FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews Catarina Vasconcelos, director of the film A Metamorfose dos Pàssaros.

With borrowings from Manoel de Oliveira and Agnès Varda, Catarina Vasconcelos has brought her family history to life in A Metamorfose dos Pàssaros, this intimate, very personal film that is rather like a polyphonic diary. Remembrance and mourning merge into a poetic narrative in which father and daughter talk about their history and the film that is emerging from it. Like the two deceased mothers, A Metamorfose dos pàssaros images offer protection against the relentless passage of time. And as the living protagonists whose voices we hear come to realise, parting is a prerequisite for a new beginning.

A Metamorfose dos Pàssaros:  Beatriz and Henrique meet, fall in love and get married when Beatriz is 21 years old. Henrique is a naval officer and goes to sea. Beatriz looks after their six children at home. One day she dies unexpectedly. Her oldest son is Jacinto. Since early childhood, he has dreamed of turning into a bird. Jacinto is the father of director Catarina Vasconcelos, whose mother also died when Catarina was 17. After the loss of their mothers Catarina started to work on a film called A metamorfose dos pássaros.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Niklas Pollmann interviews filmmakers Catalina Marín, Berni Goldblat, Butheina Kazim and Alejandro Pinedo.

Four filmmakers from different countries of the global south share their experiences of founding cinemas in their home countries or other countries of the global south. With Butheina Kazim (UAE), Catalina Marín and Alejandro Pinedo (Chile) and Berni Goldblat (Sweden/Switzerland/Zimbabwe/Burkina Faso).

To discover more about Berlinale Talents, click here.

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PODCAST | Niklas Pollmann interviews Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Kristof Konrad, actor and Berlinale Talents Workshop leader.

Jean-Louis Rodrigue and Kristof Konrad demonstrated the Alexander acting technique in their workshop “Embodying The Character” and their decision to bring their workshop for the first time to a public audience.

To discover more about Berlinale Talents, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Viktor Kossakowsky, director of the film Gunda.

Viktor Kossakowsky goes back to the memories of his childhood to build a narrative touching and visually epic ( with an astounding black and white), and with a universal animalist meaning. The reasons of these choices in this talk with Angelo Acerbi at Berlinale 70.

Gunda:  Gunda is the protagonist of this gentle black-and-white documentary triptych. She takes care of her little ones, accompanies them on a journey of discovery and then takes a break to recharge her batteries. She tentatively approaches the camera. Does she know what her fate is? What might she be thinking? What does she think of us? Gunda is one of several hundred million pigs that inhabit the planet, alongside a billion cattle, represented in the film by two gracefully mooing cows, and over 20 billion chickens, exemplified here by a one-legged chicken stumbling its way through the world. Whether rooting through the mud, swatting away flies or searching for worms, they all are heroes. And film essayist Victor Kossakovsky is and remains adamant: after this film meat consumption is impossible. His indignation about the ignorance of humans in general and the degradation of these creatures in particular flows into his conceptually minimalist, but visually brilliant meditation. Gunda is an intimate portrait. An intervention in the form of a modest gesture. A film that ascribes majestic greatness to the underdogs. And makes us think. In the very least.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Radu Jude, director of the film Uppercase Print.

Radu Jude talks with Angelo Acerbi about his unusual documentary that mixes tv original footage fro Roumanian tv of the 80’s and a live reading if the documents of the secret ( not anymore) file of the secret police about the writings in chalk against the government that appeared on the walls in a town in Roumania and the kid who did them. An important film to remember the past.

Uppercase Print:  In 1981, chalk slogans written in uppercase letters started appearing in public spaces in the Romanian city of Botoşani. They demanded freedom, alluded to the democratic developments taking place in Romania’s socialist sister countries or simply called for improvements in the food supply. Mugur Călinescu was behind them, who was still at school at the time and whose case is documented in the files of the Romanian secret police. Theatre director Gianina Cărbunariu created a documentary play based on this material. Besides showing a production of the play, Radu Jude also uses archive footage from Romanian TV from the era. This dialectical montage creates an image of a dictatorial surveillance state, drawing on the authorised popular entertainment of the Ceaușescu regime in the process in order to unmask it. Cooking shows alternate with interrogations, transcripts of wiretapped phone calls with recommendations to exercise instead of taking sedatives. This not only shows what amazing finds can be unearthed in archives, but also how such materials can be used today to talk about yesterday with thoughtfulness and insight while avoiding the pitfalls of re-enactment.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Radu Jude – Uppercase Print #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Julia Fidel, Head of Berlinale Series.

Julia Fidel is the Head of Berlinale Series, the section of the Berlin Film Festival dedicated to tv serial productions. She tells FRED what she was looking for while selecting, and she talks about the importance of tv series in terms of narrative, of freedom of expression and also of financial investments and productivity.

To discover more about the 70th edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews David France, director of the film Welcome To Chechnya.

David France had the nerve to shoot during 18 months on one of the safe houses use to hide lgbtqi people before fleeing Chechnya, following the “gay purge” that the government started in 2017. This is still happening, with a more difficult pace, and this film could help to ignite attention to the issue again. David talks with Angelo Acerbi about how he worked, how he edited and the personal involvement with the people he met.

Welcome To Chechnya:  In 2017, the LGBTQI* community, human rights defenders and allies all over the world were shocked by the devastating news of crimes being committed in the Russian republic of Chechnya. In a coordinated action, the authorities were rounding up gay and bisexual men and women, and taking them to illegal prison facilities where they were tortured and forced to out others, with the result that they were either executed or released to their families where they were often subjected to “honour killings”. In an interview, Kremlin-backed Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov denied all accusations, claiming that there are no queer people in Chechnya. David France’s film is the first documentary about those who have come together to save lives – both their own and those of others. This film is a raw, emotionally arresting account of the enormous risks and setbacks but also the victories won against an ultra-conservative society and government. Following rescue operations undertaken by several courageous activists, the film is meticulous in unveiling reality in today’s Chechnya as it unfolds, and excels at making palpable the fear and the hope in the fight for survival.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Carlo Chatrian, Berlinale Festival Director.

Carlo Chatrian talks with Angelo Acerbi about his first edition of Berlinale as director : his idea of festival, the value of Berlinale as a whole composed by important parts and the intention of offering the widest and most comprehensive selections of films, through the addition also of a new section as Encounters to the original slate.

To discover more about the 70th edition of Berlin International Film Festival, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Bill Ross and Turner Ross, directors of the film Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets.

Bill and Turner Ross always worked togehter: they are a four-hand entity that creates, directs and edits their films. In this specific case, editing has been a gigantic effort, the material was a lot , and the narartive sometimes improvised, but the idea of the final film was clear in the minds of both directors. Let’s hear it form their voices, in this interview with Angelo Acerbi at Berlinale 70.

Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets: In their films, the brothers Bill and Turner Ross often train their camera on simple people leading far from glamorous lives. In this film they find their protagonists in the shadow of the glitzy world of Las Vegas, in a bar called Roaring 20s, which is on the brink of closure. Always observing, but nonetheless in the thick of it, they accompany the last 24 hours in and around the bar, enabling the viewer to immerse themselves in a microcosm that might well be found in many places in the world but that nobody likes to look at too closely. This is a place where people know and help each other, where they feel understood, can have it out with each other and reconcile again. The film uses methods of the documentary to achieve an unobtrusive proximity that makes us feel as if we too are taking a seat among the regulars at the bar, partaking in Michael’s philosophical excesses, listening to Shay’s tearful expressions of love, and experiencing for ourselves the caring familiarity of this place. In the end, when the last customers stagger out of the bar, we’ve grown fond of them all and have to wonder what their next day will be like and what life holds in store for them.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Niklas Pollmann interviews Ivan Ostrochovský, director of the film Servants (Sluzobnici).

Interview with Ivan Ostrochovský about his second feature film Servants, his cinematic language and the plans for his next feature film project.

Servants (Sluzobnici): Servants is a polit-thriller settled in a Catholic monastery in Czechoslovakia in 1980. It tells the story of two young seminarists and their role in the conflict between the Pacem in Terris organisation supported by the communist regime and the Roman Catholic church.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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