in the West the gains we’ve won are under attack and we are witnessing a backlash, particularly targeted at the trans community, but not entirely, and that is scary. The rise of the far right in Europe and the United States is a very, very frightening moment. It has echoes of a dark past and so far democracies are more or less holding the line, but things are very, very threatening”. A pressure, he adds, that reaches well beyond LGBT+ people: “I think not just LGBT+ people, but also Black and ethnic minorities, immigrants, refugees, Muslims, Jews are all feeling pressure”. For Tatchell, that is exactly what makes Jarman’s film still speak to the present: “In a sense Edward II, Derek Jarman’s film, was really a statement or a kickback against marginalization, in his case the marginalization of LGBT+ people, but also in a wider sense against all people who are marginalized, discriminated, and victimized”.

The post “Queer Edward”, interview with director Theo Rollason and film advisor Peter Tatchell appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Listy-Letters from the Silenced Country by director Andrei Kutsila, presented at Venice Film Festival, explores the realities of contemporary Belarus through personal letters from those who have experienced repression, imprisonment, and exile. The project is included in Venice Open and sheds light on a country where freedom of expression remains severely restricted.

Kutsila emphasizes that his own forced exile following the 2020 protests deeply influenced his desire to tell stories from Belarus. With many friends still inside the country facing imprisonment or hiding, he felt a moral obligation to give voice to those silenced by the regime. The film’s focus on letters allows for an intimate glimpse into the lives of political prisoners and exiles, offering a deeper understanding beyond conventional reporting.

Kutsila explains that letters serve as a bridge to the private worlds of individuals living under authoritarian rule. Unlike news reports or human rights documentation, letters reveal emotional depth and personal perspectives. He spent years exploring innovative ways to present these letters visually, aiming to preserve their intimacy while making them accessible on screen. He believes that this approach allows viewers to engage with the stories on a human level, fostering empathy and awareness about Belarus’s ongoing struggles.

A key element of  Listy-Letters from the Silenced Country is the inclusion of Andrei Astapovich, a former Belarusian investigator who defected and sought asylum in Poland. Kutsila underscores how vital it was to incorporate a voice from inside the system, someone who chose to break away rather than conform. Developing Andrei ’s story involved years of close collaboration, during which Kutsila learned about the moral dilemmas faced by insiders. He sees Andrei’s example as a testament to the possibility of individual resistance, even in the most oppressive circumstances.

The post “Listy-Letters from the Silenced Country”, interview with director Andrei Kutsila appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Guria, by director Levan Koguashvili, presented in Venice Spotlight at Venice Film Festival, is a black-and-white tragicomic story set in Western Georgia during the tumultuous period following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Director Levan Koguashvili and producer Boris Frumin discuss how the film captures a complex era through a blend of humor and seriousness, emphasizing authenticity and human relationships.

Koguashvili explains that the inspiration came from real stories he heard from people living in Georgia during the 1990s. He wanted to portray that decade not just as a time of hardship, but also as a period filled with warmth, irony, and human resilience. Koguashvili emphasizes the importance of recording life in Georgia as it truly was, respecting the reality of his country and its people, rather than resorting to fictionalized or exaggerated depictions. Frumin adds that their goal was to represent the everyday struggles and moments of joy that defined that era, offering an authentic window into Georgian life during a turbulent time.

Koguashvili and Frumin reveal that their approach to storytelling was heavily influenced by Italian neorealism, which combines elements of tragedy and comedy. They believe that cinema should reflect the full spectrum of human experience, especially in difficult times. In Guria, humor is a vital tool to explore survival and human connection without diminishing the seriousness of the characters’ struggles. Koguashvili notes that the film’s mix of comedy and tragedy aims to offer a nuanced perspective on Georgian society, emphasizing the resilience and kindness of its people.

A key aspect of Guria is its focus on genuine human interactions. Koguashvili and Frumin point out that the film’s strength lies in its ability to bring to life the everyday decency and warmth of Georgian society, making the audience connect emotionally with the characters’ journeys. Through this authentic depiction, Guria reminds viewers of the enduring human spirit amid hardship.

The post “Guria”, interview with director Levan Koguashvili and producer Boris Frumin appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

I Matter by director Alina Şerban, presented in Venice Spotlight at the Venice Film Festival, explores the life of Rebecca, a Roma girl growing up within Romania’s child protection system, drawing on Şerban’s own experiences. Alina Şerban and Carla Fotea, the film’s producer, discuss the complex process of transforming lived realities into compelling cinema that aims to foster understanding and challenge stereotypes.

Şerban explains that her childhood was initially privileged before she experienced life within a Roma community and a children’s home, which profoundly shaped her perspective. She emphasizes that her goal was not to tell only her story but to incorporate the voices of others she worked with, including young people from orphanages. Her research involved creating short documentaries and theatre pieces to better understand what her younger self needed to hear, ultimately weaving these insights into the film’s fabric. Şerban highlights that I Matter is a multi-layered narrative, built from diverse perspectives, to enrich its emotional depth and authenticity.

Şerban discusses the importance of self-awareness in storytelling, especially when it involves marginalized communities. She reflects on her own process of unlearning stereotypes and shame associated with her Roma identity, which she previously internalized due to harmful portrayals in media. Her wants to present a humanized image of Romani people, moving away from exoticized stereotypes and instead offering a nuanced portrayal that allows for multiple identities within Roma culture.

Fotea shares that the production process spanned over four years, during which the team closely collaborated with young people from Romania’s child protection system. The team grappled with questions of cultural appropriation and the ethics of storytelling, ultimately supporting Şerban’s vision while respecting the community’s voice.

The post “I Matter”, interview with director Alina Şerban and producer Carla Fotea appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Too Much Sugar, by Robert Greene, included in the Orizzonti selection, is a documentary with a peculiar story behind it. We had a chat with the director to know more about it and about his lead character.

Robert Greene explains that the collaborative form  is one he’s been followed and developed  over several films. It started with an encounter with Ryan  and an idea  and one of the best titles he ever heard.  6 kids, 5 different women, in and out of prison since when he was a kid. There was a lot there that needed to be told. So we really wanted to dive in and that’s how we started. And actually, Ryan on screen is a huge persona, he’s interesting, it’s fascinating, is um strong and also kind of very touching.

Robert knows what Ryan is. He’s a guy who went to prison for getting into fights. Most people just write him off. They both come  from similar backgrounds. Robert Greene knows a lot of guys like Ryan. When you meet him, you know, you just know there’s like this kindness and this willingness to try to keep moving forward and be better, especially if there’s a camera present. The camera could sort of make him feel like a hero but also make him understand mistakes that he’s made. It could do both things at once. I think that was, that was what we needed to happen.

Ryan has to be a better father because he didn’t have a father. So he’s like he’s projecting on, on his kids and in his life.  Robert Green knows form personale experience that when you grow up without a father one ends  up making that the focus of your life.  Real fatherhood is making space for other people. And it took a while for Ryan to learn that. The film that has also a kind of therapeutical aspect because on the story of  Ryan’s best friend, AccRite. He lost his kid by murder and  it was Ryan to convince him to use the media of cinema to heal.

Robert Green knows how much non actors want to do good. in this case though he thinks they’re all really compelling on camera and some of them are quite good actors. The most important thing is to understand that this is coming from a place of dreams. This is coming from a working class family who is using movies and thinking about movies like their dreams. They’re thinking about movies like movies represent a way to have a different life. And so when one understands that, seeing them deliver comedic lines that were written for them,  there’s a yearning in that and a fun in that, that is more preferable than some method acting.

The post “Too much Sugar”, interview with director Robert Greene appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Union Town by director Barbara Kopple, presented in Venice Open at the Venice Film Festival, powerfully revisits the ongoing struggles of organized labor in America, highlighting the persistence of workers’ rights issues despite decades of change. Director Barbara Kopple and producer Hannes Hosp discuss the relevance of the film in today’s socio-political climate and its potential to inspire global awareness.

Kopple reflects on her return to themes of labor activism after many years, comparing her new film to her earlier work on “Harlan County, USA”. She emphasizes that, although tactics have evolved, the core issues remain the same: fair pay, safe working conditions, and respect on the job. Kopple highlights how the film portrays the ongoing battle against union-busting strategies, which include significant financial investments and aggressive tactics aimed at silencing workers. She notes that the film captures scenes that confront viewers with the realities faced by workers today, showing that the fight for dignity at work continues.

Hannes Hosp explains that the decision to produce Union Town was driven by Kopple’s longstanding commitment to labor issues and the opportunity to shed light on current struggles. He shares that gaining access to workers was challenging, especially given the risks faced by those willing to speak out. Despite these obstacles, many workers, including undocumented individuals, chose to share their stories, motivated by a desire to push for change.

Kopple and Hosp see Union Town as more than just a film; they view it as a historical document that captures a pivotal moment in the labor movement. They highlight the potential of cinema, especially documentary filmmaking, to shape public discourse and inspire activism, emphasizing that the enduring value of documentary cinema lies in its ability to record reality and motivate societal change.

The post “Union Town”, interview with director Barbara Kopple and producer Hannes Hosp appeared first on Fred Film Radio.