FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Sue Brooks – Director – Looking for Grace.

We talked with Sue Brooks about what makes a film interesting and compelling, what does the definition ” female movie” eventually mean, and how a woman can survive in the film industry. Besides talking about her film, of course…

Plot: Grace, 16, runs away from home. Her parents, Dan and Denise, head off on the road to across the Western Australian wheat belt with a retired detective, Norris, to try and get her back. But life unravels faster than they can put it back together. Grace, Dan and Denise learn that life is confusing and arbitrary, but wonderful. Looking For Grace is about how we make sense of the mess of our lives and what it all means. It is a wry drama about lies, secrets, small and large griefs and love.

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Rosa Tran – producer – Anomalisa

After talking to directors Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson for their film ANOMALISA, the stop motion animation film in competition at the 72nd Venice International Film Festival, we thought that we still had to know more about this perfect combination of art house cinema and animation techniques. This is why, by talking to producer Rosa Tran we could somehow complete our experience with Anomalisa.

Rosa Tran is an award-winning producer in the highly specialized world of stop-motion and live action animation and in this interview, she explains every phase of how she turned Charlie Kaufman’s creative vision into a stop motion animation film and how she managed to bring life to these puppets and actually let them become as real as possible. Producer Rosa Tran also comments on the difficulties of producing an arthouse film and the decision of also using the Kickstarter platform to complete the budget for the film.

ANOMALISA: Directed by Kaufman along with Duke Johnson, “Anomalisa” tells the story of a man who struggles with his inability to connect with other people. “Anomalisa’s” journey to the screen began in 2012, when the filmmakers turned to Kickstarter to fund their ambitious stop-motion animated picture.

The fundraising campaign raised nearly double their initial financial goals, setting a new Kickstarter record for film fundraising. Jennifer Jason Leigh, David Thewlis, and Tom Noonan voice the film. Tran built a name for herself working on seminal Adult Swim shows like “Robot Chicken,” “Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole,” “Moral Orel,” “Titan Maximum,” and “MAD.” She credits her love of animation and miniatures with helping foster her imaginative approach to production and ability to push the boundaries and technological barriers of the industry. Tran began working in animation when she joined the puppet department in 2007 on Adult Swim’s hit series, “Robot Chicken.” Before animation, she worked on various live action projects for MTV, Spike, WE, and Comedy Central. Her work in both has given her a unique perspective that enhances her expertise in producing creative content.

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Rupert Everett – actor – Winner of the Kinéo International Movie Award

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets with actor and director Rupert Everett, recipient of the Kinéo International Movie Award. Rupert Everett is in pre-production stage with his film, on Oscar Wilde’s life, which is going to be shot in Italy and in Naples.

Kinéo Movie Diamond Award is a tribute to the best of Italian movie production assigned by the public and by a jury of excellence in the movie art and business, according to a criterion combining artistic quality, success and potential diffusion in the international market. The Award was established in 2002 on the initiative of the Ministry of Culture,in Italy, to promote the national film industry, and is celebrated each year at the Venice Film Festival. Today the Kinéo Award has expanded and incude special recognitions from key partners such as Kinéo & RAI Com Award, Kinéo and National Union of Film Critics or major realities of culture, education and business as Kinéo &Tao Art/TaorminaFilmFest Award, Kinéo & the Experimental Centre of Cinematography Award, and great sponsors Award, such as Kinéo&Ethos Parfumery Classic Award.

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Mike Ryan – producer – Free in Deed

Fred Film Radio has the pleasure to talk to Mike Ryan, producer of FREE IN DEED, competing here in Venice in the Orizzonti section. Firmly believing in daring and intelligent filmmaking, Mr Ryan unveils his personal approach as a producer, with the hope that Cinema will always stay ‘physical’.

FREE IN DEED: Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches, and based on actual events, Free in Deed depicts one man’s attempts to perform a miracle. When a single mother brings her young boy to church for healing, this lonely pentecostal minister is forced to confront the seemingly incurable illness of the child… and his own demons as well. The more he prays, the more things seem to spiral out of his control.

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Celia Rowlson-Hall – director and actress – Ma.

Director, actress, and choreographer Celia Rowlson-Hall talks about the way the Bible inspired her dialogue-less film MA, which was presented as a special screening in the Venice Days section of the 72nd Venice Film Festival. Celia tells us about the journey of self-discovery she undertook through this project, as a woman and an artist, and the way in which she managed to direct whilst being in front of the camera.

MA: ‘In this modern-day vision of Mother Mary’s pilgrimage, a woman crosses the scorched landscape of the American Southwest. Reinvented and told entirely through movement, the film playfully deconstructs the role of this woman, who encounters a world full of bold characters that are alternately terrifying and sublime. Ma is a journey into the visceral and the surreal, interweaving ritual, performance, and the body as sculpture. The absence of dialogue stirs the senses, and leads us to imagine a new ending to this familiar journey. The virgin mother gives birth to our saviour, but is also challenged to save herself.’ (Venice Days).

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Edwina Findley – Actress – Free In Deed.

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets versatile and eclectic actress Edwina Findley, intense protagonist of Jake Mahaffy‘s FREE IN DEED, in competition at the 72nd Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section, in which it was awarded the Best Film Prize.

In the film Edwina plays Melva Neddy, a single mother desperately looking for a cure to her son’s autism in a society in which she’s left with no help from social services or healthcare system. Edwina Findley explains how the film explores the difficulty of judging a woman in her character’ situation and how, even death, can de liberating in a very desperate sense.

FREE IN DEED: Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches, and based on actual events, Free in Deed depicts one man’s attempts to perform a miracle. When a single mother brings her young boy to church for healing, this lonely pentecostal minister is forced to confront the seemingly incurable illness of the child… and his own demons as well. The more he prays, the more things seem to spiral out of his control.

The post Edwina Findley – Free In Deed #Venezia72 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Jake Mahaffy – Director – Free In Deed.

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Jake Mahaffy, director of the film FREE IN DEED. The film was presented in the Orizzonti section of the 72nd Venice Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Film.

Based on true events the film find its inspiration in a news story of twelve years ago about an actual faith healing gone wrong. Shot in a documentary style, the story takes place mainly in a church where the protagonist, a single mother with two kids, relies all her hopes to cure her child from autism, in this healer priest’s hands.

FREE IN DEED: Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches, and based on actual events, Free in Deed depicts one man’s attempts to perform a miracle. When a single mother brings her young boy to church for healing, this lonely pentecostal minister is forced to confront the seemingly incurable illness of the child… and his own demons as well. The more he prays, the more things seem to spiral out of his control.

The post Jake Mahaffy – Free In Deed #Venezia72 appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Amos Gitai – Director – Rabin, the Last Day

FRED’s Bénédicte Prot interview director Amos Gitai, who presented his latest film RABIN, THE LAST DAY in competition at the 72nd edition of the Venice Film Festival.

Amos Gitai explains how he wanted, with this film, to remind us of a time when there was still hope, and talks about the approach he chose to recount, again, the assassination of Rabin.

RABIN, THE LAST DAY: When Premier Minister Yitzhak Rabin fell, shot, twenty years ago, in Tel Aviv, in a few seconds, the face of Israel changed forever, and all hope of finding peace in the Middle-East was buried. Through archive material and reconstitutions, especially of the official inquiry, Amos Gitai looks into the senseless gesture of an intoxicated Israeli nationalist and into the absurd way in which the country reacted the following months, and for years to come.

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Arturo Ripstein (Director), Paz Alicia Garciadiego (Screenwriter) – Bleak Street (La Calle de la Amargura).

FRED’s Matt Micucci interviews the great Mexican filmmaker Arturo Ripstein and his wife, his screenwriter and collaborator Paz Alicia Garciadiego. The two presented their latest work BLEAK STREET (La Calle de la Amargura) out of competition at the 72nd Venice Film Festival.

Arturo Ripstein and Paz Alicia Garciadiego talk to us about the film’s air of timelessness, aided by the choice of employing black and white photography. Ripstein also stops to give us his opinion of black and white photography and its power in general. Garciadiego then talks about where the inspiration of the story came from, and gives us an insightful summation of the backdrop and many influences that were put together and which contribute to the greatness of their latest work.

On top of this, we focus on the human take on the story’s peculiar characters, and the sense of humour that is a true driving force in the film. The two together make the story all the more powerful, dramatic but also very enjoyable and entertaining.

BLEAK STREET (La Calle de la Amargura): In the early morning hours, two elderly whores go back to their hovels. They are not tired from working. They are tired of not doing so. One has problems at home with her teenage daughter and her cross-dressing husband; the other, with her loneliness. But that night, they have a date to celebrate the victory in the ring of two wrestlers, twin midgets wearing masks. At the hourly hotel, in order to rob the tiny men of their earnings, they drug them with eye drops. But the dose proves fatal. They murder them unintentionally. Scared and confused, they decide to hide from the police and run away together to live, as they always have, on Bleak Street. They are arrested.

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Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan – voice actors – Anomalisa

FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets Jennifer Jason Leigh and Tom Noonan who respectively give the voices to Lisa and EVERYBODY ELSE (Noonan plays all the remaining characters except for the 2 protagonists) in the film by Charlie Kauffman and Duke Johnson, ANOMALISA. The film was awarded the Grand Jury Prize at the 72nd edition of the Venice Film Festival.

ANOMALISA: Michael Stone, an author of books on the subject of customer service, struggle with his inability to connect to people. One night, while on a routine business trip, he meets a stranger who changes his world view.

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