FRED Film Radio - English Channel

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Marina Meliande, director of the film Sultry.

Director Marina Meliande presented her film Sultry at the 40th Cairo International Film Festival in Egypt. The film is set in Rio de Janeiro in the run-up to the 2016 Olympic Games and tackles the stress of evictions and environmental issues by crossing boundaries between social realist drama and genre. In this interview, we also talk about Vila Autódromo, the favela in Rio de Janeiro that became a symbol of resistance for fighting against the city government’s plan to demolish several houses and build a road to the neighbouring Olympic Park. We talk about the use of genre in communicating a messages, the pleasure of not knowing “everything” in cinema and more.

Sultry: Rio de Janeiro, 2016. The hottest summer in history. The city is preparing for the Olympic Games. Ana, a 32-year-old public defender, works in the defense of a community threatened with removal by the works of the Olympic Park. Meanwhile, she’s been noticing purple fungus-like spots of her body. Strange things begin to happen in the city as well as in Ana’s body. The temperature rises, creating a humid and suffocating atmosphere. The sultriness accumulates before giving way to heavy rain.

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The post Marina Meliande – Sultry #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Alberto Barbera, director of the Venice Film Festival.

An interview with Alberto Barbera from the 40th Cairo International Film Festival in Egypt. The director of the Venice Film Festival talks about his thoughts and feelings about Egypt, one of the birthplaces of civilization, but also about how the city of Venice itself is integrated within the experience of the many people who travel annually to the Venice Film Festival. Barbera was here in Cairo also to give a talk, which also revolved around the topic of the role of film festivals today. On this interview, among other things, he shares his own thoughts on this role, particularly questioned in the age of Netflix, the internet and the widespread practice of film streaming.

The post Alberto Barbera #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Brillante Mendoza, member of the International Jury.

Brillante Mendoza, the celebrated and award-winning Filipino filmmaker was present at the 40th Cairo International Film Festival in Egypt wearing two hats: one, that of a member of the festival’s international jury, the second, that of a filmmaker presenting his latest work, called Alpha, The Right to Kill. But for this interview, FRED took the opportunity to do some serious thinking about film, partly inspired by the recent deaths of Nicolas Roeg and Bernardo Bertolucci. Topics on this interview include the concept of American (or Hollywood) cinema vs. international cinema, the challenge of maintaining your integrity as an artist and the commitment that being a filmmaker entails – particularly today when people seem to have less patience to watch films.

The post Brillante Mendoza #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Guillermo De Oliveira, director of the documentary Sad Hill Unearthed.

Director Guillermo de Oliveira presented his film, Sad Hill Unearthed, at the 40th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival in Egypt. This feature documentary tells the story of a group of men set upon restoring Sad Hill, a place in Spain where Sergio Leone filmed the dramatic final shootout of his beloved and celebrated 1966 classic The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. De Oliveira tells us that his film also explores the reason behind the fascination with such places and why it drives people to preserve them. He also talks about how he managed to put together the incredible cast of contributors for Sad Hill Unearthed, which includes such big names as Metallica’s James Hetfield (Metallica have been using Ennio Morricone’s Ecstasy of Gold composition from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly for many years as their entrance theme at live concerts and even the star of the movie, Clint Eastwood himself).

Sad Hill Unearthed: A full-length documentary about the reconstruction of the cemetery built 50 years ago in Spain for the final scene in The Good the Bad and the Ugly.

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The post Guillermo De Oliveira – Sad Hill Unearthed #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Lucien Bourjeily, director of the film Heaven Without People.

Director and actor Lucien Bourjeily presented his film, Heaven Without People at the 40th edition of the Cairo Film Festival in Egypt. Following the growing tensions of a seemingly harmless family Easter lunch in Lebanon, Heaven Without People gets beyond the surface of the traditional representation of family in cinema. The film was censored in Lebanon, but the director tells us that one of the great things about film is that a film, unlike a play, gets to travel. Besides this, he talks about the lengthy and accurate process of assembling the cast, his interest and passion for acting, the theme of family and more.

Heaven Without People: Josephine, the matriarch of a sprawling family, is delighted to gather everyone for Easter lunch for the first time in two years. While they all share a joyful meal, an incident ignites underlying tensions between the family members and leads them gradually into chaos.

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The post Lucien Bourjeily – Heaven Without People #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Marie Monge, director of the film Treat Me Like Fire.

Director Marie Monge presented her film, Treat Me Like Fire, at the 40th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival. The film is set in a Paris much rougher than the one you would usually see in movies – one of underground gambling, crime. While exploring addiction, also through its central love story, Treat Me Like Fire is also a film filled with tenderness, along with movement and energy. Monge talks with us about it and shares with us that one of the things she loves most about filmmaking is that it allows her to “open doors.”

Treat Me Like Fire: When she meets Abel, Ella’s life is turned upside down. Irresistibly drawn to this elusive lover, the young woman discovers the cosmopolitan, underground world of Paris’ gaming circles, where adrenaline and money reign supreme. Their love story, begun as a mere bet, turns into a devouring passion.

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The post Marie Monge – Treat Me Like Fire #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Mats Grorud, director of the film The Tower.

Director Mats Grorud talks about his film, The Tower, which he presented at the 40th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival in Egypt. This animation film tells the story of an 11-year-old girl born and raised in a Palestinian refugee camp and looks at the historical context of the camp via flashbacks and the little girl’s family history. Grorud tells us that the film was based on his personal experience and stories that he heard whilst living in such a camp for a whole year. He also talks about why he was drawn to animation filmmaking and what he thinks animation can express, particularly when representing such delicate topics, as well as the universal power of The Tower.

The Tower: In contemporary Beirut, Lebanon, Wardi, an eleven-year-old Palestinian girl, lives with her whole family in the refugee camp where she was born. Her beloved great-grandfather Sidi was one of the first people to settle in the camp after being chased from his home back in 1948. The day Sidi gives her the key to his old house back in Galilee, she fears he may have lost hope of someday going home. As she searches for Sidi’s lost hope around the camp, she will collect her family’s testimonies, from one generation to the next.

The post Mats Grorud – The Tower #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Nicolas Champeaux, director of the documentary The State Against Mandela and the Others.

Director Nicolas Champeaux presented his documentary feature film The State Against Mandela and the Others at the 40th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival in Egypt. The film draws from the extensive audio archive of the 1963 Rivonia trial of Nelson Mandela, with a special focus on the other fellow defendants of Mandela and others touched by the trial via interviews. In this interview, we talk about the archive and the challenge of representing it via animation, prompted by the fact that no visual footage of the trials was recorded. But we also discuss how history is often told. One of the main objectives of this documentary is in fact to tell the story of “the others,” who were involved in the trial with Mandela but are also often forgotten.

The State Against Mandela and the Others: 2018 marks the centenary of Nelson Mandela’s birth. He seized centre stage during a historic trial in 1963 and 1964. But there were eight others who, like him, faced the death sentence. They too were subjected to pitiless cross-examinations. To a man they stood firm and turned the tables on the state: South Africa’s apartheid regime was in the dock. Recently recovered sound archives of those hearings transport us back into the thick of the courtroom battles.

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PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Nosipho Dumisa, director of the film Number 37.

Director Nosipho Dumisa presented her feature directorial debut, Number 37, at the 40th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival in Egypt. A thriller with Hitchcockian vibes and a desire to represent an underrepresented truth about the rougher side of Cape Town, South Africa, Number 37 was part of the Midnight Screening strand here in Cairo but has enough energy and tension to keep you awake the whole night. The filmmaker tells us about her love of genre and the power it has to communicate, shares with us a little of her experience working on her feature directorial debut and the journey and more.

Number 37: Entrapped in his apartment, Randal Hendricks, a recent paraplegic, is given a gift of binoculars by his devoted girlfriend, Pam. But he is in financial debt to Emmie, a sadistic loan shark, and when he witnesses a powerful gangster, named Lawyer, commit murder while observing his neighbors through his binoculars, he initiates a dangerous blackmail scheme in an attempt to settle his debt.

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The post Nosipho Dumisa – Number 37 #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

PODCAST| Matt Micucci interviews Peter Greenaway, Faten Hamama Honorary Award winner.

Peter Greenaway received the prestigious Faten Hamama Honorary Award during the opening ceremony of the 40th edition of the Cairo International Film Festival. We sat down to talk with the great filmmaker of such films as The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, The Pillow-Book and Nightwatching, honoured for in Cairo in appreciation of his bright, distinguished and international artistic career. On this interview, we start off by asking a simple, straight question: is cinema dead? We also talk about his thoughts on the photographic culture at large of today, tells us why Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal was an important film in his life and we end up talking about the Stendahl Syndrome, among other things.

The post Peter Greenaway – Faten Hamama Honorary Award #CIFF40 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.