Lila Pinell a présenté, à la Quinzaine des Cinéastes du 79e Festival de Cannes, son premier long-métrage de fiction en solo, “Shana”, qui comme “Kiss and Cry” (2017), coréalisé avec Lila Pinell , suit un personnage féminin sous pression, et en l’occurrence sous emprise.

C’est un fil rouge “pas exactement conscient“, précise la scénariste et réalisatrice française. “Comme je m’intéresse à des parcours de femmes, ajoute-t-elle, ce qui est assez instinctif, de vouloir raconter des parcours de femmes quand on est une femme, j’imagine, et du coup je me rends compte que les femmes sont souvent prises dans des situations de pression“.

Dans “Shan“, Lila Pinell met au centre de l’écran, sans jamais la quitter, “un personnage en constant déplacement” dont elle a confié l’interprétation à Eva Huault, qu’elle a rencontrée encore préado en faisant un court-métrage documentaire (le travail de Pinell s’étant d’abord ancré dans le documentaire) et dont elle est devenue très proche, traduisant même son parcours de réinsertion sociale dans le moyen-métrage de fiction “Le Roi David” (2021). Shana aussi se démène: “elle va d’un milieu à l’autre, d’un univers à l’autre, elle passe de sa famille à son petit copain, et c’est plein de milieux qui ne se rencontrent pas, eux, mais elle, elle est le point de jonction“.

Nous discutons de la “banalité”, pour certaines femmes en situation d’emprise, des violences conjugales (non qu’elles n’en soient pas conscientes…), de la profonde gentillesse qu’on découvre à son personnage initialement sur la défensive, à mesure qu’on comprend aussi d’où elle vient: ce qui l’a amenée à se retrouver, maintenant, à parcourir les rues la nuit, hagarde, presque comme dans un thriller. On évoque aussi la sororité, la transmission, et la ritournelle un peu magique du “Rayon vert” d’Éric Rohmer.

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“Flesh and Fuel” (Du Fieul dans les Artères) by Pierre Le Gal is a captivating film about two truck drivers—one Polish and one French—whose professional lives mirror their personal struggles and desires. The narrative delves into how their contrasting motivations and attitudes towards work influence their relationship and self-perception. The portrayal of these characters offers a deep reflection on identity, freedom, and societal norms, making “Flesh and Fuel” a meaningful addition to contemporary cinematic storytelling.

We talked about these issues with on of the actors, Julian Świeżewski.

The film’s emphasis on “Flesh and Fuel” extends beyond its title, representing the core elements that drive the characters’ lives: their physical passions and emotional energies. The movie skillfully depicts love scenes that are honest and free of voyeurism, emphasizing intimacy and connection over spectacle. “Flesh and Fuel” serve as a metaphor for how personal emotions fuel our existence, especially in environments where societal expectations—like the macho truck driver stereotype—often overshadow genuine expressions of love and identity. This authentic portrayal invites viewers to reflect on the importance of embracing all facets of oneself, regardless of external pressures. The movie uniquely examines how external pressures and internal passions intertwine, highlighting the importance of embracing one’s true self amidst societal expectations.

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“Nostalgia for the Future” starts from the archives of Chris Marker, pivotal figure in modern filmmaking, that are partially disclosed. The director Brecth Debackere talks with us about his approach to that material and the way he decided to tell the story of Chris Marker from his archives, not in a classic way, for sure.

The phrase “Nostalgia for the Future” captures a compelling tension between longing for what has been and hopeful anticipation of what is yet to come. Modern filmmakers invoke this concept by referencing historical archives and personal histories while simultaneously questioning the direction of future society. Such films serve as reflections, urging audiences to consider how past and future continuously shape our present experiences. This theme has become increasingly relevant in a world where rapid technological change prompts us to revisit memories while dreaming ahead.

A key aspect of “Nostalgia for the Future” involves the creative use of archives and historical materials. Brecth Debackere often incorporates vintage footage, personal letters, and photographs to construct layered narratives that challenge traditional storytelling. By doing so, he offers viewers a chance to revisit bygone eras while contemplating what lies ahead. The process of working with archival content highlights the fluidity of memory and underscores the idea that our identities are shaped by both history and forward-looking aspirations.

Combining visual archives with voices and writings of thinkers like Chris Marker, Brecth Debackere invites audiences to explore the complex layers of human experience. This approach underscores the notion that understanding oneself involves a continuous dialogue between what has been and what could be. It reminds us that our relationship with time is multifaceted, blending a fondness for the past with an optimistic gaze toward the horizon. As filmmakers continue to experiment with archival materials and philosophical insights, they invite us all to reflect on how we shape and are shaped by the interplay of memory and aspiration.

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Marine Atlan, connu pour son travail remarquable comme cheffe opératrice sur des films comme “Nos cérémonies”, “Le Ravissement” ou encore “Foudre”), se lance dans la réalisation de long-métrage avec le formidable “La Gradiva”, où l’on accompagne une classe de terminale contemporaine issue d’un lycée favorisé en voyage à Pompéi, avec une professeure de latin passionnée (Antonia Buresi) qui les engage à lire les traces du passé, à réimaginer l’éruption du Vésuve, tandis qu’à cette mise en contact directe avec une civilisation antique vivante soudain engloutie se superposent tous les désirs et frustrations qui secouent ces jeunes d’aujourd’hui. Le film, également en lice pour la Caméra d’or du 79e Festival de Cannes, vient de remporter le Grand Prix de la Semaine de la Critique.

Sur l’idée de reprendre la figure centrale et les thèmes de la célèbre nouvelle de Wilhelm Jensen analysée par Freud que la littérature et le cinéma n’ont cessé de sonder par la suite, de continuer en quelques sortes de faire marcher cette Gradiva aux côtés de jeunes d’aujourd’hui, Atlan raconte : “J’aimais bien l’idée de commencer le film avec cette évocation latine, cette idée de mouvement, de femme qui marche, un peu comme une allégorie du destin, et de se réapproprier un peu cette figure mythologique et cette analyse et d’ajouter une nouvelle couche, comme si après le bas-relief, puis Jensen, puis Freud, puis Robbe-Grillet, on pouvait réinventer à nouveau et remettre du contemporain, comme une nouvelle couche de l’histoire“.

Pour composer le scénario, en collaboration avec Anne Brouillet, “comme on sortait du classicisme en créant un film choral qui rompt avec les codes de la dramaturgie, il fallait un peu inventer cette polyphonie, comprendre comment elle allait fonctionner, comment passer d’un personnage à l’autre“. “Je voulais, précise la réalisatrice, quelque chose de très vivant. Il y avait vraiment l’idée de sentir comme une plongée documentaire, à la fois dans le territoire et dans ce groupe, ce collectif, ces jeunes, et en même temps, j’avais vraiment une ambition romanesque, c’est-à-dire d’aller vers le mélodrame, d’assumer le lyrisme et de raconter quelque chose d’assez profond et assez dense sur l’héritage.”

Du groupe se détache la figure de Tony (Colas Quignard), le personnage le plus déambulateur du film, un peu à l’écart par sa provenance sociale, ses inclinations sexuelles et sa situation familiale, qui tente de renouer avec son héritage à partir d’une photo dont il cherche à retrouver le modèle réel. “Une photo, c’est un peu comme le bas-relief de Pompéi, c’est-à-dire que c’est un instant, une image capturée à un moment. J’ai passé mon enfance à scruter des photos de famille, j’ai l’impression qu’elles portent toujours une vérité cachée, parce qu’en fait, une photo, ça convoque le hors-champ… et donc c’est aussi un grand endroit de fantasme, de rapport au vrai ou au faux, et je trouvais que c’était une bonne façon d’introduire la question d’une mythologie familiale et de voir comment cette mythologie familiale peut aboutir à du vide, du creux, du manque, et du secret“. De l’autre côté du spectre, si on peut dire, ou dans un logique de complémentarité puisque les deux garçons sont meilleurs amis, on a le séduisant James (Mitia Capellier), sur lequel se projettent tous les désirs. “Puisqu’il s’agit d’héritage, de quoi on hérite et des injustices là-dedans, James, c’est un personnage qui a tout. Il a la beauté, l’intelligence, le savoir, la richesse : c’est le privilège absolu. J’aimais que ce privilège, on ait envie de s’y frotter et qu’en même temps on le déteste.“

The post “La Gradiva”, entretien avec la réalisatrice Marine Atlan appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Lo Show quotidiano The Soup of The Day firmato FRED Film Radio direttamente dalla 79esima edizione del Festival di Cannes.

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Avril Besson, who just presented her first feature, “Marvelous Mornings” (original title: “Les Matins merveilleux”), amongst the Special Screenings of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, is full of surprises – and “the funniest person I know”, adds her lead actress India Hair. Who would have thought that the sad event which sets her character in motion happened to her in the same, wacky way, and that she would succeed so well in her resolve to turn that grief into a comedy – to “put some fun into it”.

As the French director (and contender for the Camera d’Or) revealed when we met her and India Hair on the Croisette – an already merry duo made even merrier by actress Raya Martigny‘s joining us mid-interview –, many of the key elements in the profoundly existential and human, but also quirky and indeed fun tale she tells here were borrowed from real life, including the disco geek played by Eric Cantona and the trans waitress embodied with utter charisma by Raya Martigny.

At the centre of the story is a terrific character, a slightly candid and reserved but always open-minded and ready-to-try young woman which offers us the opportunity to finally discover India Hair in a lead role, much to our delight. “[Charlie] had been with me for while, says the actress, because I’ve been there since the beginning of the [writing] process, so she’s part of me. For me, she’s a mixture of Avril’s fun, outgoing nature – and she put a lot of that in Charlie – and also there’s a lot of childhood in there. She makes me think of a child who is open to meeting people, to experiences, and who has no prejudgements, so she just looks at people with tenderness, and I find that incredibly important, and it helped me, in my life, to look at things with more tenderness.”

We talk about the film’s very well written, fun, and slightly absurd script and dialogues, about Avril Besson and India Hair‘s collaboration, about the title of the movie, borrowed from a song, about the need to reset.

Raya Martigny joins us, and starts by underlining how well she felt represented by the trans woman character Avril Besson created: “The world just wants us to be one way, and it’s always about identity, when our life is in fact not just about this: we fall in love, we walk down the street, we are just normal people too, and that’s what we need to show more, and that’s what we do in this movie: it’s just not about identity, it’s about emancipation between two women and just acceptance and love and so many beautiful things that are important in life.” Avril Besson chimes in and suggests that by taking out the violence and the identity aspect, she is “much more in the reality of being transgender”, pointing out that the real-life counterpart of the character of Marina “lives a beautiful life, exactly like any other woman, and it’s exactly when you start taking the violence out of the equation that you can see the people’s hearts.” “If you’re just talking about how someone reacts to violence,” she adds, “you can’t see their heart and the beauty that’s in it, and I really wanted to see the beauty.”

The post ‘Marvelous Mornings’, an interview with director Avril Besson and actresses India Hair and Raya Martigny appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Presented in the Cannes Film Festival’s Un Certain Regard section, “I’ll Be Gone in June” marks the feature debut of German filmmaker Katharina Rivilis, who transforms personal memory into an intimate reflection on adolescence and historical uncertainty.

The film follows Franny, a German exchange student who arrives in Las Cruces, New Mexico, shortly before the events of September 11 reshape both the United States and the global political landscape.

Franny initially carries with her an imagined version of America shaped by cinema, television, and popular culture. What she discovers instead is a quieter and more fragile reality: a desert town filled with young people whose lives exist far from the mythology of New York or Los Angeles.

For Katharina Rivilis, the story emerges directly from her own experience: “I was also an exchange student in that same place during that year,” she explained.

Yet the director insists the film is not strictly autobiographical. Rather than reconstructing exact events, she describes the project as a “collective memory” shaped by her own recollections alongside those of friends and fellow exchange students.

The origins of the film began years later, when Katharina Rivilis returned to New Mexico in 2018 with a friend working on a travel guide.

Revisiting Las Cruces after many years transformed her perception of the place entirely. What had once survived only as fragmented teenage memories suddenly reappeared with cinematic clarity.

“I saw these landscapes again and thought: this needs to become a film,” she recalled.

The vastness of the desert, the endless horizon and the unique quality of light left a profound emotional impact on the filmmaker. Katharina Rivilis repeatedly described New Mexico as a place of longing, both physically expansive and emotionally disorienting.

She compared the region’s atmosphere to the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, emphasising the almost unreal intensity of the landscape and sky.

“There is something magical in this light,” she said.

For the director, returning there also meant reconnecting with a younger version of herself. Encounters with former classmates and host families created the strange sensation of entering a time capsule where emotional memory and present reality overlapped.

That tension between nostalgia and rediscovery permeates the entire film.

One of the most compelling aspects of “I’ll Be Gone in June” is its perspective on the United States as both fantasy and lived reality.

Franny arrives carrying the symbolic promise of the “American dream,” an idea exported globally through decades of cultural influence. Yet Katharina Rivilis was interested precisely in the gap between that dream and the everyday experiences of the young people she encountered in New Mexico.

“Reality is much harder,” the director observed.

The film portrays a generation growing up with limited opportunities despite living inside one of the world’s most mythologised nations. Katharina Rivilis noted how difficult it can be for many young people in New Mexico to leave the state or access higher education, particularly compared with European systems where university education is often publicly accessible.

At the same time, the filmmaker avoids reducing America to disillusionment alone. She remains fascinated by the energy and determination associated with the American ideal, even as she acknowledges its inequalities and contradictions.

That ambiguity becomes central to Franny’s perspective throughout the film. America appears simultaneously seductive, fragile and emotionally inaccessible.

Although the September 11 attacks shape the atmosphere of the film, Katharina Rivilis deliberately avoided making “I’ll Be Gone in June” directly about 9/11 itself.

Instead, the historical event gradually enters the emotional texture of daily life, mirroring how adolescents experience political change before fully understanding its ideological dimensions.

“It was a time of extreme insecurity,” Katharina Rivilis reflected.

For the director, the attacks marked not only a geopolitical rupture but also the symbolic beginning of the twenty-first century. She described the period as one dominated by uncertainty, fear and the sensation that an era was ending.

Importantly, Katharina Rivilis also connects those emotions to the present day. During the interview, she drew parallels between the post-9/11 atmosphere and contemporary global anxieties shaped by pandemics, wars and political instability.

“We constantly feel like we are living in moments of crisis,” she observed.

Within the film, that collective insecurity remains largely atmospheric rather than explicit. Franny senses the world’s emotional transformation before fully understanding it politically, allowing the film to preserve the perspective of adolescence rather than historical analysis.

Ultimately, “I’ll Be Gone in June” is less interested in historical reconstruction than in emotional perception.

Katharina Rivilis portrays adolescence as a state of heightened sensitivity in which political transformations are first felt through atmosphere, uncertainty, and emotional dislocation.

Franny’s journey through New Mexico becomes both personal and collective: a confrontation with the collapse of cultural illusions and the beginning of a more fragile awareness of the world.

The result is a film suspended between memory, history and longing, where landscapes become emotional archives and youth itself appears inseparable from the feeling that everything is about to change.

The post “I’ll be gone in June”, interview with the director Katharina Rivilis appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

“Original Wound” emerges as one of the darkest and most emotionally unsettling films of the Indonesian collaborative program Next Step Studio.

Co-directed by Myanmar filmmaker Sein Lyan Tun and Indonesian director Shelby Kho, the short film centres on a brother and sister left alone in the family house after their mother’s death. As memories resurface, grief becomes increasingly unstable, exposing emotional wounds that neither character fully understands in the same way.

For Sein Lyan Tun, the project began through a shared emotional territory discovered during the writing process with Shelby Kho.

“We were trying to find a common ground,” he explained, “We both had experiences connected to family, trauma, parents and siblings.”

That mutual recognition gradually shaped a story centred not on explicit confrontation, but on the lingering psychological effects of emotional manipulation, abuse and silence within family structures.

The film avoids definitive explanations. Instead, it constructs a fragmented emotional space where memory itself becomes unstable and contradictory.

One of the most striking aspects of “Original Wound” is the way the brother and sister remember their mother differently. Their emotional realities overlap, but never fully coincide.

For Sein Lyan Tun, this fragmentation reflects the impossibility of absolute truth inside families.

“Sometimes parents say things to make you happy,” he observed, “but when you grow up, you realise those words were painful.”

The director repeatedly returned to the idea of swallowed emotions: experiences that remain unspoken for years yet continue to shape personal identity from within.

In “Original Wound”, trauma is never presented as a completed event. Instead, it exists as an ongoing process, constantly resurfacing through memory, silence and emotional repetition.

The mother’s absence paradoxically intensifies her presence throughout the film. Even after death, her emotional influence continues to structure the relationship between the siblings, separating them even while forcing them back together.

That contradiction becomes central to the film’s emotional tension: the simultaneous desire for connection and escape.

The domestic setting in “Original Wound” functions almost like another character.

Throughout the interview, Sein Lyan Tun described the house less as a physical location than as an emotional environment where unresolved trauma continues to circulate.

“Sometimes you swallow things, sometimes you speak them out,” he reflected. “But the suffering continues.”

The film’s claustrophobic atmosphere reinforces this sensation of emotional entrapment. Rooms feel closed, heavy and psychologically charged, as though the past itself remains embedded within the architecture.

For the director, this dynamic also carried a broader metaphorical dimension connected to political and social realities.

Comparing family structures to authoritarian systems, he described the mother figure as resembling a form of power that cannot easily be escaped.

“The mother is like the government,” he said. “The children are like the people.”

This political undercurrent remains subtle throughout the film, but it deepens the sense that personal trauma and larger structures of control often mirror one another.

Rather than relying heavily on dialogue, “Original Wound” communicates primarily through atmosphere, tension and emotional ambiguity.

Sein Lyan Tun explained that the filmmakers were less interested in providing clear psychological explanations than in creating an experiential emotional space for the audience.

The result is a film built around sensations: discomfort, emotional suffocation and the constant feeling that something unresolved remains trapped beneath the surface.

For viewers who have experienced similar family tensions, the director believes the emotional impact may feel immediately recognisable.

“Some people will watch it and say, ‘I know this pain,’” he noted.

At the same time, he acknowledged that audiences without those experiences may find the film’s emotional logic more difficult to interpret.

That uncertainty is intentional. “Original Wound” does not attempt to universalise trauma into simple catharsis. Instead, it preserves the instability and opacity that often define painful memories themselves.

The post “Original Wound”, interview with the co director Sein Lyan Tun appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

“Annisa” offers one of the most intimate and sensory experiences among the short films developed through the Indonesian collaborative program Next Step Studio.

Co-directed by Filipino filmmaker Sam Manacsa and Indonesian actor-director Reza Rahadian, the film follows a blind teenage girl living in a crowded neighbourhood in Jakarta as she gradually seeks her voice during a local community festival.

For Sam Manacsa, the central challenge was never to reduce the character to her blindness, but rather to construct the cinematic language around her emotional perspective.

“It was very important that we stayed grounded to the feelings of Annisa herself,” he explained during the interview.

The protagonist is portrayed by a young, non-professional actress who shares the character’s name and many personal characteristics. According to Sam Manacsa, that connection deeply influenced the film’s approach.

Rather than emphasising visual absence, the filmmakers became interested in the richness of sound, texture and emotional perception that shapes Annisa’s relationship with the world around her.

One of the film’s defining elements is its intricate sound design. In “Annisa”, sound is not simply atmospheric support but a primary storytelling tool.

The crowded neighbourhood festival becomes a dense sonic landscape filled with music, voices, movement and overlapping emotional energies. Through this environment, the audience is invited to experience the world in a way that mirrors Annisa’s own navigation of space.

Sam Manacsa revealed that sound was already central during the writing process itself.

“A lot of the script was really us writing the soundscape more than the landscape,” he noted.

The screenplay, only ten pages long, focused heavily on sensory detail. During shooting and editing, the directors continued expanding the sonic layers, searching for increasingly immersive ways to place the audience inside Annisa’s emotional reality.

At the same time, the filmmakers were careful not to isolate the protagonist from her surroundings. The goal was not to portray her as disconnected from the community, but rather to show how she actively inhabits and interprets it.

The festival atmosphere, therefore, becomes both overwhelming and liberating: a chaotic environment where Annisa slowly begins to recognise her own place.

Throughout the interview, Sam Manacsa emphasised that “Annisa” is fundamentally a coming-of-age story.

“All we wanted to talk about was her growing up,” he explained.

The film deliberately avoids framing its protagonist through pity or symbolic representation. Instead, Annisa emerges as a teenager like any other: curious, humorous, uncertain and emotionally sensitive.

Her blindness is part of her experience, but never the totality of her identity.

For Sam Manacsa, maintaining that balance was essential because the emotional heart of the story lies elsewhere: in the universal process of adolescence and self-discovery.

Annisa spends much of her time isolated within familiar routines, often absorbed by her phone and reluctant to step outside her comfort zone. The film gradually follows her movement toward participation, connection and visibility within her community.

That process of being seen and accepted becomes one of the short film’s most delicate emotional threads.

“To find that space and to be accepted is something beautiful,” Sam Manacsa reflected.

The film ultimately suggests that belonging is not simply about social inclusion, but about discovering environments where personal expression becomes possible.

Although “Annisa” is a co-directed work, Sam Manacsa described the collaboration with Reza Rahadian as unusually organic.

The two filmmakers quickly discovered shared sensibilities regarding storytelling, particularly their mutual attraction toward small-scale emotional experiences rather than grand dramatic narratives.

“We really want to focus on the simple things that move our lives,” Sam Manacsa explained.

That common perspective shaped not only the film’s artistic direction but also the production’s atmosphere.

For Sam Manacsa, who primarily works as a production designer and had limited directing experience beforehand, the project represented a major personal leap outside familiar creative environments.

One of the greatest challenges was learning to trust a completely new team assembled largely through Reza Rahadian’s existing collaborators.

“It was really about trusting the process,” he admitted.

That uncertainty eventually gave way to creative openness, allowing the film to emerge through collaboration rather than rigid control.

The post “Annisa”, interview with the co-director Sam Manacsa appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Presented at the Cannes Film Festival as part of the International Critics’ Week initiative, Next Step Studio, “Holy Crowd” transforms a supernatural premise into a sharp reflection on social behaviour and collective hysteria.

Co-directed by Indonesian filmmaker Reza Fahriyansyah and Malaysian director Ananth Subramaniam, the short film begins with a seemingly impossible event: a woman dies, only to suddenly return to life during her funeral.

What initially appears to be a miracle rapidly spirals into chaos. The resurrected woman becomes the object of fascination, opportunism, and projection, while those around her attempt to extract meaning, power, or personal gain from the extraordinary situation.

For the filmmakers, however, the miracle itself was never the true subject of the film.

“We were very interested in herd mentality,” Ananth Subramaniam explained. Despite coming from different countries and cultural backgrounds, both directors recognised the same instinctive social patterns within Southeast Asian societies: the tendency to follow collective emotion, especially when confronted with religious or mystical phenomena.

The film uses absurdity and humour to expose how easily communities can transform belief into spectacle.

One of the most compelling aspects of “Holy Crowd” is the uneasy balance between comedy and discomfort. The reactions surrounding the resurrection are frequently ridiculous, yet they also reveal deeper anxieties about faith, authority, and social pressure.

For Reza Fahriyansyah, questions of power became central to the project, “People always believe in something bigger than themselves,” he observed.

Rather than mocking religion directly, the film examines how belief systems can become performative under collective pressure. Crowds gather not only out of faith, but also out of curiosity, fear and opportunism.

The directors deliberately avoided treating the situation with solemnity. Humour emerged naturally during the writing process, largely because the irrationality of the characters’ behaviour felt simultaneously recognisable and absurd.

“Sometimes you just don’t understand why people behave this way,” Ananth Subramaniam admitted. “And that becomes funny.”

The comedy in “Holy Crowd”, therefore, functions less as parody and more as observation. The laughter comes from the unsettling familiarity of mass reactions, particularly in environments where religion, social hierarchy and public performance constantly overlap.

At the centre of the film stands Arif, the husband of the resurrected woman, who becomes an increasingly passive witness to the escalating madness around him.

The filmmakers intentionally constructed him as a character with almost no control over the situation.

“In front of the crowd, religion and culture, you are nothing,” Ananth Subramaniam explained.

Rather than turning Arif into an active hero, the directors were interested in exploring helplessness. His inability to intervene reflects the larger social structures surrounding him, where individual agency becomes insignificant once collective hysteria takes over.

This perspective also reinforces the film’s emotional realism. Despite the fantastical premise, “Holy Crowd” remains grounded in ordinary human vulnerability. Miracles may occur, but people still respond through confusion, selfishness and fear.

For Reza Fahriyansyah, maintaining that human scale was essential.

“Even with a very big situation, we still wonder how people feel about what happened,” he noted.

Although “Holy Crowd” emerged from a collaboration between filmmakers from Indonesia and Malaysia, both directors emphasised how naturally the partnership evolved.

Their creative relationship began informally, often through conversations over Indonesian food, particularly different regional varieties of soto.

“We bonded over soto,” Ananth Subramaniam joked.

Before writing, the directors established a shared principle for the collaboration: protecting each other’s creative freedom while leaving ego aside. They described the project as both an artistic experiment and a playful testing ground where ideas could become increasingly strange and excessive.

That openness proved particularly valuable during the writing process.

Ananth Subramaniam, who had never co-directed before, admitted that collaboration unexpectedly liberated him from the isolation that often accompanies screenwriting.

“Every time I got stuck, I could throw it to Reza,” he explained.

For Reza Fahriyansyah, the exchange also became a way of expanding visual and cultural perspectives, especially regarding funeral rituals and spiritual symbolism, which differ subtly between Indonesia and Malaysia.

The post “Holy Crowd”, interview with the directors Reza Fahriyansyah and Ananth Subramaniam appeared first on Fred Film Radio.