FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Seamus Murphy, director of the film A Dog Called Money.

Seamus Murphy, photographer turned videomaker and director, tells us the birth of A Dog Called Money: from a photo montage with music, to a documentary, to a live show PJ Harvey’s style. The meeting of two people with same vibes and a common artistic sensitivity.

A Dog Called Money: A child curiously presses its face against the window of a car in which British musician PJ Harvey and photojournalist and filmmaker Seamus Murphy are sitting. They are in Kabul, Afghanistan, one of three destinations to which they are travelling; the others are Kosovo and Washington, D.C. Harvey is searching for inspiration; collecting impressions and words, observing, listening and absorbing. Her thoughts can be heard in voice-over. Hers is the chronicle of a stranger whose attentive gaze is directed towards the reality of everyday life in the places she visits. Inspiration turns into poetry, which gives rise to songs for her album The Hope Six Demolition Project. Back in London, Harvey records these songs with her band in a purpose-built studio which serves as a kind of peepshow, its one-way window allowing interested audiences to observe the process. Seamus Murphy transposes Harvey’s search for inspirational material and her intimate creative process into an impressively poetic montage that never once divests the musician of her enigmatic aura. A Dog Called Money merges the filmmaker’s and the musician’s visions in an extraordinary symbiosis.

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PODCAST| Federico Spoletti interviews actor Nolan Gerald Funk.

We met with Nolan Gerald Funk who received the Spotlight Award at Filming Italy Los Angeles. Funk is one of the most promising young American actors, he started as an athlete and became very soon a model and an actor. He’s back on FRED, six years after The Canyons by Paul Schrader, presented at the 2013 Venice Film Festival. Known all over the world as Hunter Clarington in Glee, he has already a long list of credits in films and very popular tv series. Among his recent projects, there’s the Amazon TV show everyone is talking about, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and the TV series Counterpart with J.K. Simmons. He loves Europe and he will be soon in a new film, Berlin, I Love You with Helen Mirren and Keira Knightley. After working with the great Paul Schrader, Nolan Gerard Funk will appear in the second season of She’s Gotta Have It, the Netflix TV series created and directed by Spike Lee.

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PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Syllas Tzoumerkas, director of The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea.

After Homeland and A Blast which were set in an urban background, with The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea, presented in the Panorama Section of the 69th Berlinale, Greek director Syllas Tzoumerkas chooses the seaside, the beautiful west coast of Greece as a reflection of the souls of the film’s characters: a combination of beauty and ugliness. As the director points out, the film is a parable about how much you have to struggle and transform yourself in order to revalue yourself. Two women, apparently so different from one another, are the protagonists of the film which combines various genres like drama and thriller and add dream-like experiences. Syllas Tzoumerkas hopes that his audience will get to explore the grey areas of morality, beauty and nature.

The Miracle of the Sargasso Sea: As the frightening facts of a mysterious suicide case unfold, two women, a murder suspect and the law enforcer discover between them a striking similarity: contempt for their lives so far and a new relentless desire to start over. In a senseless and bland world they don’t feel like abiding the law.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews actress Charlotte Rampling.

In an edition of the Berlinale such as the 69th celebrating women and stories portraying women, it only feels right that the recipient of the Honorary Golden Bear is British actress Charlotte Rampling. She has a long affectionate relationship with the Berlinale, she was President of the international jury in 2006 and in 2015 won the Berlinale Silver Bear for her role in 45 Years by Andrew Haigh. After meeting her in Venice for Hannah in 2016, we welcome her again to talk about her career and the award at the Berlinale. The actress talks about her career, her memories about the shooting of The Night Porter by Liliana Cavani (screening at the Berlinale after the Honorary Golden Bear Award ceremony) and her collaboration with Andrew Haigh and Andrea Pallaoro in Hannah. The actress then also talks about TV series as she took part in HBO’s series Dexter in 2013 and about her next project Dune by Denis Villeneuve.

The 69th Berlin International Film Festival will award the Honorary Golden Bear to British film and stage actress Charlotte Rampling for her lifetime achievement, as well as dedicating the Homage to a selection of her films. On February 14, 2019, in conjunction with the award ceremony for the Honorary Golden Bear, the festival will be showing Il portiere di notte (The Night Porter, Italy, 1974), directed by Liliana Cavani.

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PODCAST| Chiara Nicoletti interviews Udo Kier, actor of the film M – A City Hunts a Murderer.

It’s director David Schalko the reason why German-international actor Udo Kier accepted to play a role in M – A City Hunts a Murderer, the TV series based on the Fritz Lang’s 1931 classic, presented at the 69th Berlinale in the Berlinale Series section. The actor had already worked with Schalko so he decided to trust him and participate to this TV adaptation that focus more on what happens to a society when a crime is exploited by politics than the perpetrator. Kier, who was at the Berlinale last year in the cast of italian film Figlia Mia by Laura Bispuri, talks about Italian cinema and how it has changed through the years.

M – A City Hunts a Murderer: Vienna in the dead of winter. An annoyed mother sends her little daughter back to the playground to retrieve a forgotten jacket. A whistling behind the curtain of snow. The little girl follows the lure and vanishes without a trace. A child murderer is afoot. The police are helpless and speeding at idle speed. The Minister of the Interior exploits the incidents politically for his own purposes. The yellow press is instigating and the people get more and more nervous – the city seems full of suspects. More and more children disappear and as the dead bodies appear in the melting snow the situation escalates. The only focus is on finding the killer. “M” becomes a public case. Total surveillance, fake news, agitation in the net. Arbitrary arrests. The criminal underworld is made to look like fools which they don’t put up with, though. They actually do the work of the police and search for the murderer.

To discover more about the film, click here.

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Juan Pablo Olyslager and Diane Bathen, actors of the film Tremors.

Juan Pablo Olyslager and Diane Bathen tell us the work and the struggle to catch the perfect depiction of the characters of a bisexual man caught and outed in the family, and his wife who cannot deal with it and forces him to enter a “corrective therapy” center, with all the violence and psychological distress this will ensue. We talk about religion and society in Guatemala, and the crossed influences that create the short circuit that will send Pablo’s life into disarray.

Tremors: When Pablo arrives at his family’s house outside Guatemala City, everyone is already waiting tensely for this beloved brother, son and husband to appear. Everyone at the clan’s villa is horrified: Pablo has fallen in love with another man, Francisco. In doing so, he is calling into question all the values by which this deeply religious evangelical family lives. In spite of resistance from his relatives, Pablo moves in with Francisco, who is closely linked to the city’s subculture and leads a completely different, liberated existence. Pablo loses his old home, but somehow never really settles in the new one. His wish to unite the two worlds turns out to be a dead end. Putting their faith before everything else, his relatives are adamant that Pablo can be ‘healed’. With help from their ultra-religious community, the family does everything in its power to get their prodigal son back on track, no matter the cost. In his very personal second film, Jayro Bustamante makes use of a consistently direct cinematic style to describe one individual’s bid to break away and find their identity and a sense of belonging. In a deeply repressive society God loves the sinner, but not the sin itself.

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Jayro Bustamante, director of the film Tremors.

Jayro Bustamante met a man who had a story that he used as inspiration for Tremors. He was touched and intrigued at the same time by it; while researching for the film, he was susprised even more by the number of men in the same situation he found in his country. This is where Tremors comes from, and what gives it power and intensity.

Tremors: When Pablo arrives at his family’s house outside Guatemala City, everyone is already waiting tensely for this beloved brother, son and husband to appear. Everyone at the clan’s villa is horrified: Pablo has fallen in love with another man, Francisco. In doing so, he is calling into question all the values by which this deeply religious evangelical family lives. In spite of resistance from his relatives, Pablo moves in with Francisco, who is closely linked to the city’s subculture and leads a completely different, liberated existence. Pablo loses his old home, but somehow never really settles in the new one. His wish to unite the two worlds turns out to be a dead end. Putting their faith before everything else, his relatives are adamant that Pablo can be ‘healed’. With help from their ultra-religious community, the family does everything in its power to get their prodigal son back on track, no matter the cost. In his very personal second film, Jayro Bustamante makes use of a consistently direct cinematic style to describe one individual’s bid to break away and find their identity and a sense of belonging. In a deeply repressive society God loves the sinner, but not the sin itself.

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Judith State and Cristian Popa, actors of the film Monsters.

Judith State is a well known face in the Romanian cinema, for Cristian Popa this was his first time on screen, being a veteran stage actor. They both manage to bring the film on in a splendid way and with such intense performances. They talk about their characters, their work with the director Olteanu to enter the story and the narrative structure of it, and some resemblances with real life, too.

Monsters: Arthur and Dana are married, they seem the perfect pari, from the outside. Over the course of a single day, the film shows first Dana, then Arthur then the two together: marriage, love, friendship, repressed sexuality and society pressure all entertwine in an agonising but inevitable interaction.

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Elle-Màjià Tailfeathers and Kathleen Hepburn, directors of the film The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open.

What is narrated in the film really happened to Elle-Màjià Tailfetahers, years ago. She decided to tell it in a film, with the help of a longtime friend, Kathleen Hepburn, taking also the brave choice to act in it. The two directors tell us about the writing process they followed to transform the real story into a film, the process of preparation and how the real facts lived by Elle were molded in her acting, too.

The Body Remembers When The World Broke Open: Rosie lives in the same neighborhood of Vancouver as Áila. Their lives, however, could hardly be more different. While Áila listens to Joni Mitchell on vinyl in her tastefully furnished home, Rosie shares a flat with her child’s violently abusive father-to-be and his mother. When Áila finds Rosie standing hurt and barefoot in the rain, she promptly takes her home. Told almost entirely in real time and composed mostly of close-ups, the encounter between the two women constitutes a delicate moment of exchange, which touches upon issues of motherhood, female self-care and the precarious situation of Indigenous women.

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PODCAST| Angelo Acerbi interviews Mateo Bendeski, director of the film Los Miembros De La Familia.

Taken from a famous book, the film was born as an original rendition of the classic coming of age film, using the marvelous two young actors. Steven Wouterlood tells us why he is interested in telling stories of children and their difficult position when adults are that entity needed but not understood.

Los Miembros De La Familia: As the youngest of the family, Sam’s afraid of dying last. Which explains his peculiar obsession with practicing being alone while on summer vacation. Then along comes unconventional Tess! She’s got a secret plan and needs Sam’s help to pull it off.

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