FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Sofia Tocar, distributor at Square Eyes, discussed the company’s approach to bringing independent films to audiences at the Festival dei Popoli 2026 in Florence, where she held a talk on short film distribution. The conversation explored how distribution can support filmmakers beyond simply submitting their work to festivals. Tocar outlined the company’s focus on distinctive projects, its tailored festival strategies and the practical realities of short-film distribution. Her advice also addressed how emerging filmmakers can value their work and plan its journey. Square Eyes at Festival dei Popoli 2026: a selective catalogue and a tailored festival strategy Square Eyes began by distributing short films and has since expanded to feature-length documentaries, fiction and hybrid works. Tocar said the company is drawn to films with a strong artistic identity and stories that take creative risks. Its small catalogue also shapes which projects it accepts: a film may be compelling but still not fit if it overlaps…

Director Mark Cousins presented The Story of Documentary Film (Part One) at the 67th Festival dei Popoli 2026 in Florence, where he also discussed memorable works from documentary cinema. The project follows his earlier explorations of film history, including The Story of Film: An Odyssey and Women Make Film. Cousins’s reflections connect documentary practice to the way filmmakers observe and reshape the world, while also asking whose work is remembered. The Story of Documentary Film at Festival dei Popoli 2026: the work of looking For Cousins, documentary is closely tied to everyday life and the political realities societies face. Drawing on a statement by Gertrude Stein that imagination is observation combined with construction, he describes filmmaking as a process of examining the world outside of us and giving it a fresh form. That approach, he argues, need not centre the filmmaker’s ego; its value lies in making the world newly visible. Documentary can also bring attention to people and histories that…

Presented as a special screening at the 23rd edition of Alice nella Città 2026, Low Expectations by Eivind Landsvik stars Norwegian singer-songwriter Marie Ulven, aka Girl in Blue, as Maja, a musician who falls apart at the height of her career and has to step away from her ambitions. Depressed and broke, she moves back home with her mother and works part-time at a local high school, where, far from the spotlight and wrapped in everyday kindness, she slowly finds her way back to life. Ulven talks about Low Expectations as a second coming of age, what her first experience as an actress taught her about creative stamina, why life is too short to worry about what others think of your art, and the tendency of adults to trivialize the problems of the young. Low Expectations at Alice nella Città 2026: a second coming of age For Ulven, Maja’s story is a coming of age that happens a second time: “The first coming of age is obviously when you’re like 14 and you think you figure out who you are. And she obviously went…

Presented as a special screening at the 23rd edition of Alice nella Città 2026, Low Expectations by Eivind Landsvik follows Maja (Marie Ulven), a musician who falls apart at the height of her career and has to step away from her ambitions. Depressed and broke, she moves back home with her mother and works part-time at a local high school, where, far from the spotlight and wrapped in everyday kindness, she slowly finds her way back to life. Landsvik talks about his own long road to filmmaking, the scene in which Maja rediscovers creating for its own sake, why he chose a female artist as his protagonist, the phrases people repeat to comfort someone who is depressed, and his refusal to romanticize depression. How long can you chase a dream? Eivind Landsvik sees in the film’s idea of a second coming of age something of his own experience: “In my own case, trying to debut as a feature film director for so many years, a lot of the time I haven’t been happy, I haven’t had a good time, and the question that often…

Premiering November 4 on Prime Video, The Greatest is the first authorized scripted series about the life of Muhammad Ali, created by showrunner Ben Watkins and executive produced by Lonnie Ali. The eight-episode first season follows a young Cassius Clay, played by Jaalen Best, from his return home to Louisville, Kentucky, with an Olympic gold medal from the 1960 Rome Games, through his first heavyweight championship and his emergence as Muhammad Ali, with Giovanni Ribisi as his trainer Angelo Dundee. Watkins, Best and Ribisi talk about the choice to tell the story as a coming of age, what it means to play someone who made a difference, responsibility and the willingness to disagree with your environment, Ali’s legacy of shared humanity, and the relationship between a fighter and his trainer. Before the icon For Ben Watkins, the starting point was the image everyone already has of Muhammad Ali: “You’re talking about someone that everyone knows the name. And if you say the name, everyone pictures something.…

Director Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet and actress Léa Drucker Drucker discuss La Vie d’une Femme, presented at the 18th France Odeon Festival in Florence. Their conversation explores a woman balancing a demanding career and personal choices, as well as the unexpected connection that unsettles her sense of independence. It also reveals how observation and close preparation shaped the film’s portrayal of a surgeon. Independence and fascination in La Vie d’une Femme Gabrielle, the protagonist of the La Vie d’une Femme, has built a life according to her own decisions, including choosing not to become a mother, yet meeting Frida makes her reconsider what freedom can look like. Charline Bourgeois-Tacquet describes Frida as someone drawn to solitude and unburdened by the responsibilities that define Gabrielle’s world. That contrast makes Frida both a source of fascination and a possible alternative, rather than simply a romantic interest. The relationship gives the story a way to examine how a person’s settled view…

After Cannes 2026, La bola negra by Javier Calvo and Javier Ambrossi arrives at the 21st Rome Film Fest as Spain’s candidate in the Oscar race. The film tells the interconnected stories of three men in three different eras, three lives intimately linked by sexuality and desire, pain and inheritance, and by one of Federico García Lorca’s last, unfinished works. The directors talk about the decision not to deny oneself that lies at the heart of the film, their tribute to what Lorca wanted to write, the stories of the LGBTQ+ elders that inspired one of the timelines, and a film that starts as a queer movie and ends up speaking to everyone. The film will be released in Italian cinemas by Movies Inspired from January 14th, 2027 A film about a decision The film, they say at one point that La Bola Negra, the unfinished work by Federico García Lorca, is a work about a decision. Is the film also about that? Javier Ambrossi nods and say: “We investigated and understood that La bola negra, the unfinished work by…

“Big Girls Don’t Cry” by Paloma Schneideman, produced by Jane Campion, was one of the 5 films in Competition at the 47th Festival di Cinema e Donne in Florence. The film executive producers were Jane Campion and Philippa Campbell, and the film premiered at Sundance Film Festival 2026. From a planned short to Big Girls Don’t Cry At the origin of Big Girls don’t Cry there is Jane Campion’s filmmaking programme A Wave in the Ocean. Paloma Schneideman entered it with a feature already in development, while the group’s original task was to make short films. After reading the script, Campion supported Schneideman in using the programme to explore and prepare the longer project. The short was never produced, but the experience helped Schneideman recognise where her strongest creative instincts lay. A filmmaking school built around experimentation As a member of the programme’s first group, Paloma Schneideman was among ten filmmakers selected by Campion and Campbell. The participants had access to equipment,…

Presented in the Grand Public section of the 21st Rome International Film Festival and coming to Italian cinemas with Eagle Pictures, Me, You by Bille August is set in 1950 on a small Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea. It tells the story of Marco, a fourteen-year-old Londoner on holiday with his family, and of his encounter with Caia, a young Jewish woman orphaned during the Second World War. Over the course of the summer, their bond turns into a journey of discovery and growth, touching on the trauma of war, memory and the passage from childhood to adolescence. Sonia Ammar, who plays Caia, talks about a shoot where the whole island became the set, the emotional backstory she built for a character of few words, the flashbacks she has yet to see, and the lesson of empathy the film carries into the present. The whole island was a set Asked how this more intimate production compared with her previous experiences, Ammar describes it as one of the most special of her career, largely because of where it was…

Presented at the Alice nella Città 2026, Big Girls Don’t Cry is the feature debut of New Zealand director Paloma Schneidman. It’s the summer holidays in rural New Zealand, and fourteen-year-old Sid has nothing to fill them. Her father has checked out, and her only window onto a bigger life is a borrowed MSN account. Online and off, she watches the older teens who seem to move through the world so easily, and tries on their attitudes like stolen clothes. What she feels for them is part envy, part something she doesn’t yet have the words for. Schneidman talks about making peace with her own adolescence, the choice to tell the story entirely from Sid’s perspective, the ambiguity between wanting someone and wanting to be them, and how she found her lead, Ani Palmer. A story that arrived fully formed Asked what sparked her first feature, Schneidman says the story found her rather than the other way around: “I feel like it chose me and, like many ideas, they come to you, and this one arrived quite fully formed. I…

Eva Sangiorgi, festival director of the Viennale 2026, describes an event built around bringing a broad selection of recent cinema to audiences in Vienna. The festival combines contemporary films with historical programmes, without dividing its main selection into competitions or genre categories. Sangiorgi’s account offers a view of how the Viennale balances discovery, accessibility and film history. Its programme reflects both the range of cinema being made today and the festival’s relationship with its local audience. A city festival centred on its audience The Viennale takes place across independent cinemas in Vienna, with a programme designed primarily for the city’s filmgoers rather than industry professionals. Sangiorgi says the festival presents more than 100 contemporary feature films and over 40 shorts, bringing together work from varied countries, production contexts and scales. The selection ranges from films backed by major studios or streaming companies to independently made projects. Rather…

During the Rome Film Fest 2026, we spoke with Ruth Beckermann, director of the documentary feature Wax & Gold. The documentary, presented at the Festival, examines Ethiopia through the life of a hotel and the histories attached to it. The film brings together contemporary scenes, archival footage, music and reflections on how outsiders have represented the country. Beckermann’s account is indeed notable for questioning both the European gaze and the easy narratives that can turn historical figures into symbols. The interview During our interview for FRED Film Radio, it was clear how the Hilton in Addis Ababa offered Ruth Beckermann a setting through which to encounter middle- and upper-class guests alongside employees with relatively stable work. In her documentary Wax & Gold, did not want to frame Ethiopia solely through images of rural poverty, a perspective that often dominates television coverage. The hotel does obviously not represent every layer of society, she stressed, but its mix of visitors and…

Presented in competition at Alice nella Città 2026, Mala Bèstia marks Bàrbara Farré’s feature directorial debut, exploring adolescence through the unsettling language of dark fairy tales and psychological thrillers. Farré and producer Diego Betancor discuss the film’s personal origins, its examination of female identity and the importance of preserving creative freedom in contemporary filmmaking. At the center of the story is Atenea, a girl at a boarding school who desperately wants to remain a child. When a couple offers her the possibility of a family, she begins to imagine a future shaped by affection and belonging. Yet the fear of losing her place, or being replaced, gradually awakens something darker within her. Rather than approaching adolescence realistically, Farré turns the anxieties of growing up into a disturbing narrative about bodily transformation, desire, and the need to be accepted. Mala Bèstia: adolescence as a frightening transformation For Farré, portraying adolescence as a threatening…

During the 24th edition of Alice nella Città, in Rome, we spoke with character designer Thibault Leclercq for the film Wildwood, e mesmerizing tale of adventure and discovery that uses the stop-motion animation technique with a bigger scale than ever. The film adapts a novel by Colin Meloy enriched by his wife Carson Ellis’ illustrations, which provided a distinctive starting point also for the character designs of the film. Leclercq describes indeed how the team sought to honour that visual identity while shaping characters for a feature film with a more mature tone, also revealing how Portland’s landscape and the practical demands of puppetry helped in creating the film’s blend of naturalism and fantasy. The interview During our interview on FRED Film Radio, Leclercq stated that the Wildwood design process began with a commitment to retain the charm and illustrative quality associated with Ellis’s work. That influence appears in the puppets’ fine details, from their hair and anatomical features to the…

Marian Arechega, the director of the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival, discusses the evolution and highlights of the festival’s 13th edition. She emphasises the festival’s growth in Scotland, its diverse programming, and its efforts to foster cultural exchange through Spanish cinema. This interview offers insight into how the festival continues to strengthen its role as a key platform for Spanish films in the UK. The festival’s development and regional reach Marian Arechega explains that the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival began thirteen years ago with no prior experience in organising such an event. Over time, it has established itself firmly within Scotland, attracting a growing audience and creating a stable cultural initiative. Originally focused solely on Edinburgh, the festival now extends its screenings to several Scottish cities and even beyond, including one event in Manchester, broadening its impact and visibility. Diversity of themes and films in the Edinburgh Spanish Film Festival This year’s…

In Italian cinemas from October 1, distributed by MUBI, Her Private Hell is Nicolas Winding Refn‘s first feature in ten years, since The Neon Demon. Set in a surreal, futuristic metropolis shrouded in pink mist, the film follows Elle (Sophie Thatcher), a rising movie star preparing to shoot a space odyssey alongside her ex-lover turned stepmother (Havana Rose Liu), while elsewhere in the haze an American GI (Charles Melton) wanders the desolate streets in a desperate search for his daughter. As a sinister figure known only as the Leather Man stalks the city’s shadows, their lives begin to converge, dissolving the boundaries between past and present, memory and fate. The director talks about blending many genres into a single film, the father-daughter relationship at its core, his collaboration with composer Pino Donaggio, and the near-death experience that brought him back to cinema after years spent in the world of streaming. Many movies in one For Refn, the starting point was the idea that genres no longer…

Torsten Frehse, director and founder of the EWIP – European Work in Progress platform, discusses the significance of this initiative in supporting European and international film projects. The conversation highlights the platform’s role in bridging the gap between production and distribution, and emphasizes the importance of EWIP in fostering a more dynamic and accessible market for emerging filmmakers. The role of EWIP in shaping film distribution strategies Frehse explains that EWIP serves as a crucial marketplace where projects in the midst of production or post-production can be showcased to a targeted audience of buyers, sales agents, and festival representatives. It’s focus on distribution is due to the extensive experience of its director: Torsten Frehse is CEO of the German distribution company Neue Visionen, and his co-director Olimpia Pont Cháfer, is the coordinator of the Spanish film distributor association, ADICINE and responsable of acquistions of the German distribution company Piffl Medien.…

Avec Pascal Diot, directeur du Venice Production Bridge, nous avons discuté des résultats obtenus après 15 ans — puisque c’est la 15e édition cette année — d’avoir créé un endroit où les professionnels du cinéma ont plaisir à revenir pour discuter, négocier, échanger et travailler dans une atmosphère à la fois détendue et efficace. La Création d’une Nouvelle Section Diot nous dévoile un nouvel événement au sein du Venice Production Bridge, le VPB Location Market, destiné à couvrir l’ensemble de la chaîne de production du cinéma. Les lieux de tournage étaient un maillon manquant, pourtant essentiel pour les producteurs : sans lieu, pas de tournage possible. Le VPB Location Market rassemble des commissions du film et des studios, en créant un événement dédié au sein d’un festival de classe A — une première. Un Nouvel Espace L’événement se tient au Matchpoint Arena, où ont lieu traditionnellement les masterclasses du festival chaque après-midi. La programmation a été adaptée pour le matin : l’espace accueille…