FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Harry Macqueen, director and of the film Supernova.

“I wanted to make a film with a strong message that was encouraging, stimulating, provocative and timely, about the lengths each of us will go for the person we love” explains Harry Macqueen while describing the genesys of Supernova, screening at the 15th Rome Film Festival in the official selection. Stanley Tucci and Colin Firth ( who are close friends in real life) play a couple who has to face the most painful of the battles: one of them is getting sicker everyday due to dementia and the other one has to learn to let him go. What does it mean to really love someone? Harry Macqueen leaves this question and its thousand answers open in the air as he relies on two geniuses to do it all.

Supernova: It is Autumn and Sam and Tusker, partners of twenty years, are on holiday. They are travelling across England in their old campervan visiting friends, family and places from their past. Since Tusker was diagnosed with young-onset dementia two years ago, their lives have had to change. Jobs have been given up and plans put on hold. Their time together is now the most important thing they have. As the trip progresses however, their individual ideas for their future begin to collide. Secrets are uncovered, private plans unravel and their love for each other is tested like never before. Ultimately, they must confront the question of what it means to love one another in the face of Tusker’s irreparable illness.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Harry Macqueen – Supernova #RomaFF15 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Elisabeth Wilke, director of the film Animali. 

A conversation with Elisabeth Wilke, director of Animali, a short presented out of competition in Alice nella Città, the parallel strand of the 2020 Rome Film Fest.

The post Elisabeth Wilke – Animali #AlicenellaCittà appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Samantha Sartori interviews Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, directors of the film The Truffle Hunters.

We meet with Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck, co-directors of The Truffle Hunters, a documentary showing at the 58th New York Film Festival. This year, the first under the direction of Dennis Lim, was an unforgettable and successful edition, showing online nationwide but also on the big screen at drive-ins in Brooklyn, Queens, and the Bronx, thanks to the the New York Hall of Science in Queens, in association with Rooftop Films, a New York City non-profit film organization best known for its outdoor Rooftop Films Summer Series. We spoke with Gregory Kershaw and Michael Dweck about the rise of The Truffle Hunters, selected last-minute at Sundance Film Festival 2020, with the final cut finished the day before the world premiere, and how after the outstanding reception at Sundance, The Truffle Hunters showed at the most prestigious festivals all around the world: Cannes, Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festival among others. Finally, in a few weeks the movie will be shown where everything started, at the Torino Film festival not far from where the eccentric protagonists of this timeless fairytale still live and hunt the most precious truffle in the world: the white truffle of Alba. The interview is a testimony of the genuine and moving connection the directors were able to establish with the protagonists of the movie during the three years of shooting. The perfect sound design and cinematography will make you taste the “Diamond of the Kitchen” with your eyes and ears.

The Truffle Hunters: Deep in the forests of Piedmont, Northwest Italy, a handful of men, seventy or eighty years young, hunt for the rare and expensive white Alba truffle—which to date has resisted modern science’s efforts at cultivation. They hunt through the night, guided by a secret culture and training passed down through generations, as well as by the noses of their cherished and expertly trained dogs. They are the last of their kind, carrying on a way of life that is rapidly disappearing in the modern world. Here, there is a commitment to a simpler life, where handmade food, daily labor as exercise, a connection to community and nature, and a passion for the hunt are the mechanics that keep people physically and mentally young. It’s a world built on the simple pleasures that have been forgotten in the modern era: the quiet simmering of freshly-picked tomatoes; the hours spent in conversation at the dinner table; communing with beloved animals, treated as kin; the mystical forest, where truffles grow at the roots of tall oak trees that breathe in the night; receiving a truffle-tinged blessing at church; or the unaware belting of an off-key folk tune on the drive home. However, climate change is drying up the lands where rains used to be plentiful. Deforestation is destroying trees whose symbiotic roots have given life to truffles for centuries. The young people, who would be carrying on their family’s traditions, have left the small towns in search of stable work. The Truffle Hunters captures this endangered culture at a key moment in time: for the men who have made truffle hunting their lifelong passion, their way of life, and very existence, is under threat. 4 As truffles become more and more elusive, the competition has grown fiercer and these men keep the secrets of their hunting grounds to themselves. They lead their closest friends astray with little white lies, hunt at night without flashlights, and cover up their footprints and car tracks behind them. They have little trust in each other, let alone an outside world that constantly threatens to impinge upon their way of life. In The Truffle Hunters, audiences can, for the first time, take a peek into this secretive world, driven by incredible characters with an unshakable passion coursing through their veins. These ageing men who inhabit a fairy tale land may just hold something much more valuable than the prized delicacy they hunt: the secret to a rich and meaningful life.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Michael Dweck, Gregory Kershaw – The Truffle Hunters #NYFF appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Daily news and updates from the 2020 Rome Film Fest, with Matt Micucci.

Matt Micucci presents the final episode of Big FRED Roma, FRED Film Radio’s English-language daily show with news and thoughts in the 2020 edition of the Rome Film Fest. In this episode we talk about about Cosa Sarà by Francesco Bruni, Il Cielo da una Stanza by Virginia Valsecchi and the Disney flick 100% Wolf, and more.

The post Big FRED Roma – October 23, 2020 #RomaFF15 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Daily news and updates from the 2020 Rome Film Fest, with Matt Micucci.

Matt Micucci presents the seventh episode of Big FRED Roma, FRED Film Radio’s English-language daily show with news and thoughts in the 2020 edition of the Rome Film Fest. In this episode we talk about Faithful by Héliér Cisterne and The Shift by Alessandro Tonda, plus Alice nella Cittá titles Punta Sacra by Francesca Mazzoleni and more.

The post Big FRED Roma – October 22, 2020 #RomaFF15 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Daily news and updates from the 2020 Rome Film Fest, with Matt Micucci.

Matt Micucci presents the fifth episode of Big FRED Roma, FRED Film Radio’s English-language daily show with news and thoughts in the 2020 edition of the Rome Film Fest. In this episode we talk about about Ironbark by Dominic Cooke from the official selection, plus Climbing Iran by Francesca Borghetti and Shadows by Carlo Lavagna from Alice nella Città.

The post Big FRED Roma – October 21, 2020 #RomaFF15 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Daily news and updates from the 2020 Rome Film Fest, with Matt Micucci.

Matt Micucci presents the fifth episode of Big FRED Roma, FRED Film Radio’s English-language daily show with news and thoughts in the 2020 edition of the Rome Film Fest. In this episode, we talk about official selection titles Another Round by Thomas Vinterberg and Ammonite by Francis Lee, plus Alice nella Città title Cuban Dancer by Roberto Salinas.

The post Big FRED Roma – October 20, 2020 #RomaFF15 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Daily news and updates from the 2020 Rome Film Fest, with Matt Micucci.

Matt Micucci presents the fourth episode of Big FRED Roma, FRED Film Radio’s English-language daily show with news and thoughts in the 2020 edition of the Rome Film Fest. On this episode, we talk about Official Cannes Selection title True Mothers by Naomi Kawase and Fortuna by Nicolangelo Gelormini. We also talk about Alice nella Città films Palazzo di Giustizia by Chiara Bellosi, the shorts selection and a retrospective of 1995 Italian comedy The Graduates by Leonardo Pieraccioni.

The post Big FRED Roma – October 19, 2020 #RomaFF15 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Gabriel Range and Johnny Flynn, director and actor of the film Stardust. 

A conversation with Gabriel Range and Johnny Flynn, respectively director and actor of Stardust, presented at the 2020 Rome Film Fest. The film is inspired by the life of David Bowie. In this interview, Range and Flynn talk about portraying the music legend and how some of the challenges they had to overcome. Range also talks about the film being “mostly fiction” and what that means, as well as exploring mental illness within the movement. Together, they also share their opinion on what they feel would be the best album for Bowie beginners to start on.

Stardust will chronicle the young David Bowie’s first visit to the US in 1971 – a trip that inspired the invention of his iconic alter ego Ziggy Stardust.

The post Gabriel Range, Johnny Flynn – Stardust #RomaFF15 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Matt Micucci interviews Giedre Zickyte, director of the film The Jump. 

A conversation with Giedre Zickyte, director of The Jump, presented at the 2020 Rome Film Fest. The film tells tale of a Soviet sailor who jumped onto a U.S. Coast Guard boat in 1970 in a bid for political asylum. The director talks with us working on the film, whether protagonist Simas Kudirka wanted to share his story and how the events recounted resonate with modern times.

The Jump: In 1970, in the middle of the Cold War, an American patrol boat meets a Soviet fishing vessel in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Suddenly, a Lithuanian sailor jumps across ten feet of icy water, landing on the deck of the American boat in a frantic bid for political asylum. To his horror, the Americans return him to the Soviets. Told through incredible archival footage and re-lived by the would-be defector Simas Kudirka himself, the tale takes us on a stranger-than-fiction journey of imprisonment, twists of fate, and the price of becoming a symbol of freedom.

The post Giedre Zickyte – The Jump #RomaFF15 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.