“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.

Presented during the Cannes Film Festival as part of the International Critics’ Week initiative, Next Step Studio: Indonesia,

“Makers Are Mothering” emerges as one of the most singular short films of the program dedicated to new Indonesian voices in cinema.

Co-directed by Indonesian filmmaker Khozy Rizal and Singaporean director Lam Li Shuen, the film combines black comedy, queer sensibility and science fiction to tell the story of Nia, a woman trapped within domestic suffocation and emotional displacement.

For Khozy Rizal, the project’s origin was deeply personal.

“It came from my mother,” he explained. “She always went out of the house, and when I asked why, she said she didn’t like being at home, and she didn’t like my father.”

That revelation became the emotional nucleus of the story. Khozy Rizal initially imagined the project as a comedy-drama centred on female friendship and domestic dissatisfaction. The transformation came when he shared the script with Lam Li Shuen, who introduced a radically different perspective.

“Fantasy and sci-fi can sometimes feel more real than reality,” she observed.

The addition of alien imagery and speculative elements allowed the filmmakers to externalise feelings of estrangement, especially the sensation of not belonging in one’s own home.

The title “Makers Are Mothering” immediately suggests irony and affection at the same time. According to the directors, the phrase originated in queer online culture, where “mothering” is often used to praise someone who performs with confidence or charisma.

Yet within the film, the expression acquires a more layered meaning.

The story is populated by multiple maternal figures: Nia herself, the women surrounding her and the mysterious “all-mother” presence that hovers over the narrative. Through these figures, the film explores motherhood not as a fixed biological identity, but as a form of solidarity and mutual survival.

Female friendship becomes central to the film’s emotional architecture, particularly in contrast to the oppressive domestic environment Nia inhabits.

The directors deliberately built strong visual oppositions between these spaces. Nia’s home is dark, claustrophobic and emotionally stagnant, while the gatherings between women are vibrant, colourful, and fluid.

“We wanted to create the feeling of suffocation,” Lam Li Shuen explained, “and then contrast it with moments of freedom.”

One of the most striking aspects of “Makers Are Mothering” is the way it merges psychological realism with genre elements. Rather than using science fiction as spectacle, the filmmakers employ it as emotional language.

The alien figure becomes a metaphor for otherness, displacement and desire. To reinforce this sensation, the directors even chose to shoot certain sequences on 16mm film, seeking a warmer, more organic texture that could evoke another universe.

For Lam Li Shuen, visual language was inseparable from emotional experience.

“We wanted the audience to feel desire, entrapment and release through the images themselves,” she noted.

That sensorial approach also shapes the film’s portrayal of violence. Domestic abuse and emotional oppression are rarely shown explicitly. Instead, they emerge through atmosphere, sound and destabilising visual interruptions.

The recurring earthquake motif, for example, functions simultaneously as a political metaphor for contemporary Indonesia and as an expression of Nia’s unstable emotional reality.

Khozy Rizal described the house itself as a place that constantly “shakes her up.”

Both filmmakers described the collaboration as unusually instinctive and creatively open.

“We’re both crazy filmmakers,” Khozy Rizal joked. “We were never shy to put everything on the table.”

Their artistic sensibilities initially appeared very different. Khozy Rizal’s cinema tends toward vibrant colours and emotional immediacy, while Lam Li Shuen’s previous work often explores darker and more restrained atmospheres. Yet the fusion of these approaches ultimately became one of the short film’s defining strengths.

The production itself was extremely demanding. The entire shoot lasted only two days, despite involving dance choreography, intimacy coordination, practical effects and emotionally complex performances.

The directors repeatedly emphasised the importance of trust within the cast and crew. Actress Happy Salma, in particular, impressed them with her ability to navigate the film’s constantly shifting emotional tones.

The challenge was not simply dramatic performance, but sustaining contradictory emotions simultaneously.

“We wanted scenes that were sad but also funny at once,” Khozy Rizal explained.

The post “Mothers are Mothering”, interview with the directors Khozy Rizal and Lam Li Shuen appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Presented in competition at the Cannes Film Festival within the International Critics’ Week, “Viva” marks the feature directorial debut of Aina Clotet, who also co-wrote and stars in the film.

The story follows Nora, a forty-year-old woman attempting to reconstruct her emotional life after surviving cancer. Rather than focusing on the illness itself, “Viva” examines what remains afterwards: the emotional scars, the altered perception of the body and the urgent need to feel alive again.

“We didn’t want to talk about the illness,” Aina Clotet explained. “We wanted to talk about the scar.”

For the director, the scar functions on multiple levels. It is physical, emotional and existential at once, shaping Nora’s relationship with desire, intimacy and mortality. The protagonist enters a passionate relationship with a younger man while still deeply attached to her husband, becoming trapped between emotional dependence and the desire for liberation.

Aina Clotet describes the film as the journey of a woman trying to recover her own centre, independently of the men around her.

At the emotional core of “Viva” lies a tension between two forms of fear: the fear of dying and the fear of being abandoned.

According to Aina Clotet, Nora’s emotional instability initially appears connected to loneliness and emotional emptiness, but those anxieties ultimately reveal something deeper.

“Deep down inside, she has fear of dying,” the filmmaker said. “She has to face that in order to free herself and understand that life is impermanent.”

The film approaches mortality not through tragedy, but through intensity. Nora constantly searches for emotional, romantic, and physical experiences that can make her feel fully present. That hunger for sensation becomes both a celebration of life and a symptom of vulnerability.

Aina Clotet was particularly interested in the connection between emotional dependence and the fear of death, exploring how romantic relationships can sometimes become attempts to escape existential anxiety.

At the same time, “Viva” avoids moral judgment. Nora is portrayed as contradictory, impulsive and occasionally self-destructive, yet always deeply human.

espite dealing with illness, anxiety and emotional fragility, “Viva” maintains an unexpectedly bright tone. Aina Clotet repeatedly described her intention to make “a luminous movie” centred on the joy and necessity of desire.

The director explained that the film’s sensuality was never conceived as provocation, but rather as part of Nora’s gradual reappropriation of her own body after illness.

The body in “Viva” is neither idealised nor hidden. Instead, it is presented truthfully, carrying scars while remaining capable of pleasure, intimacy and transformation.

“It was important to show a body that had gone through this disease in a very natural and accepted way,” Aina Clotet noted.

That perspective extends beyond the protagonist’s physical experience and becomes a broader reflection on emotional acceptance. Nora’s journey is not about perfection or healing in a conventional sense, but about learning to inhabit uncertainty without shame.

One of the film’s strongest sensory dimensions is the constant presence of heat. Throughout “Viva”, the characters appear surrounded by oppressive warmth and dryness, creating an atmosphere of emotional exhaustion and urgency.

For Aina Clotet, this environmental choice mirrors Nora’s inner condition.

She described the protagonist as “thirsty for life and thirsty for desire,” while the recurring imagery of water becomes associated with emotional balance, sensuality and relief.

The film also subtly connects personal crisis to collective instability. Aina Clotet pointed to ecological anxiety, emotional burnout and social alienation as symptoms of a contemporary world increasingly detached from authentic human connection.

“We live in a very individualistic system,” she observed. “What moves me most in life are the bonds we create with people.”

That critique of contemporary life remains understated throughout the film, emerging through atmosphere and emotional behaviour rather than explicit political discourse.

One of the most striking aspects of “Viva” is its tonal fluidity. The film moves naturally between vulnerability, sensuality and humour, often allowing comedy to emerge in emotionally exposed moments.

For Aina Clotet, humour was essential.

“Humour helps to talk about the deepest things,” she explained. “With humour, you can go to places that otherwise would not be easy.”

Rather than reducing emotional intensity, humour becomes a way of making fragility more accessible and truthful. The director emphasised her interest in lightness, not as avoidance, but as a means of confronting painful experiences without turning them into pure suffering.

That balance gives “Viva” a distinctive emotional rhythm, where moments of insecurity and confusion coexist with tenderness and irony.

The post “Viva”, interview with the director and protagonist Aina Clotet appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

At the 79th edition of the Cannes Film Festival, Koji Fukada presented “Nagi Notes”, a film in Competition that moves away from the theatrical origins of Oriza Hirata’s celebrated play “Tokyo Notes” while preserving some of its emotional and thematic echoes.

Fukada explained that the project initially emerged through Hirata himself, who suggested adapting “Tokyo Notes” into a film set inside the contemporary art museum in Nagi. In this rural Japanese town, the playwright had been involved in cultural initiatives.

Yet, after visiting the location, Fukada felt that simply transplanting the original play into another setting would not be enough.

“I thought it would be a waste to go all that way and make a story based in Tokyo,” the director explained. “So I decided to move away from the story of Tokyo Notes and come up with a completely new story.”

The resulting film keeps the contrast between city and countryside that defined Hirata’s work, but reverses the perspective. Instead of observing rural Japan through an urban lens, “Nagi Notes” looks at Tokyo from the countryside, examining the emotional and cultural distance between the capital and peripheral communities.

lthough “Nagi Notes” addresses social themes such as patriarchy, gender expectations and the invisibility experienced by sexual minorities in Japanese society, Fukada insists that loneliness remains the true core of the film.

“We are all born alone and die alone,” he said during the interview. “More than any social issue, loneliness is the problem that interests me most.”

For Fukada, this condition extends beyond Japan and reflects a broader existential fragility. He described contemporary society as increasingly detached from the structures that traditionally offered emotional comfort, including religion, family and romantic relationships.

The director openly acknowledged his own distance from religious belief, connecting that absence to a deeper sense of isolation. In his view, modern life continuously weakens the communal bonds that once helped individuals confront solitude.

That recurring concern has shaped much of Fukada’s cinema, in which intimate relationships often reveal emotional gaps that cannot be fully resolved. In “Nagi Notes”, companionship exists, but always alongside the awareness that human connection remains temporary and fragile.

Art and artistic practice occupy a central place within the film, particularly through the relationship between an artist and their model. Rather than focusing on completed works, Fukada chose to emphasise the act of creation itself.

“The process of creating art is a way of observing the world in higher definition,” he explained.

The director considers the act of making art less important than production and more as a form of attention. Drawing, observing and representing another person become ways of understanding both others and oneself.

Fukada also noted that cinema rarely explores the relationship between artist and model without ultimately prioritising the finished artwork. In “Nagi Notes”, the unfinished process becomes the emotional destination. What matters is not the final painting, but the gradual attempt to see another human being clearly.

That approach mirrors the film’s broader structure, in which quiet gestures and everyday interactions slowly accumulate meaning rather than culminating in dramatic revelation.

One of the film’s most striking elements is the intrusion of military sounds and radio announcements into Nagi’s peaceful atmosphere. Fukada revealed that these details were drawn directly from his own experience living in the town for nearly a year.

The radio broadcasts heard throughout the film are based on the real disaster-prevention systems installed in local homes. At the same time, the sounds of military exercises come from nearby Self-Defence Force activities.

For the director, these sounds function both as realistic details and as reminders that even isolated rural communities remain connected to global conflict.

While writing the screenplay, the Russia-Ukraine war had just begun, reinforcing his desire to juxtapose distant violence with the apparent calm of daily life in Nagi.

“When you live in a city, it is easy to forget that wars are happening,” Fukada observed. “But we are all connected.”

Another emotional thread in “Nagi Notes” concerns the bond between two women who continue seeing each other even after divorce has formally ended their family connection.

Fukada traced this idea back to a secondary element in “Tokyo Notes”, in which a character fears losing contact with her sister-in-law after a separation. He became interested in imagining what might happen if such a relationship survived beyond legal and familial structures.

That question eventually became one of the foundations of “Nagi Notes”, transforming a brief dramatic detail written thirty years ago into a meditation on chosen emotional ties.

In Fukada’s cinema, family is rarely defined by blood alone. Instead, relationships persist through memory, care and emotional recognition, even after official bonds disappear.

The post “Nagi Notes”, interview with the director Koji Fukada appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

With this talk with Emma Barboni, we discover how Emilia Romagna Film Commission plays a vital role in supporting the region’s film industry by providing funds for production, festivals, and market initiatives. The commission evaluates numerous calls for regional and international co-productions, ensuring sustainable growth and visibility for Emilia Romagna’s filmmakers. Their commitment goes beyond financing; they actively promote the entire ecosystem of audiovisual production, from development to promotion. This integrated approach has contributed to a vibrant creative community that attracts both emerging and established talents.

The Emilia Romagna Film Commission is instrumental in financing over 30 festivals within the region, ranging from small local events to major industry gatherings. These festivals, supported annually, serve as crucial platforms for emerging filmmakers, offering master classes, screenings, and networking opportunities. By consistently funding these events, the commission ensures their long-term sustainability and enhances their appeal to international audiences and industry professionals. This strategy enriches the regional cultural landscape and boosts Emilia Romagna’s reputation as a dynamic hub for cinema.

The Emilia Romagna Film Commission also focuses on increasing the international reach of its regional productions. Support for distribution initiatives and participation in global events like film markets or presentations in major festivals is a priority. The commission actively collaborates with industry partners to facilitate co-productions and promote local projects worldwide. Such efforts help to position Emilia Romagna as a key player in the global film industry, ensuring regional filmmakers gain the recognition and opportunities they deserve. The Emilia Romagna Film Commission’s comprehensive approach continues to strengthen the region’s film identity and fosters a thriving creative environment.

This interview was recorded during Cannes International Film Festival 2026, in partnership with the Italian Film Commissions Association and with the support of the Italian Trade Agency.

The post Interview with Emma Barboni of Emilia Romagna Film Commission appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Le film “Blaise”, présenté dans la section ACID au festival de Cannes, offre une plongée introspective dans l’univers d’un jeune homme en proie au malaise face au monde qui l’entoure. À travers une animation en 2D très frontale, le film met en scène des personnages détachés et légèrement décalés, reflétant leur isolement et leur difficulté à établir des relations. La technique de l’animation, mêlant réalisme photographique et esthétique minimaliste, renforce cette atmosphère à la fois étrange et captivante. On en a parlé avec les réalisateurs Dimitri Planchon et Jean Paul Guigue

Le choix d’une mise en scène contemplative, avec des cadres fixes et un rythme lent, permet d’observer en profondeur la vie intérieure des personnages. La réalisation repousse les frontières du réalisme, notamment à l’aide d’effets de collage sur les cheveux, illustrant leur aspect irréel. Les personnages vivent dans une sorte de bulle où ils tentent de maîtriser un dialogue qu’ils ne croient pas pouvoir contrôler, ce qui accentue le sentiment de distance avec le monde extérieur. La référence à des cinéastes comme Todd Solondz et Robert Bresson souligne la volonté du réalisme fragile et du hasard dans la narration.

La création graphique combine photographie et animation pour donner un aspect à la fois statique et mouvant, renforçant le malaise et la distorsion du réel. Le souci du détail, notamment au niveau des cheveux qui restent immobiles mais réalisés avec précision à partir de coiffures réelles, accentue la nature surréaliste du film. “Blaise” se démarque ainsi par sa capacité à représenter un monde intérieur complexe, tout en offrant une expérience visuelle intense et originale. “Blaise” invite à réfléchir sur la difficulté d’être soi-même dans un monde étranger, tout en innovant par une esthétique au croisement de la photographie et de l’animation.

The post “Blaise”, interview avec les réalisateurs Dimitri Planchon et Jean Paul Guigue appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Five years after presenting her debut feature, “Freda” (a title executive produced by Francis Ford Coppola which was the second Haitian film ever to be submitted for the Oscars), in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival, Haitian director Géssica Généus is back on the Croisette, this time in Cannes Premiere sidebar, with her second film, “Marie Madeleine”, where she herself plays the eponymous character – “for convenience”, says Géssica Généus, as she couldn’t have asked of another actress what she undertook to do herself.

Director Géssica Généus on moving from a realistic film, anchored in a context of political unrest, to a more radiant story about the pure relationship uniting Marie Madeleine and Joseph (Béonard Monteau), with oneiric visuals, and a space for beauty and for different art forms: “I wanted to float, because I’ve been feeling weighed down by everything that’s happening in my country, by traumas that we’ve carried for our whole lives, and I wanted to feel a little bit more power in that fragility, if I can express it that way, and I wanted this film to be exactly how I see my country. In Haiti, everything lives together – the beauty, the complexity of our society, etc. It’s all there, all at once, not one thing after the other, so I wanted to make a film that shows everything at the same time. My DoP and I worked for a year before we got to the production phase of the filmand we knew we wanted each frame to be like a painting, because we are painters. we are artists, we are so full of talent, and I wanted this to be seen so bad, so I put a lot of work and energy into crafting these visuals, this way of existing, into this film.”

“It’s heavy to balance, because everything is happening for real, in real time… When you are used to a society where things are kind of in order, it’s hard to imagine that all of those things can happen, and that they do at the same time. You think wow, no one would be able to absorb all this and still stay alive, but we do! We absorb everything that is happening to us on a daily basis, and we still go through it, and this needs to happen, because we don’t function the same way as a nation… Just because you want to make something lighter doesn’t mean you can lie about the fact that we have all this in our world, constantly, so I wanted the film to be the same: I wanted it to be intense, as intense as the way we go through life on a daily basis.”

“I thought well, let’s just be upfront and put this church right there… because in Haiti, every step you take, you have a church, like every two or three meters. It’s everywhere! Because of the fact that the State is completely collapsing, or has collapsed already, religion has taken up so much space, comforting the people by saying ‘okay, we’re gonna save you, don’t worry. The State is not taking care of you but we’re gonna take care of you.’ But this begs the question of how they are positioning themselves, saying that they are apolitical when they are influencing the people’s perception and everything that’s happening in the country, so yes, I really wanted to talk about morality and about what happens when a society is not led by a government, but by faith in something that is completely detached from the concrete reality that we are dealing with on a daily basis.”

“I keep wondering, ‘Where is the love in all this?’, because when you think about it, the First Commandment is to love, it talks about love a lot, but… is there any love left in our interpretation of religion, of the Bible? Where is the love and why is it so far in the back? Why is it only for a specific group of people? (…) I feel like there’s a failure in the church’s mission. They don’t live up to what they promised, and I am extremely mad at that.”

The post “Marie Madeleine”, an interview with director and actress Géssica Généus appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

Pierre Salvadori‘s eleventh feature film, “The Electric Kiss“, his first period project, set in the roaring 20s, inaugurated the 79th Cannes Film Festival in a flurry of rich visuals and narrative mischief, around a story of death, art, and love where lies, delusions, parallel accounts and intrigues keep piling up, leading the characters in a whirlwind of emotions and discoveries where the trickster may very well be the one who gets tricked.

The idea for this film – starring Pio Marmaï as the bereaved painter who is duped into thinking he can reunite with his regretted wife (Vimala Pons) through an exploited circus performer (Anaïs Demoustier) who just happened to be there when the inconsolable widower was looking for a medium to communicate with her, and is encouraged to keep up the lie by the artist’s friend and agent (Gilles Lellouche) – came from a note to Salvadori actor made by Rebecca Zlotowski when she was directing him in her “Planetarium”, ten years ago.

The French director (whose credits include “White Lies“, “In the Courtyard“, and “The Trouble with you“, amongst others) explains how this suggestion led to the choice of that specific period in time and these rich, often theatre-like settings (without the film ever being anything other than very cinematic in its cinematography, rhythm and movement), and describes how he progressively constructed the script (together with Benjamin Charbit and Benoît Graffin, based on an original idea by Zlotowski and Robin Campillo). 

However obsessed with the multiplicity of stories which can derive from the same events (as truth is something quite elusive in Salvadori’s films, very playfully so, if it exists at all, at least under the form of an account), the director underlines that they mostly interest him for the mise-en-scène they call for: “In film, you have to make believe, and that’s when the directing part comes in.” 

“The Electric Kiss” brought about a new realisation for Pierre Salvadori: “If I’m gonna have a story, I’s gonna have a story which is meaningful, but with this movie, I realised I had very much a character-driver story on my hands. When Rebecca told me that, I thought ‘Oh my god, these people are going to turn on each other and they are going to produce a lot of fiction.’ There won’t be new things coming in, no surprises: they were going to create the script just by being together in front of the camera.”

“All the subject matters are brought about by the characters,” he continues, “I will not make any more movies starting with an idea I want to talk about, a guiding subject matter: I will let all my characters be themselves and the subjects will surface through them, and it’s exactly what happened with this movie. You have this woman, you have this fake psychic, and this painter, and suddenly you’re talking about money and art, about friendship and betrayal, about personal interest and the fight between the desire to be good and the desire to be rich.” 

We also talk about fate and love, muses and Pygmalions and artistic inspiration.

The post “The Electric Kiss”, an interview with director Pierre Salvadori appeared first on Fred Film Radio.

The Market Insider is an industry-focused podcast by FRED Film Radio in collaboration with Cinema & Video International, recorded during the 79th Cannes Film Festival.

The series explores the business and strategic dynamics of the international film and audiovisual sector through in-depth conversations with producers, distributors, sales agents, film commissioners, and industry experts. Each episode provides valuable insights into market trends, challenges, and innovations, offering professionals and enthusiasts a comprehensive understanding of today’s global film industry

FRED The Makret Insider met Katie Schuck, Dallas Film Commissioner, during the Cannes Film Festival – Marché Du Film 2026 ahead of the premiere of the film “Atonement” by Reed Van Dyk.

“Atonement” was one of the few American titles selected this year. The film premieres in the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs on May 15th. Reed Van Dyk is a Los Angeles-based director whose previous short film received an Academy Award nomination. Atonement was shot in Dallas, Texas, with additional filming in Jordan.

FRED – The Market Insider is a podcast created in collaboration with Cinema & Video International.

Quinzaine 2026 | Feature film | 118 min

In the early days of the Iraq War, a U.S. Marine’s split-second decision during a firefight devastates an Iraqi family. Years later, aided by a New Yorker journalist, he seeks to reconcile with the woman and her family who survived.

The post The Market Insider: “Atonement”, interview with Dallas Film Commissioner, Katie Schuck appeared first on Fred Film Radio.