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James Mullighan – creative director – Cork Film Festival

FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews James Mullighan, creative director of the Cork Film Festival, just a few days before the beginning of its landmark 60th edition.

The previous two editions of the festival saw a considerable evolution in terms of quality of the programme and ambition of the festival’s vision.

This year looks to continue building on what it has already achieved in a number of ways. Not least of all with its expansion of its talents development programme, and the promotion of cinema as a way of sparking up debates, on top of its rich short film programme, exciting music events and fascinating feature films from Ireland and from all parts of the world – not to mention the return to the festival of the LUX Prize. This year the Cork Film Festival turns 60.

James Mullighan talks about this and a lot more of what we can expect in Cork this year, which continues in the tradition of the festival’s motto of “Films, Music, Ideas”

CORK FILM FESTIVAL: Ireland’s oldest film festival and Cork’s flagship cultural happening, the Cork Film Festival lights up and delights the Rebel City in November. In 2015 the Festival celebrates its 60th Edition, taking place 6-15 November.

Its log line is ‘Films. Music. Ideas’. As well as playing a rich selection of the best of contemporary world cinema, it has a lively and varied music on film programme, and a timely event series which uses films to explore some of the burning issues of our time.

The Festival operates out of the Cork Opera House, the Triskel Christchurch, and the Gate Cinema. In 2014 there were 242 films screened – including 93 features (24 Irish) from 51 countries. Competition includes awards for features, shorts and documentaries, with prizes totalling €7,500. There has been many developments for the 2015 Festival: RTÉ is now the Cork Film Festival’s Principal Partner, working with the Festival to raise its profile across all RTÉ platforms in the biggest festival association between RTÉ and Cork City.

Since 2014, the Cork Film Festival is Academy Awards® accredited. The winners of its Grand Prix Irish presented by RTÉ Cork and Grand Prix International will now qualify for the long list of the Academy Awards® for the Animated Short Film/Live Action Short Film category.

The Cork Film Festival will host the Irish premier screenings of the shortlist of three of the EU Parliament’s LUX prize films in November.

The Festival soon will announce two new prizes for documentary, and plans to make Cork the premier destination for factual filmmaking in Ireland. The Festival has announced its plans for its Talent Development Campus, and will welcome over 100 filmmakers from UK, Europe and beyond to join the 50 Irish who benefit from the training.

Click here to visit the official website of the 60th Cork Film Festival

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James Vanderbilt – director – Truth

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets James Vanderbilt, first time director of the opening film of the 10th edition of Rome Film Festival: TRUTH.

Starring Robert Redford, Cate Blanchett, Elisabeth Moss, Topher Grace and Dennis Quaid , the film explores the relationship between politics and journalism and the difficulties to access the real ugly TRUTH about facts.

TRUTH: In the lead-up to the U.S. presidential elections in 2004, veteran CBS News producer and reporter Mary Mapes and the venerable CBS News anchor Dan Rather aired a sensational report on 60 Minutes II that purported to reveal new evidence proving that President George W. Bush had possibly shirked his duty to serve in the Vietnam War by exploiting his family connections and political privilege.

But within days after the story broke, George W. Bush’s military service record was no longer the focus of media and public scrutiny. Instead, it was 60 Minutes, Mapes, and Rather who were under fire for challenging the official version of the story, and now they were facing charges of shoddy journalism.

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Mark Osborne – director – The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince)

After its successful premiere in Cannes, Mark Osborne brings to Alice nella Città as a special Event his homage to LE PETIT PRINCE- THE LITTLE PRINCE.

Osborne who is well-known among adults and children all over the world for his KUNG-FU PANDA, reveals that he accepted to revisit and portray this magical book only because it was an homage to what this book meant for all of us.

The universe of the Little Prince is explored through the eyes of a little girl and succeed in reminding us that we should never forget how it feels to be young and full of dreams. As Mark Osborne wrote in his director’s notes:” we built a story around the book instead of expanding it, because the story really connects you to the significant relationships and friendships in your life”.

THE LITTLE PRINCE (LE PETIT PRINCE): It all starts with The Little Girl, who’s being readied by her mother for the very grown-up world they live in – only to be interrupted by her eccentric, kind-hearted neighbor, The Aviator, who introduces his new friend to an extraordinary world where anything is possible, a world that he himself was initiated into long ago by The Little Prince.

It’s here that The Little Girl’s magical and emotional journey into the universe of The Little Prince begins, where she rediscovers her childhood and learns that ultimately, human connections matter most, and that only with the heart can one see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

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Todd Haynes – director – Carol

Fred’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Todd Haynes at the Rome Film Fest as the protagonist of a “Close Encounter” with artistic director Antonio Monda, following the screening of his last film CAROL.

To cite Haynes‘own words: Carol is the story of an unpredictable love affair between two women of different ages and different social backgrounds, at a time in history when society’s rules were set in stone and people’s lives followed paths that were preordained.

Todd Haynes discusses with us the universal effects of falling in love, the change of point of view in the film from Therese to Carol and the use of color and palette to create what DOP Ed Lachmann defined as “poetic realism”.

The film has been presented at Cannes Film Festival this year where Rooney Mara was awarded BEST ACTRESS.

CAROL: In New York in the early 1950s, Therese Belivet, is working in a Manhattan department store and dreaming of a more fulfilling life when she meets Carol Aird, an alluring woman trapped in a failing marriage. As an immediate connection sparks between them, the innocence of their first encounter dims and their connection deepens. When Carol’s involvement with Therese comes to light, they are forced to leave their respective lives behind, in a confrontation that will test their commitments to one another.

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Giancarlo Canavesio – producer – Monogamish

To mark the presentation of MONOGAMISH by Tao Ruspoli at the 10th edition of Rome Film Fest, FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets the producer of the film Giancarlo Canavesio.

Thanks to his Mangusta productions , Canavesio created a VOD platform with an interesting catalogue of documentaries including previous works by colleague Tao Ruspoli. As all the modern producer Giancarlo Canavesio gives us an insight on the production side of the making of MONOGAMISH.:

MONOGAMISH: Recovering from a heartbreaking divorce, independent filmmaker and son-of-an-Italian-Prince Tao Ruspoli takes to the road to talk to relatives, advice columnists, psychologists, historians, anthropologists, artists, philosophers, sex workers, sex therapists, and ordinary couples about love, sex & monogamy in our culture.

What he discovers about his very unconventional family, and about the history and psychology of love and marriage leads him to question the ideal of monogamy, and the traditional family values that go with it.

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David Lee Morea – director – Before Neorealism: Italy’s Forgotten Cinema

David Lee Morea tells us about years of study and research, presented in 56 minutes, that cover a missing piece that any Italian movie-lover or student should absolutely watch!

BEFORE NEOREALISM: ITALY’S FORGOTTEN CINEMA is the most comprehensive feature-length English-language documentary on Italian cinema during Fascism. Comprising clips, archival footage, and interviews with world-renowned scholars, the filmmakers investigate how the regime partnered with the entertainment industry to manipulate public opinion and create political consensus.

Click here to visit the film’s official Facebook page

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Govinda Angulo, Narayana Angulo – protagonists – The Wolfpack

Among the first films presented in the brand new PANORAMA section of the 13th ALICE NELLA CITTA’ lands THE WOLFPACK by Crystal Moselle.

THE WOLFPACK follow the six Angulo brothers through their path towards the external world after having spent their childhood and most of their adolescence locked inside a four-bedroom apartment on the Lower East Side at the insistence of their paranoid father.

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets two of the six brothers, Govinda and Narayana Angulo to find out more about their first encounter with the director, how they worked with her and with the camera following them around but above all, their life now .

THE WOLFPACK: The six Angulo brothers have spent their entire lives locked away from society in an apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Nicknamed “The Wolfpack,” they’re all exceedingly bright, are homeschooled, have no acquaintances outside their family and have practically never left their home.

All they know of the outside world is gleaned from the films they watch obsessively and recreate meticulously, using elaborate homemade props and costumes. For years this has served as a productive creative outlet and a way to stave off loneliness – but after one of the brothers escapes the apartment (wearing a Michael Meyers mask for protection), the power dynamics in the house are transformed, and all the boys begin to dream of venturing out.

Armed with unprecedented access into the subjects’ world and vast archive of home movies, first-time director Crystal Moselle crafts a fascinating portrait of an extraordinary family, capturing the thrill of the Wolfpack’s discoveries without skirting the darker questions of abuse and confinement that weigh upon all of them.

THE WOLFPACK charts a fascinating coming of age story and becomes a true example of the power of movies to transform and save lives.

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Julia Kowalski, Liv Henneguier – director / actress – Raging Rose

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets director Julia Kowalski and actress Liv Henneguier in Rome for the premiere of their film RAGING ROSE screening in the new ALICE NELLA CITTA’ section Panorama.

RAGING ROSE portrays perfectly the mixed feelings of what adolescence is full of in the form of Rose and her adventures. Teenage angst, anger, sexual attractions, infatuations, mood swings and a longing to be loved are the elements driving the whole film and the whole story.

RAGING ROSE: Jozef, a blue-collar Pole, arrives in France to work in construction, but also to find his son Roman, whom he abandoned 15 years earlier. His boss’s daughter, Rose, a teenager in the tumult of sexual awakening, offers to help him in his search. She ends up falling desperately in love with Roman, their encounter having an unexpected impact on both their teenage lives.

CRACHECOEUR (RAGING ROSE) dir. Julia Kowalski -trailer with English Subtitles from Maria Blicharska on Vimeo.

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Andrew Steggall / Alex Lawther – director / actor – Departure

The director Andrew Steggall and protagonist Alex Lawther talk about the film DEPARTURE, how it originated from the creator’s hands and they talk about several central themes of it, as the relationhsip between mother and child.

DEPARTURE: An English mother and her teenage son spend a week preparing the sale of their holiday house in the South of France. Fifteen-year-old Elliot struggles with his dawning sexuality and an increasing alienation from his mother, Beatrice. She in turn is confronted by the realisation that her marriage to his father, Philip, has grown loveless and the life she knows is coming to an end. When an enigmatic local teenager, Clément, quietly enters their lives, both mother and son are compelled to confront their desires and, finally, each other.

Departure is an intimate story beginning at dawn on the first day and ending at night on the sixth, charting the end of a summer, the end of a childhood and the end of an otherwise nuclear, middleclass family.

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Deniz Gamze Ergüven – director – Mustang

The director Deniz Gamze Erguven talks about Mustang, candidate to Oscar Awards 2015 for France and one of this year’s finalists for the LUX Prize. We meet her shortly after the screening of her film at the 10th Rome Film Festival in the independent and parallel section of the festival named Alice nella Città.

She talks about the current social situation in Turkey nowadays and how her film Mustang aims to talk about it and expose it to an international audience.

MUSTANG: Early summer. In a village in northern Turkey, Lale and her four sisters are walking home from school, playing innocently with some boys. The immorality of their play sets off a scandal that has unexpected consequences. The family home is progressively transformed into a prison ; instruction in homemaking replaces school and marriages start being arranged. The five sisters who share a common passion for freedom, find ways of getting around the constraints imposed on them.

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