FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Stefan Jäger, director of the film Monte Verità.

A conversation with Stefan Jäger, director of Monte Verità, from the Piazza Grande section of the 2021 Locarno Film Festival. The film is based on the true story of a real place in the festival’s region of Switzerland that at the turn of the 20th century served as a progressive and spiritual retreat for intellectuals and artists. Jäger talks about the film and its psychoanalytical dimension, working with screenwriter Kornelija Naraks on the project and the excitement of making a film set in this fascinating period in history.

Monte Verità: 1906, young mother Hanna wants nothing more than to break free from her bourgeois role and its social constraints. She flees to the Monte Verità sanatorium, where, surrounded by idyllic Ticino nature and courageously devoting herself to her art, she is soon faced with a wrenching decision. Can she return to her family without giving up on herself?

The post Stefan Jäger – Monte Verità #Locarno74 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Rok Biček, director of the film Penalty Shot.

A conversation with Rok Biček, director of the acclaimed 2013 film Class Enemy. He recently presented the short film Penalty Shot in the Pardi di domani: Concorso Corti D’Autore strand of the 2021 Locarno Film Festival. The short prefaces a feature-length project that the Slovenian director is currently working on. In this interview, Biček talks about both the short and this upcoming project, as well as Kristian Novak’s literary work that it is based on and his own interest in revisiting history.

Penalty Shot : Two best friends spend an afternoon on a football field, dreaming of making it onto the local team. But dreams come with a price; when a group of older boys interrupt their game, one of them sees it as an opportunity to prove himself, while the other one senses something more sinister is at play.

The post Rok Biček – Penalty Shot #Locarno74 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Federica Scarpa interviews Rob Jabbaz, director of the film The Sadness.

The most splatter film of the 74th edition of the Locarno Film Festival comes from Taiwan and is the first work by Canadian director Rob Jabba. The director told us how his film was born, what his cinematographic influences are, and why he decided to rely on old school visual effects.

The Sadness : A young couple is pushed to the limits of sanity as they attempt to be reunited amid the chaos of a pandemic outbreak. The streets erupt into violence and depravity, as those infected are driven to enact in the most cruel and ghastly things imaginable. Murder, torture, rape and mutilation are only the beginning. The age of civility and order is no more. There is only ‘The Sadness’.

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PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Jay Weissberg, artistic director of the Silent Film Festival.

A conversation about this year’s Giornate del Cinema Muto, a.k.a. the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, with its artistic director, Jay Weissberg. The most important annual showcase of early silent cinema return to Pordenone, Italy, this year as an in-person event for its landmark 40th anniversary edition. Weissberg shares with us some of the major features of its program, including a focus on women in film, a rare retrospective on Korean silent cinema and its opening and closing gala screenings of Ernst Lubitsch and Alexandre Volkoff masterworks. We also reflect on the reason behind the Giornate del Cinema Muto’s long-standing success over its 40-year history and how it has impacted the way in which film lovers and scholars think about, explore and exhibit early silent cinema.

To discover more about the Pordenone Silent Film Festival, click here.

The post Jay Weissberg – Giornate del Cinema Muto #GCM40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Saeed Taji Farouky, director of the film A Thousand Fires.

A conversation with Saeed Taji Farouky, director of A Thousand Fires, the opening film of the Critics’ Week section of the 2021 Locarno Film Festival. This is a touching documentary and meditative portrait of a lower class family running an unregulated oil field. In this interview, the filmmaker talks about connecting with the region and the family, shares his thoughts on the movie following the violent coup in Myanmar of this year, and more.

A Thousand Fires :  is a tale of family, oil, and life cycles in Myanmar’s hand-drilled oil fields. Parents Htwe Tin and Thein Shwe work hard to give their children a better future, their lives governed by a web of karma and astrology. All their hopes are pinned on their youngest son – Zin Ko Aung – and when he leaves home to make his own life, his parents must learn to let their children go.

The post Saeed Taji Farouky – A Thousand Fires #Locarno74 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Ninna Pálmadóttir, director of the film All Dogs Die.

A conversation with Icelandic director Ninna Pálmadóttir, part of this year’s Future Frames line-up. Future Frames is a showcase of young promising European directors organized by the European Film Promotion in collaboration with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film directed by Pálmadóttir that will be screened as part of this program in Karlovy Vary is titled All Dogs Die.

All Dogs Die: On a foggy weekend, an aged farmer and his dog duel mortality.

The post Ninna Pálmadóttir – All Dogs Die #KVFF2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST |Matt Micucci interviews Marcell Farkas, director of the film Szeurum.

A conversation with Hungarian director Marcell Farkas, part of this year’s Future Frames line-up. Future Frames is a showcase of young promising European directors organized by the European Film Promotion in collaboration with the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. The film directed by Farkas that will be screened as part of this program in Karlovy Vary is titled Szeurum.

Szeurum : Peti is a diabetic and breeder of phoenixes. When a sweet (!) meteorite lands in his room one day, he can’t wait to rush out and tell someone about it. Irma, dressed in her dad’s old diving suit and the architect of the home-made meteorites, proves to be an ideal companion… Infused with an irresistibly unsettling playfulness, the film briefly addresses and then abandons the problems of the modern world, from an absence of love to pervasive microplastics.

The post Marcell Farkas – Szeurum #KVIFF2021 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber, director and screenwriter of the film Evolution.

With so little time distance from Pieces of a woman, Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber work together again as director and writer for Evolution, screening at the 74Th Festival de Cannes in the Cannes Premiere section where they explore what it means to being jewish today and to live with such memories or legacy in all their positive and negative nuances. Starting by explaining the title, Evolution, the director and the writer reveal the genesis of the film which takes inspiration,as Pieces of a woman, in some autobiographical events in Kata’s life and her mother’s. As he did in his previous films, with the exception of Pieces of a woman, Kornél Mundruczó walks us through the introduction of a magical or supernatural event to help us connect the dots, which in this film’s case is water, connecting the episodes.

Evolution: In Evolution, acclaimed filmmaking team Kornél Mundruczó and Kata Wéber (Pieces of a Woman) return with a powerful drama tracing three generations of a family, from a surreal memory of World War II to modern day Berlin, unable to process their past in a society still coping with the wounds of its history.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Luàna Barjami, director of the film The Hill Where Lionesses Roar.

Luàna Barjami is not only the youngest ever female film director participating in the Quinzaine des realizateurs of Cannes Film Festival but she’s also one of the actresses in her debut film The Hill Where Lionesses Roar. The director tells us about the genesis of this coming of age story about these young, spirited hearts, Li, Qe and Jeta living in a small town in Kosovo and dreaming, fighting and working hard to choose their own future.

The Hill Where Lionesses Roar: Somewhere in Kosovo, in a small remote village, three young women see their dreams and ambitions stifled. In their quest for independence, nothing can stop them: time to let the lionesses roar.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviewsAvshalom Pollack and Nur Fibak, actors of the film Ahed’s Knee.

Ahed’s Knee, the new film by Nadav Lapid, screening in competition at the 74th Festival de Cannes is a film about a director fighting and struggling in two battles, the one to survive his mother’s death and the other one to avoid the death of freedom. His actors, Avshalom pollack and Nur Fibak talk about their characters who are inspired by real life people Lapid encountered along his path and discuss the importance of freedom, of never taking it for granted.

Ahed’s Knee: Y., an Israeli filmmaker in his mid-forties, arrives in a remote village at the far end of the desert to present one of his films. There he meets Yahalom, an officer for the Ministry of Culture, and finds himself fighting two losing battles: one against the death of freedom in his country, the other against the death of his mother.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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