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Interview with programmer Éric Peretti at the Hallucinations Collective Film Festival

DISCOVER THE HALLUCINATION COLLECTIVE FILM FESTIVAL: A JOURNEY INTO UNDERGROUND CINEMA We talk with Éric Peretti, one of the main programmers of the Hallucination Collective Film Festival [https://www.hallucinations-collectives.com], an event renowned for showcasing experimental and underground films. Celebrating its 19th edition, this festival in Lyon, France, offers a unique blend of new cinema and curated retrospectives, inviting viewers to hallucinate through groundbreaking visual styles and unconventional storytelling. With a focus on rare and restored films, the festival has established itself as a must-visit event for cinephiles seeking something truly distinct. EXPLORING THE HALLUCINATION COLLECTIVE FILM FESTIVAL’S RETROSPECTIVE THEMES The Hallucination Collective Film Festival features a rich retrospective program that dives deep into niche film genres and underground movements. This year, audiences can explore two captivating themes: underground vampire movies from the 1990s set against the backdrop of New York City, and the vibrant world of Mexican exploitation cinema. These retrospectives aim to highlight forgotten or lesser-known films, celebrating their artistic and cultural significance while providing a comprehensive look into these underground film scenes. MEXICAN EXPLOITATION FILMS TAKE CENTRE STAGE AT THIS YEAR’S FESTIVAL The Mexican exploitation film retrospective at the Hallucination Collective Film Festival—another highlight of the programme—was curated thanks to recent restorations of classic works. Films like “Black Pit of Dr. M” (1959) and Lucha Libre offerings such as “The Batwoman” (1968) showcase the diverse range of Mexican genre cinema that often blends Gothic horror, Westerns, and wrestling culture. This segment underscores the festival’s commitment to unveiling cinematic gems that have often flown under the mainstream radar, offering audiences a fresh perspective on Mexico’s vibrant exploitation film heritage. A UNIQUE ATMOSPHERE AND AUDIENCE EXPERIENCE One of the core charms of the Hallucination Collective Film Festival is its vibrant community of volunteers and dedicated cinephiles. The festival attracts a diverse audience, ranging from passionate fans in their forties and fifties to younger viewers eager to discover underground films. Éric Peretti explains that festival organisers prioritise screenings of films that are rarely seen in theatres, with many titles shown with French subtitles for the first time on the big screen. This dedication creates an immersive atmosphere where attendees can hallucinate together through unusual, visually striking cinema available only at this festival.   The post Interview with programmer Éric Peretti at the Hallucinations Collective Film Festival [https://www.fred.fm/hallucinations-collective-film-festival-interview-with-programmer-eric-peretti/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].

Interview with the writer and researcher Joss Morfitt at the London BFI Flare LGBTQIA+ Festival

JOSS MORFITT, WRITER AND RESEARCHER, EXPLORED THE STORY BEHIND BFI FLARE AT THE FESTIVAL’S 40TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION. One of the highlights of this year’s BFI Flare Festival [https://whatson.bfi.org.uk/flare/Online/default.asp?BOparam::WScontent::loadArticle::permalink=story-of-londons-lgbtqia-film-festival-flare26] was a talk by Joss Morfitt, a passionate writer and researcher who recently completed his PhD at Durham University on the 40-year history of the United Kingdom’s longest-running LGBTQIA+ Film Festival. The talk explored the festival’s evolution, from a timid start in the 1980s to the internationally renowned event it has become. Dr Joss Morfitt highlighted the importance of diverse voices and the impact the Festival has had on London, British queer cinema and culture, and queer lives more widely. YEARS OF ARCHIVAL RESEARCH AND INTERVIEWS TO TELL ‘THE STORY OF BFI FLARE’ A writer and researcher deeply engaged with the history of BFI Flare, Joss Morfitt has dedicated years to uncovering its origins and societal impact. The work leading up to this event involved analysing festival programming, visual identity and marketing, as well as research into community engagement in the festival’s four-decade history. By weaving together academic research, analysis of hundreds of films (mostly those selected for the opening and closing galas), and interviews with funding members and programmers over the years, the talk created a compelling narrative that captured the festival’s cultural trajectory and political shifts. DOCUMENTING QUEER CINEMA’S EVOLUTION THROUGH THE EYES OF A CONTEMPORARY WRITER AND RESEARCHER The journey of BFI Flare reflects broader societal changes. Joss Morfitt illustrated this journey with a selection of representative film clips and interviews. His focused approach involves incorporating diverse materials—such as press images, programme notes, and oral histories—to present a nuanced timeline of the festival’s programming choices and their sociopolitical significance. The talk emphasised milestones in queer film history—such as pioneering works, moments of political activism, and shifts in representation—illuminating how the festival has responded to evolving social contexts, from the AIDS crisis to recent legal changes, including same-sex marriage and trans rights. A lively presentation packed with detailed documentation revealed how Flare transitioned from highlighting traditional gay and lesbian narratives to embracing fluid, inclusive, intersectional, and decolonial perspectives, shaping the current landscape of queer cinema. A VITAL VOICE IN SHAPING QUEER CULTURAL MEMORY Ultimately, the work presented at this year’s BFI Flare by Joss Morfitt contributes significantly to preserving and expanding queer cultural memory. Efforts like this ensure that the festival’s history is not lost but celebrated as a reflection of societal progress and ongoing struggles. By producing comprehensive scholarship and engaging multimedia content, the work empowers future generations to understand and participate in queer cinematic culture. This ongoing project—potentially culminating in a dedicated book and video work—will serve as a vital resource for scholars, filmmakers, and audiences alike. As society continues to evolve and global politics influence queer spaces, the insights provided by this writer and researcher maintain the relevance and urgency of spaces like BFI Flare, highlighting the enduring importance of queer representation and community.   The post Interview with the writer and researcher Joss Morfitt at the London BFI Flare LGBTQIA+ Festival [https://www.fred.fm/bfiflare40-joss_morfitt-writer_and_researcher-eng/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].

“A War on Women”, interview with director Raha Shirazi

Presented at the Bari International Film & TV Festival [https://bifest.it/en/film/a-war-on-women/], “A War on Women” by Raha Shirazi reframes the narrative of Iran’s feminist uprising. Rather than depicting it as a sudden revolt, the documentary reveals a resistance shaped across more than four decades of struggle, repression and everyday acts of defiance. Spanning the 1960s to the present, the film reconstructs a layered history that remains largely unknown outside Iran. Through archival material, clandestine footage and intimate testimonies, Shirazi connects past and present, showing how today’s protests are rooted in a long continuum of activism. “The whole world has no idea about this movement and how long it has been in the making,” Raha Shirazi explains. The turning point that led her to the project was the death of Mahsa Jina Amini in 2022:“I was stuck to my phone, watching everything unfold. And I realized how little context there was globally”, said Shirazi. GENERATIONS IN DIALOGUE At the core of “A War on Women” lies an intergenerational conversation. The film brings together women from different eras, each carrying distinct experiences of resistance, exile and survival. What emerges, according to Raha Shirazi, is a striking continuity: “This new generation knows the story of their ancestors. They know where we came from, what we had, what we lost, and what they’re fighting for.” The director highlights a shift in approach between generations. Earlier activists often believed in gradual reform within the system. Today’s youth, she observes, embody a different energy: “They are incredibly brave. There is a force in them that is undeniable.” THE PERSONAL AS POLITICAL Balancing the intimate and the political is central to the film’s structure. Raha Shirazi rejects the idea of separating the two dimensions: “The political is very personal,” she says. “How we dress, how we speak, even what we eat, everything is political.” This perspective shapes her filmmaking approach. Rather than constructing a purely analytical narrative, Shirazi foregrounds individual stories, allowing the broader political context to emerge organically. Her role during interviews was deliberately restrained: “I was there to listen. It wasn’t about me. I wanted them to take over the conversation and tell their stories in their own way.” TRUST, RISK AND UNSEEN IMAGES The documentary includes rare and often clandestine footage shot in Iran, collected through a network of collaborators who remain anonymous for safety reasons. This aspect posed both ethical and practical challenges. “Of course, they are the ones taking the risk,” Raha Shirazi notes. “I tried to make sure everyone understood what they were doing and felt comfortable.” Despite the danger, many contributors chose to participate, driven by a sense of urgency. “For many, the future already feels uncertain. So they choose to risk something to change it.” Images play a crucial role in the film’s language. In an era saturated with visual content, Shirazi reflects on their shifting impact. “We are becoming desensitised to images of war,” she says. “So it was important to carefully choose what to show and how to integrate it into the narrative.” RECLAIMING IDENTITY AND CONFRONTING GEOPOLITICS Working on the film also reshaped Raha Shirazi’s relationship with her own identity. The research process brought her closer to Iranian culture, language and internal political complexities. “It helped me understand different perspectives, both inside and outside the country,” she explains. At a time when Iran is often reduced to geopolitical headlines, “A War on Women” insists on a human dimension, particularly a female one. Shirazi speaks with clarity about this tension. “We are a country everyone wants to have a say in, but at the same time, no one truly helps us achieve freedom.” Yet the film does not surrender to pessimism. Its emotional core is rooted in resilience. A FUTURE SHAPED BY COURAGE For Raha Shirazi, hope lies in the younger generation. Not only in women, but also in men who increasingly recognise the centrality of women’s rights: “They have understood that until women are free, they will not be free,” she says. “They are willing to stand, to fight, even to die for that.” The post “A War on Women”, interview with director Raha Shirazi [https://www.fred.fm/a-war-on-women-interview-with-the-director-raha-shirazi/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].

“Heysel 85”, interview with director Teodora Ana Mihai

Presented in Berlinale Special Gala at the 76th Berlinale, “Heysel 85 [https://www.berlinale.de/en/2026/programme/202615949.html]“ is the fourth feature film by Romanian-Belgian director Teodora Ana Mihai. On 29 May 1985, the European Cup Final between Juventus and Liverpool FC at the Heysel Stadium in Brussels ended in tragedy: hooligans went on the rampage before kick-off, dozens of people died, and amid the chaos a fateful decision was made to let the match go on. The film follows two characters caught in the middle of that catastrophe: Marie, daughter and press attaché of the mayor of Brussels, forced to step in for her father who is no longer capable of taking command; and Luca Rossi, an Italian journalist covering the match for television, desperately searching for his family while continuing to report. AN UNUSUAL SUSPECT Teodora Ana Mihai came to this project through her producer Hans Everaert, a long-time collaborator who approached her with a specific conviction: that if she were to make a film about Heysel, it would not be a film about football as a sport, but about football as a metaphor. “In many ways, I was an unusual suspect to take on this subject matter” Teodora Ana Mihai acknowledges, “and we both felt that was precisely why I should do it, it might go to places one wouldn’t necessarily expect.” The challenge and the opportunity, she adds carefully, though opportunity feels like the wrong word when dealing with such a tragedy. FOOTBALL AS A METAPHOR What compelled Teodora Ana Mihai was not the match itself but what it symbolises, what the Heysel tragedy reveals about human nature under extreme pressure. “It’s a story about distraction in times of crisis” she says, “about how institutions and individuals sometimes choose to look away rather than confront the moral weight of their decisions.” The mechanisms at play in 1985, political and personal responsibility, fear of escalation, the temptation to preserve appearances feel, in her words, painfully current. The film operates on multiple layers: football is the backdrop, the arena, but on the second and third layer it speaks about existential issues and human nature. “We are always trying to say something about our current condition” she reflects, “to tell stories that echo what we’re living today.” HISTORY UNFOLDING IN REAL TIME At the heart of “Heysel 85” is the question of what individuals do when history unfolds around them and how they struggle to remain on the right side of it. Marie and Luca are not decision-makers at the top of the chain of command, yet they are each pulled into the vortex of a crisis that demands choices none of them are prepared for. The politicians and police face the central dilemma: cancel the match, or let it go on? As fear takes hold that stopping the game could escalate the situation further, a questionable decision takes shape, one that continues to provoke debate forty years later. “The questions the tragedy raises feel extremely timely and relevant” says Teodora Ana Mihai, “within the socio-political and geopolitical landscape we are living in today.” The post “Heysel 85”, interview with director Teodora Ana Mihai [https://www.fred.fm/heysel-85-interview-with-director-teodora-ana-mihai/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].

“Narciso”, interview with director Marcelo Martinessi

Presented in Panorama at the 76th Berlinale, “Narciso [https://www.berlinale.de/en/2026/programme/202614171.html]“ is the second feature film by Paraguayan director Marcelo Martinessi, whose debut “Las Herederas [https://www.fred.fm/marcelo-martinessi-las-herederas-the-heiresses-berlinale2018/]“ won the Silver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize in Competition at the Berlinale in 2018. Set in Asunción in 1959, the film follows Narciso, a charismatic young musician who becomes a symbol of freedom at a moment when rock ‘n’ roll has just arrived in Paraguay and when the Stroessner dictatorship is tightening its grip on bodies, desires and voices. Inspired by Guido Rodríguez Alcalá‘s investigation into the real murder of Bernardo Aranda, “Narciso” is a film noir that moves between dance and discipline, between the illusion of modernity and the consolidation of repression. WELCOME BACK TO THE BERLINALE Eight years have passed since “Las Herederas” brought Marcelo Martinessi to international attention. In the meantime, he has made theatre, opened a cinema in his hometown in Paraguay, and spent years developing a project far more complex and experimental than his debut. “I ended up exhausted after Las Herederas” he admits, “but I’m now weirdly eager to make a film faster because I’m older, and if I make one film every eight years, I won’t make many.” The wait, however, was worth it. “Narciso” is a film that takes creative risks precisely because the success of the first one allowed him to. “We said: let’s use this trust and this blank check to experiment, to do something we would never have been able to finance if we were starting from scratch.” THE GREY BETWEEN DICTATOR AND VICTIMS The genesis of “Narciso” lies in Guido Rodríguez Alcalá‘s novel about a real criminal case that shook Paraguay in the late 1950s, a case in which the Stroessner regime used the murder of a young man as a pretext to persecute not only the LGBTQ+ community but anyone who didn’t align with its values. What drew Marcelo Martinessi to the novel was its refusal of easy binaries. “He doesn’t blame only the dictator, he also blames the society” says the director. “Cinema hardly ever really goes into the social fabric around dictators, into the people that support the regime. It’s always very binary: the dictator and the victims. But there’s a lot of grey in between.” It is in that grey zone that “Narciso” lives. A FILM ABOUT THE PRESENT DISGUISED AS A PERIOD PIECE “Narciso” is set in 1959, but Marcelo Martinessi is clear that it speaks directly to the present and to a future he fears. “Authoritarianism comes back with different shapes” he says. Coming from a country like Paraguay, small and vulnerable to the political winds blowing from Washington, he feels the weight of that observation acutely: “We didn’t elect Trump, but we are having a lot of consequences of what happens in America in the South American region.” One line from Guido Rodríguez Alcalá‘s novel struck him as almost uncannily contemporary: a character shouts at Americans “you come here and think you can do whatever you want.” “That is from the 50s” Marcelo Martinessi says, “That is from two months ago.” RADIO, ROCK ‘N’ ROLL AND DRACULA A central element of the film is radio, the only mass medium in Paraguay in the 1950s, and therefore a contested territory. Nationalist folklore music, the promotion of Paraguayan identity, the most popular soap opera of the time, Dracula, all coexisted on the airwaves, reflecting a country that couldn’t speak openly about what was happening to it. And then came rock ‘n’ roll, foreign and unsettling, carrying with it the contradictions of American influence in Latin America. “America has supported dictatorships in Latin America historically” Marcelo Martinessi reflects, “and at the same time brought rock and roll, which contradicted everything they promoted. There is a tension there that is very interesting to think about.” THE POWER OF CINEMA For Marcelo Martinessi, cinema’s power lies precisely in its capacity to hold multiple things at once, history and the present, the particular and the universal, the visible and the hidden. “Narciso” can be read through different characters, followed along different threads. That openness is intentional: “Cinema has the possibility of touching a bit of everything” he says, “in order to understand what could have happened and what could happen in the future.” The post “Narciso”, interview with director Marcelo Martinessi [https://www.fred.fm/narciso-interview-with-director-marcelo-martinessi/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].