Category Archives: Radio and Podcasts

Radio and Podcasts

Dario Argento + Goblin

Dario Argento directs Adrien Brody on the set of Giallo
Dario Argento directs Adrien Brody on the set of Giallo

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In an interview recorded at the Cine-Excess film festival in London, Alex Fitch talks to Italian cult filmmaker Dario Argento about his career from writing ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ scripts in the 1960s such as Once Upon a time in the West to his most recent film Mother of Tears. Argento talks about the importance of music in his work, why he doesn’t like being pigeon-holed as a horror director and his new project Giallo.


5pm Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com


audio Listen to the podcast of the Dario Argento interview + Goblin Q&A led by Alex Fitch at the Supersonic music festival in Birmingham.

Goblin circa 2009 - Fabio Pignatelli / Massimo Morante / Maurizio Guarini / Agostino Marangolo
Goblin circa 2009 - Fabio Pignatelli / Massimo Morante / Maurizio Guarini / Agostino Marangolo

Alex Fitch talks to the Italian prog rock band Goblin – Fabio Pignatelli, Massimo Morante, Agostino Marangolo and Maurizio Guarini – about scoring Argento’s films from Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) to Non ho sonno (Sleepless).

For more info about the variety of formats you can download this podcast in / stream, please visit www.archive.org

Use iTunes?

Links:

Read a transcript of Alex’s interview with director Dario Argento in Electric Sheep Magazine
Goblin‘s official website
Cine-Excess website

Watch the trailer for Giallo:

Radio and Podcasts

Radio: Francis Matthews

Francis Matthew is Paul Temple while Captain Scarlet looks on
Francis Matthews is Paul Temple while Captain Scarlet looks on

To coincide with the release of the little known BBC TV adaptation of the Paul Temple mysteries on DVD, Alex Fitch and Robin Warren talk to actor Francis Matthews about his career from playing the aforementioned suave mystery writer turned detective to voicing the indestructible puppet Captain Scarlet and fighting Christopher Lee’s Rasputin in the underrated Hammer film about The Mad Monk.

10.30pm Thursday 13/08/09, repeated 5pm Friday 14/08/09, Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com / podcast online at http://www.sci-fi-london.com 20/08/09.

Links:
Wikipedia pages on Francis Matthews, Paul Temple and Captain Scarlet.

Radio and Podcasts

The current state of gay cinema part 2 (Monika Treut / Paul Morrison)

Still from Ghosted by Monika Treut
Ghosted

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Monika Treut is an independent German filmmaker who has explored female and lesbian sexuality in her films since her debut feature, the controversial Seduction: The Cruel Woman, in 1985. She followed it up with the coming-out tale Virgin Machine in 1988. She turned to documentary in 1992 with Female Misbehavior, four portraits of ‘bad girls’ including Camille Paglia, and made the acclaimed Gendernauts in 1999, which portrayed a group of transgendered people in San Francisco. In 2001, Treut made Warrior of Light, a documentary on Yvonne Bezerra de Mello, an artist and human rights activist who works with slum children in Rio de Janeiro. In 2002, Treut travelled to Taiwan and became fascinated by the country. She made the documentary Tigerwomen Grow Wings about three generations of women, and recently returned to fiction with Ghosted, an unconventional love story between a German artist and a Taiwanese woman set between Hamburg and Taipei.

Virginie Sélavy talked to Monika Treut during the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, where Ghosted has its UK premiere.

5pm Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com

audioListen to the podcast: The second of two podcasts looking at the current state of gay cinema includes Virginie Sélavy’s interview with Monika Treut + guest interviewer Chris Patmore, from Films and Festivals magazine talks to director Paul Morrison about his film Little Ashes, which looks at the relationship between Dali and the poet Federico Garcí­a Lorca, as played by Twilight star Robert Pattinson and Javier Beltrí¡n respectively. (Part 2 of 2)

little
Federico Garcí­a Lorca played by Javier Beltrí¡n and Robert Pattinson as Salvador Dali in Little Ashes

For more info about the variety of formats you can download this podcast in / stream, please visit www.archive.org


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Radio and Podcasts

Radio: Fly Me to the Moon

Gerry Anderson on the set of Space: 1999
Gerry Anderson on the set of Space: 1999

On the 40th anniversary of the moon landings, Alex Fitch talks to two television pioneers who were inspired by the events of July 16, 1969.

Alex Fitch talks to Gerry Anderson about how the space race and technological innovations of the 1960s inspired such shows as Supercar and Thunderbirds. Anderson also talks about his stint in the RAF as an aircraft controller, responding to the fashions in genre with Four Feathers Falls and Fireball XL5 and mixing animation styles in lesser known series such as Lavender Castle and The Secret Service.

Sir Patrick Moore and Apollo 11, photo by Paul Grover
Sir Patrick Moore and Apollo 11, photo by Paul Grover

Sir Patrick Moore covered the events of the Apollo 11 mission live on TV and discusses the events of that day with Alex Fitch as well as the highlights of his six decades presenting The Sky at Night.

(N.B. The interview with Sir Patrick is available to download now at Sci-Fi London)

Thursday 16/07/09 10.30pm Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com

 

 

Links: 
Buy Fireball XL5 and Space:1999 from Network DVD
Gerry Anderson’s fan club
Sir Patrick Moore’s website
The Sky at Night page at www.bbc.co.uk

Radio and Podcasts

The current state of gay cinema part 1 (Kenneth Anger / LLGFF)

Kenneth Anger at the Imperial War Museum, photo by Damon Cleary
Kenneth Anger at the Imperial War Museum, photo by Damon Cleary

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To herald the arrival of London Gay Pride weekend, Virginie Sélavy talks to infamous experimental filmmaker Kenneth Anger about his career, from his ground-breaking Magick Lantern Cycle to his recent return to the medium after a 20-year break.

Friday 03/07/09, 5pm, Resonance 104.4 FM / streamed at www.resonancefm.com

audioListen to the podcast: In the first of two podcasts exploring the current state of gay cinema, Alex Fitch looks at this year’s London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and at the short film collection Boys on Film 2: In Too Deep + Virginie Sélavy’s interview with Kenneth Anger. (Part 1 of 2)

For more info about the variety of formats you can download this podcast in / stream, please visit www.archive.org


Use iTunes?

Links:
Read a transcript of Virginie Sélavy’s interview with Kenneth Anger
Artforum article about Anger’s recent films
London Pride film screenings
Buy Boys on Film 2 from Peccadillo Pictures

Radio and Podcasts

Reality Check: Female action heroes

Reality Check: Female action heroes
To coincide with the release of updates of the Terminator franchise and Blood: The last Vampire, Alex Fitch talks to actress Linda Hamilton about her career, working with Arnold Schwarzenegger and becoming a feminist icon. Alex also talks to anime expert Helen McCarthy about the various incarnations of Blood: The Last Vampire, the Japanese version of Buffy which has moved from TV animation to manga, video games and now live action cinema.
Radio and Podcasts

Radio: Charlie Kaufman

kaufman,
Charlie Kaufman directs Robin Weigert in Synecdoche, New York

audio Alex Fitch talks to screenwriter Charlie Kaufman about his new film Synecdoche, New York, the challenges of directing his own script, working with Spike Jones and Michel Gondry on his previous screenplays Being John Malkovich and Human Nature and issues of post-modernism and magical realism in his work. Alex Fitch also talks to Electric Sheep editor Virginie Sélavy about Synecdoche, New York, looking at Kaufman’s depictions of the internal workings of the human mind in that film and in earlier scripts such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.(Originally broadcast 21 May 2009 on Resonance 104.4 FM)

Podcast produced by Alex Fitch

Radio and Podcasts

Figures in a Landscape

Still from Helen by Desperate Optimists
Helen

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Alex Fitch talks to the directors of two new films that take as their starting point a character walking through a landscape and twist it into unexpected directions. Bent Hamer is the director of the gentle Norwegian comedy O’Horten, which tells the tale of a recently retired train driver who gets embroiled in a series of misadventures of the kind Victor Meldrew would be proud of – including having to wear red stilettos after losing his shoes in a locker room and ending up in a car driven by a blind man. Alex Fitch also talks to Christine Molloy, one half of the filmmaking duo Desperate Optimists, about their debut feature Helen, which concerns a young woman who helps the police with their inquiry into a girl’s disappearance and starts identifying with her.

Helen is released in selected UK cinemas on May 1
O’Horten is released in selected UK cinemas on May 8

5pm Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com

audioListen to the podcast of Alex Fitch’s interviews with Bent Hamer and Christine Molloy.

For more info about the variety of formats you can download this podcast in / stream, please visit www.archive.org


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Links:
Desperate Optimists‘ official website for info on Helen
Artificial Eye‘s official website for info about O’Horten
Listen to Alex Fitch’s interview with Joe Lawlor, the other half of Desperate Optimists about their series of short films – Civic Life

Radio and Podcasts

World cinema spring 2009

Paolo Sorrentino directs Il Divo
Paolo Sorrentino directs Il Divo

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In a special extra edition of I’m Ready for My Close-Up, heralding the start of spring, Alex Fitch and Jessica Fostekew look at two new critically acclaimed world cinema releases. Alex Fitch interviews director Christophe Van Rompaey and star Jurgen Delnaet of the new Belgian rom-com Moscow, Belgium (Aanrijding in Moscou), while Jess Fostekew talks to director Paolo Sorrentino about his new film Il Divo, which chronicles the life of former Italian Prime Minister Giulio Andreotti who has been tried for murder and for ties to the Mafia.

(N.B. this is an extra edition of IRFMCU in addition to the regular 10.30pm show)

6pm 26/03/09 Resonance 104.4 FM (London) / streamed at www.resonancefm.com

audioListen to the podcast of the interviews with Christophe Van Rompaey and Jurgen Delnaet + Paolo Sorrentino + Alex Fitch reviews the Spanish science fiction thriller Timecrimes (Los cronocrí­menes) and David Warwick looks at Geoffrey Malins’s new DVD The Battle of the Somme (1916).

For more info about the variety of formats you can download this podcast in / stream, please visit www.archive.org


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Links:
Listen to Alex Fitch’s interview with Toby Haggith (Imperial War Museum) and Andrew Robertshaw (National Army Museum) about the restoration of The Battle of the Somme
Listen to Jessica Fostekew’s previous appearance on IRFMCU: delivering a Sweeney Todd monologue

Radio and Podcasts

The films of Rex Bloomstein

Rex Bloomstein filming An Independent Mind
Rex Bloomstein filming An Independent Mind

audioFirst broadcast as a special episode of Resonance FM’s film show I’m Ready for My Close-Up. Alex Fitch talks to director Rex Bloomstein about his films Traitors to Hitler (1979), KZ (2006) and An Independent Mind (2008) in advance of a screening of the former at the Imperial War Museum as part of a weekend of films and talks about the 1944 bomb plot to kill Hitler (including a screening of Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise). Bloomstein talks about documenting persecution and freedom of speech on film and notions of psychogeography in the documentary process.

For more info about this podcast and a variety of different formats you can download or stream, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org


Use iTunes?

Links:
Interview with Rex following a screening of KZ at the Sundance Film Festival
Rex Bloomstein’s page on the British Documentary Website dfgdocs.com
Imperial War Museum website