“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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During the 79th edition of the Cannes international Film Festival we spoke with the director Alexander Murphy for the movie “Tin Castle“, presented in the Semain de la Critique section. This heartfelt documentary is a deep exploration of love and community of who lives at the the margins of society such as the Irish travellers, a culture who are not known as they should and that often have a stereotypical narration that surround them. By focusing on the O’Reillys and their 10 children, the film showcases a vibrant world often misunderstood or overlooked by mainstream society, seeking meaningful interactions with families willing to share their worlds.

During our interview with FRED Film Radio, the director Alexander Murphy explained how the “Tin Castle” documentary feature emphasize the significance of love, community, and identity, in a research that took years in building trust within the community in order to capture genuine moments that challenge stereotypes.  Murphy indeed emphasized that truly understanding the community required time, trust, and genuine love, all elements he fostered through repeated visits and heartfelt conversations. As he immersed himself within the family’s daily life, Murphy realized the film was evolving into a portrayal of love’s resilience amidst hardship, rather than just a documentary about poverty.

One of the core aims of “Tin Castle“, says director Alexander Murphy, was to challenge false narratives surrounding the Irish Traveller community, showing that most of these people are yearning for freedom, pride, and acceptance, often hiding their true selves due to social pressures, but highlighting nonetheless also their struggles of stigma and their efforts to preserve culture. An unique narrative approach that allows viewers to see beyond stereotypes and appreciate the richness of their traditions and humanity, highlighting the love and warmth that define their family life.

At the heart of “Tin Castle” is a reflection on what truly constitutes a home. Director Alexander Murphy describes the concept as more than just a physical space: it’s about belonging, love, and the bonds shared among family members. Through the intimate moments captured with the children and their interactions, the film suggests that home is where love resides, regardless of the size of the dwelling or societal status. Ultimately sheding a light on the Irish Traveller community through intimate storytelling and stunning visuals, “Tin Castle” is a film that reveals that embracing love and community is a universal message that transcends society margins and enriches our understanding of what it means to feel truly at home.

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Durante la 79esima edizione del Festival del cinema di Cannes abbiamo parlato con il direttore della fotografia Matteo Abbondanza e con l’attore protagonista Antonio Vottari per il loro cortometraggio “Il Polpettone“, presentato all’interno del progetto The 48 Hours Film Project.

“Il Polpettone” è una commedia grottesca e ironica, che ha stupito il pubblico italiano e internazionale arrivando fino a Cannes grazie alla sua semplicità narrativa e alla capacità di esplorare tematiche profonde come le dinamiche di coppia e le aspettative sociali. Questo cortometraggio, realizzato in sole 48 ore, ha dimostrato infatti come anche i limiti e gli imprevisti possano diventare armi vincenti da sfruttare per la realizzazione di progetti coraggiosi nel cinema indipendente.

Come ci hanno raccontato il DOP Matteo Abbondanza e l’attore principale Antonio Vottari, il progetto de “Il Polpettone” è nato da un’idea precisa: creare una storia ambientata in un’unica stanza, con i protagonisti che ruotano attorno a un piatto di polpettone. La scelta simbolica del piatto ha rappresentato anche, in qualche modo, le critiche sociali, le imposizioni esterne e tutte quelle dinamiche di protagonismo che si creano durante serate sgradevoli, come spiegano gli intervistati. E in questo anche la sceneggiatura, sviluppata in poche ore, ha saputo sondare le emozioni e le tensioni tra i personaggi, offrendo anche spunti di riflessione sulle aspettative sociali e le maschere che indossiamo.

Dopo aver vinto premi in Italia, la corsa de “Il Polpettone” ha conquistato il pubblico al festival di Lisbona, dove è stato molto apprezzato per l’originalità stilistica e la profondità tematica, ed è arrivato infine anche a Cannes. Un’esperienza che dimostra che anche un progetto nato da limiti stringenti possa raggiungere contesti emblematici e di enorme rilievo, con la speranza, come detto da Matteo Abbondanza e Antonio Vottari, di continuare a esplorare anche nei prossimi progetti tutte le dinamiche universali che si ritrovano in questo primo corto, mantenendo allo stesso tempo il cuore e la spontaneità de “Il Polpettone“.

The post “Il Polpettone”, intervista al direttore della fotografia Matteo Abbondanza e all’attore Antonio Vottari appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

During the 79th edition of the Cannes International FIlm Festival we spoke with director Olivier Clert for the film “Lucy Lost“, presented at the festival among the Special Screenings. The animated feature is an enchanting tale of identity, magic and imagination, exploring how personal life can largely be shaped by external perceptions and combining folklore, animation techniques, and emotional depth to create a unique cinematic experience.

During our interview with FRED Film Radio, director Olivier Clert stated how “Lucy Lost” tries bridging cultural influences from European, American, and Japanese animation, blending digital innovation with traditional techniques and carefully crafting an aesthetic that evokes a fragile, vulnerable atmosphere aligned with the story’s emotional core. The film explores Lucy’s struggle, a white haired girl journey that lives in an ambiguous island where magic may or may not exist, emphasizing the crucial role that imagination has in childhood.

The director Olivier Clert chose to switch several things from the book that “Lucy Lost” is based on, better capturing the essence of childhood’s mysterious bond with the fantastical and stressing the attention also on how human connections are the one thing that can save each other.

By doing so, “Lucy Lost” invites viewers into a world where the universal nature of childhood, wonder and resilience become the key to reach a deeper understanding of ourselves as well as of the world that surround us.

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During the 79th edition of the Cannes International Film Festival we spoke with the Director Yukiko Sode and actors Yukino Kishii and Asano Tadanobu from the film “All the Lovers in the Night“, an intimate exploration of solitude and connection presented in the Un Certain Regard section of the festival. This film offers a nuanced look at human relationships through a poetic lens, centering on the quiet struggles of solitude in the japanese society and on the search for genuine connection that we all bear within us, from all over the world.

During our interview with FRED Film Radio, the director Yukiko Sode explained how the film explores how individuals grapple with internal conflicts and societal expectations, portraying love not as a solution, but as a potential culmination of personal growth and understanding. Through its poetic storytelling, “All the Lovers in the Night” challenges viewers to reflect on the nature of intimacy and authenticity, opening to the reflection on how a deeper appreciation of ourselves can channel love in both being a mirror and a catalyst for self-awareness.

Actors Yukino Kishii and Asano Tadanobu spoke about the striking aspect of the film of the symbolic use of light and darkness, which is intricately woven into the visual narrative, mirroring the characters’ internal struggles and secrets and highlighting how what is seen and unseen shapes our perceptions and relationships.

As stated by the director Yukiko Sode, all this narrative aspects emerge also from the “All the Lovers in the Night” visual approach, especially in the choice to shoot on 16 millimeter film, underscoring its quest for authenticity. By blending poetic visuals with profound themes, the film invites audiences to contemplate the delicate dance between solitude and love, stressing the attention on light and dark, both visually and thematically and making it a resonant piece that celebrates the complexity of human inner life.

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Marine Atlan, known for her outstanding work as a cinematographer (for instance on “Summer Scars”, “Thunder”, and “The Rapture”), debuts as a director with the fascinating and lively “La Gradiva”, which takes us on a school trip to Pompeii with a group of privileged last year high schoolers led by their passionate Latin teacher (Antonia Buresi), who prompts them to read the traces of the past, to reimagine the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, while shaken by their own desires and fantasies and frustrations. The film, also running for the Camera d’Or of the 79th Cannes Film Festival, just won the Grand Prix of the Critics’ Week.

We talk about the idea of having the antique figure of the Gradiva from Wilhelm Jensen‘s novella, famously analysed by Sigmund Freud and later taken to the silver screen by Alain Robbe-Grillet, continue to walk alongside a group of young people of our time, thus adding another layer of history. Marine Atlan explains how she and Anne Brouillet worked on creating a polyphonic script for this ensemble piece, and that she wanted the film to be full of life and embrace both the documentary-like descent into the story of the 2000-year-old ruins and the melodrama coming from the youths as well as the lyricism of certain aspects of the story.

The French director tells us more about using a photo instead of a bas-relief to represent a moment in time captured by an image and the secrets it bears, as well as the need of the character of Tony (Colas Quignard) to recreate a personal, family mythology. We linger on the specific figure of this despondent, young wanderer as opposed to (or as complemented by) that of his seductive best friend James (Mitia Capellier), representing “absolute privilege,” reminiscent of the central character in “Teorema”, on whom many of the participants in the school trip project their fantasies and whom they desire as much as they resent him.

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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.“

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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.

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