FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, DOP of the film Last and First Men.

FRED Film Radio has the chance to talk to the talented cinematographer Sturla Brandth Grøvlen, here at the Berlinale for his work with the late Johann Johansson and his Last and First Men. Last and First Men is a hypnotic total work of art, a requiem for the universe containing echoes of Kubrick, Tarr and the avant-garde that turns cinema into a pure synthesis of sounds and images; a place of the impossible, where the deepest past meets the most distant future.

Last and First Men:  There are no people in Last and First Men, but the film does feature three very special protagonists: the concrete testimonies of Yugoslavian brutalism, Tilda Swinton’s voice and the music of Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson, who composed the soundtracks for Sicario and Arrival and who died in 2018 at the age of 48. Jóhannsson made several Super 8 and 16mm shorts and often used visual elements when performing his musical works. The idea for his first feature-length film came to him in 2010 when he saw Dutch photographer Jan Kempenaers’ images of the colossal monuments of the Tito era. Jóhannsson, an avid reader of science fiction, accompanies his 16mm black-and-white footage with excerpts from British author and philosopher Olaf Stapledon’s eponymous visionary 1930 novel, read ethereally by Tilda Swinton.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Sturla Brandth Grøvlen – Last and First Men #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Eric Steel, actor of the film Minyan.

Eric Steel crafted a moving and precise tale, with a perfect description of an era , through an astonishing color palette and camera pov . The plot is moving and educational, bringing us back, in a softer and more intimate tone, to an updated Scorsese’s Taxi Driver atmosphere. Eric talks about the film and its production with Angelo Acerbi, at the world premiere in Berlin.

Minyan: For a Jewish prayer community or “minyan” to be able to hold a service, it must consist of at least ten practising Jews. David, who was born into a Russian immigrant family, is 17 years old and regularly helps out at minyans in Brighton Beach, a district of New York that is characterised by Jewish life. His father, a former boxing coach, his mother and his beloved grandfather all take this for granted. But David, who is just starting to tentatively explore life in the East Village gay scene, gradually begins to question the strict rules of his community and makes friends with two elderly gay Jews. At the same time, David’s sexual awakening cannot help but be affected by the emergence of HIV and AIDS. Director Eric Steel sets his sensitive portrait of a gay Jewish youth in the as yet un-gentrified, roughshod New York of the 1980s. In his feature-film debut, he depicts unobtrusively and with quiet humour how one young man squares social attributions – immigrant, Jew, homosexual – with his own feelings and learns to define them anew.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Eric Steel – Minyan #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Samuel H. Levine, actor of the film Minyan.

Samuel H. levine is a nice, funny and handoms actor who shares with Angelo Acerbi, in Berlin, his thoughts about his role in Minyan, where he plays a young jewish russian gay guy coming to terms with his own sexuality and proudly balancing the rules and teachings his upbringing brought him with his personal life, in a almost neo-realistic New York of the late 80’s. His talk shows his passion for this film and his role in it.

Minyan: For a Jewish prayer community or “minyan” to be able to hold a service, it must consist of at least ten practising Jews. David, who was born into a Russian immigrant family, is 17 years old and regularly helps out at minyans in Brighton Beach, a district of New York that is characterised by Jewish life. His father, a former boxing coach, his mother and his beloved grandfather all take this for granted. But David, who is just starting to tentatively explore life in the East Village gay scene, gradually begins to question the strict rules of his community and makes friends with two elderly gay Jews. At the same time, David’s sexual awakening cannot help but be affected by the emergence of HIV and AIDS. Director Eric Steel sets his sensitive portrait of a gay Jewish youth in the as yet un-gentrified, roughshod New York of the 1980s. In his feature-film debut, he depicts unobtrusively and with quiet humour how one young man squares social attributions – immigrant, Jew, homosexual – with his own feelings and learns to define them anew.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Samuel H. Levine – Minyan #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Tim Sutton, director of the film Funny Face.

Tim Sutton explains what he had in mind while creating the film, writing it visualising a specific look, and aesthetics, to give us the unfamiliarity of a city where the two heroes live in solitude . Stunningly beautiful, demanding and fascinating, Funny Face is a film to remember.

Funny Face: What does romance look like in times of housing insecurity and shocking, widening wealth gaps? In a Brooklyn threatened by disfigurement as a result of real estate speculation, two young people meet in a late-night bodega. Saul and Zama are two orphans of unchecked capitalism brought together by circumstance, who thrive in spite of their differences and bring each other solace. Meanwhile, up in his ivory tower, the rich man responsible for their predicament struggles to find reasons to smile. This film takes a central, complex social issue – urban development and gentrification – and turns it into a universal metaphor for survival in times of displacement. Director Tim Sutton delicately explores how, in today’s “real” world, being a superhero means being able to recognise beauty and how, if it is truly impossible to defeat the oppressive greed of the powerful, we can at least help each other to survive it. In this way Funny Face is, without doubt, a very modern romantic tale.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Tim Sutton – Funny Face #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Cosmo Jarvis and Dela Meskienyar, actors of the film Funny Face.

Through this chat with the lead actors of Funny Face, we get the real and deeper meaning of the film and the effects of the creative process the director applied in shooting the film. Two nice people, passionate and committed, Cosmo Jarvis and Dela Meskienyar discuss with Angelo Acerbi their performances in Funny Face, at Berlinale 70.

Funny Face: What does romance look like in times of housing insecurity and shocking, widening wealth gaps? In a Brooklyn threatened by disfigurement as a result of real estate speculation, two young people meet in a late-night bodega. Saul and Zama are two orphans of unchecked capitalism brought together by circumstance, who thrive in spite of their differences and bring each other solace. Meanwhile, up in his ivory tower, the rich man responsible for their predicament struggles to find reasons to smile. This film takes a central, complex social issue – urban development and gentrification – and turns it into a universal metaphor for survival in times of displacement. Director Tim Sutton delicately explores how, in today’s “real” world, being a superhero means being able to recognise beauty and how, if it is truly impossible to defeat the oppressive greed of the powerful, we can at least help each other to survive it. In this way Funny Face is, without doubt, a very modern romantic tale.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Cosmo Jarvis, Dela Meskienyar – Funny Face #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Nicolò Comotti interviews Stephen Maxwell Johnson, director of the film High Ground.

Stephen Maxwell Johnson talks to us about his highly anticipated return behind the camera: High Ground. High ground is a revenge thriller that uses the tropes of Western westerns to tell the real history of Colonial Australia and its barbaric intervention in order to tame and ultimately eradicate aboriginal culture. High Ground premiers worldwide here in Berlin, inside the Berlinale Special Gala section.

High Ground: After fighting in the First World War as a sniper, Travis, now a policeman in the vast empty spaces of Northern Australia, loses control of an operation that results in the massacre of an Indigenous tribe. When his superiors insist on burying the truth, Travis leaves in disgust, only to be forced back twelve years later to hunt down Baywara, an Aboriginal warrior whose attacks on new settlers are causing havoc. When Travis, now a bounty hunter, recruits as his tracker the young mission-raised Gutjuk, the only known survivor of the carnage, memories threaten to resurface and turn the white man from hunter into the hunted. Set in the 1930s, High Ground is inspired by true events. A frontier western about colonial violence and misunderstandings that deeply resonates in today’s Australia – and indeed all over the world – the film explores the nature of loyalty and the ability to distinguish freely between right and wrong, in opposition to the dogmas of the age in which you live.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST | Angelo Acerbi interviews Micheal Stutz, Head of Panorama at the 70th edition of Berlin International Film Festival.

Michael Stutz started as an intern in Panorama, then assistant of the historical director Wieland Speck; now he is in charge and he has perfectly clear in his mind the legacy he has to bring forward and the future that awaits Panorama. Let’s hear it form his voice…

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

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PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Bassam Tariq and Riz Ahmed, director and actor of the film Mogul Mowgli.

A very few people know that Riz Ahmed, british pakistani actor, known for TV series such as The night of and films like Venom or Nightcrawler, is also a rapper and musician. In Mogul Mowgli, debut feature by Bassam Tariq screening in competition at the 70th Berlinale, he finally combines these two worlds. Bassam Tariq and Riz Ahmed found each other in the eaxct moment when both of them wanted to explore the clash or the diffcult balance between keeping family traditions, culture, links and wanting a different life, a different and/or ambitious future. Mogul Mowgli depicts this contrast in a very balanced mix between a brutal reality and dreamlike moments.

Mogul Mowgli:  On the brink of his first international tour, Zed, a British Pakistani rapper, decides to fly home to the UK to visit the family he has not seen in two years. In the midst of trying to reconnect with his parents and rummaging through cassettes of Qawwali music, he is suddenly struck down by an autoimmune disease. As his condition worsens and his big breakthrough moment is in danger of vanishing into thin air, Zed descends into a physical and emotional crisis, amplified by vivid hallucinations. Long-buried childhood memories resurface with a vengeance, mingling with his father’s memories of fleeing India during Partition and confronting Zed with his repressed cultural heritage. Giving centre stage to incendiary rap lyrics and a striking central performance by actor Riz Ahmed, a rapper himself, Tariq’s debut feature film is a disquieting and electrifying exploration of male malady, family frictions, social mobility and transnational citizenship.

To discover more about the film, click here.

The post Bassam Tariq, Riz Ahmed – Mogul Mowgli #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST | Chiara Nicoletti interviews Abel Ferrara and Willem Dafoe, director and actor of the film Siberia.

After presenting Tommaso at the latest Cannes Film Festival, Abel Ferrara is in competition at the 70th Berlinale with Siberia, starring his muse actor Willem Dafoe. Siberia is not only the place where Clint ( Willem Dafoe) goes to live to hide away from a life he has to elaborate on and process but is also a place of the mind where past and present’s ghosts come to hunt you and memories come to mind taking sometimes a darker turn. For the audience and the protagonist’s story Siberia can also become a desert, a concentration camp or a green grass where to jump and dance surrounded by children and dogs. In Abel Ferrara’s Siberia a fish can talk and friends can become monsters. Willem Dafoe and Abel Ferrara describe their way of working together and how they connected the dots of Abel’s stream of filmmaking consciousness.

Siberia: A man flees from one world to another that is strange and cold. Furs and fires keep him warm; a cave serves as his shelter. He is a broken man who wants to be alone. But even isolation does not bring him inner peace. Once again, he goes on a journey, this time into the self. He explores his dreams, confronts memories and seeks out visions. The rare encounters with other people are in languages he does not speak, determined by bodies that fascinate him, and by types of love he explores and then loses. His journey becomes a dance with demons, but time and again it flares up: light. In cinema history there have been many attempts to portray the mythical as something intimate, and the radical as a personal journey. But there is only one artist who is as wildly anarchistic, metaphysically mysterious, and at the same time god-obsessed and fanatical about the truth: Abel Ferrara, joining forces here once again with his acting alter ego, Willem Dafoe. While his previous film Tommaso explored the way desire plays out in families, in Siberia the (male) ego abandons all semblance of everyday life in a tumultuous montage. To expose and discover himself.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| David Martos interviews Bill Nighy, actor of the film Minamata.

Bill Nighy, supporting actor in Minamata, a film included in Berlinale Special section of Berlinale 2020, talks to FRED Film Radio about this film, regarding the Minamata catastrophe in Japan. He also talks about his work with Johnny Depp and his vision on acting, directors and Brexit.

Minamata: War photographer W. Eugene Smith (Johnny Depp) travels back to Japan where he documents the devastating effect of mercury poisoning in coastal communities. Bill Nighy is the editor of LIFE Magazine, the outlet that sends him on his mission.

The post Bill Nighy – Minamata #Berlinale2020 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.