“The Lion at My Back”, an interview with director Tonia Mishiali

“3 Weeks After”, an interview with director Miroslav Terzić

Serbian director Miroslav Terzić has just premiered his third feature [https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/84/50402-3-weeks-after], 3 Weeks After, in the Crystal Globe Competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2026. This relentlessly cruel story about bullying, at once fascinating and hard to watch, implacable and extremely layered, deeply anchored in reality and allegorical in its very striking and masterful aesthetics, garnered the Europa Cinemas Label. The jury, unanimously “captivated right from the first shot and until the very end”, was impressed by the “remarkably strong and authentic performance” delivered by the ensemble cast, the choice of portraying the lives of “adolescents today through their own eyes, allowing their voices and perspectives to shape the narrative in a genuine and convincing way,” and found “Miroslav Terzić’s filmmaking stunning in every aspect of its craft.” “The film,” the jury concluded, “urges us to truly hear young people, be there for them and not look away!” A PROJECT BORN FROM A SINGLE SENTENCE, TEN YEARS AGO The project, Terzić explains, started over ten years ago, when Branislav Trifunović, the producer of the film (and actor, in the role of the maths teacher supervising the school trip next to the head teacher played by Tihana Lazović), and Vladimir Arsenijević, the screenwriter, started to work on this script about peer violence and called him. “We decided not to make some kind of docu story on one specific case,” says the director. Within the research material, he remembers, there was one sentence, from the mother of a boy who committed suicide, who said that the class went on an excursion three weeks after the fact, so “we tried to imagine what that excursion would look like.” NOT JUST BULLYING, BUT A VIOLENT SOCIETY However, continues Miroslav Terzić, “as we tried to find the best way to tell the story, we realised it was not just about peer violence, but about a violent society, about violence, and we live in that society. When you turn around, watch TV or Internet or whatever, there is violence all around us, and we were struck by that normalisation of violence.” “So we tried to show the audience that they are in the fire too – which is why there is a fire in the beginning, but no one is doing anything to prevent it –, that we are in the fire right now, at this very moment, but we are turning our heads [the other way].” THE RESPONSIBILITY OF ADULTS, AND THE FADING OF EMPATHY If the film certainly includes a commentary on the current young generation present in the film, it also suggests that the responsibility lies with the grown-ups, and with society as a whole: “They have grown up with the Internet, their phone is like a new organ for them, and they see the world through that, and what we serve them through that is disturbing, so we cannot expect… Somehow, empathy […] is slowly fading away from this society, [it’s almost] extinct, so I think that that we must teach them to feel again, not to be afraid to have real feelings.” “They are protected by their phones and live some kind of alternative life, so we must teach them to see violence and to stand up against it, even if it’s hard, and help whoever needs help. Because in every story about bullying, there are three sides, not two: there is the bully, there is the victim, and there is a third side, and it is the biggest one, which is that of the spectators, the people who are watching and do not interfere. It is them who let the bullies have all the power.” “[…] We gave them that power by not protecting the weak, the people who need help. […] I’m blaming society, because when tragedies happen, everyone talks about it and after three days, everyone forgets and continues on with their life, but this is not enough time to deal with that tragedy, [and it means we are not doing] anything to prevent a new tragedy.” A STRIKING, ALLEGORICAL AESTHETIC TO MULTIPLY PERSPECTIVES The striking aesthetics of 3 Weeks After also takes the subject to another, more abstract or allegorical dimension, beyond the Balkans angle or the generational and societal comment. “We wanted to tackle this topic from many different angles,” Terzić points out, “and leave it to the audience to decide how they choose to approach it. […] There are a lot of underlying layers and a lot of metaphorical and allegorical elements, and we break the fourth wall too, three times, in the movie.” We also discuss the moral reflection stemmed by the “they made me do it” argument, the animality the group reverts to, the implications of the inherent gregariousness of humans, the purifying symbolism of the cave where the guilt-ridden victim finds a refuge, and the longing for connection and embrace expressed in the magnificent ending. The post “3 Weeks After”, an interview with director Miroslav Terzić [https://www.fred.fm/3-weeks-after-an-interview-with-director-miroslav-terzic/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].

“The Lion at My Back”, an interview with director Tonia Mishiali

Eight years after the premiere of Pause, her debut feature (after several internationally acclaimed shorts, followed by a few more after Pause), at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival (East of the West Competition), Tonia Mishiali was back at the Czech event 2026 with her second feature-length movie [https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/84/49934-the-lion-at-my-back], The Lion at My Back, this time vying for the Crystal Globe, and was awarded the Grand Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. We met the Cypriot director to discuss further this work, announced as the second instalment of a trilogy exploring the role of women in modern-day society, where the thoughtful mise en scène and the splendid, impactful cinematography actively accompany, in the many spaces where the action of this Cyprus-set story unfolds, the two female protagonists. A forty something local with a past who is fighting for the custody of her daughter and a young migrant who finds herself outside the door of the home where she was living on her 18th birthday – compellingly embodied, with all their nuances and contradictions, by Elena Kallinikou and Sokhna Diallo – as they struggle to find their place, and gradually develop a moving bond which ends feeling like home. A MOTHER-DAUGHTER STORY ROOTED IN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE On the background of the story, Mishiali explains that the idea to pair an ode to the mother-daughter relationship with the depiction of the situation of a young immigrant came from her personal attachment to both themes (being a mother and “a refugee in [her] my own country”), and was further fuelled by her encounter with women, mostly African, seeking asylum in Cyprus. We also talk about the way the film combines intimate close ups with an interesting treatment of space, or rather spaces (from safe to hostile, open to claustrophobic, inhumane to warm), including “the space that is contained within them”, which the director approached instinctively, with an awareness of her characters’ need to breathe, too. SHOOTING ON 16MM FOR A RAWER, MORE ORGANIC FEEL On the choice to shoot on 16mm: “I first met Manu Tilinski, my cinematographer, in Athens, because I wanted to work with a new cinematographer and so I met a few, and in my mind, even before I met him, was the sense that I had to do this film on 16 mm, and because there’s always budget restrictions and all that, I thought it was never going to happen, and I had no experience with film – I have only worked with digital –, so I thought if I am going to do that, I have to work with a cinematographer who has this experience.” “And I didn’t say anything to him and as soon as we met, as he had read the script, he went, ‘You know we have to shoot on 16 mm, right?’ and I said, ‘Thank you!’ Because the idea is that the film is quite raw, and rough, so I think this roughness that comes from film, the grain, that feels more organic.” CASTING THE TWO LEADS Tonia Mishiali explains how she went about choosing her actresses, and how Sokhna Diallo joined the project as a professional actress when the first actor Mishiali had in mind, a Somalian non professional, had to suddenly leave Cyprus for safety reasons. She also give us more details on how they found the right chemistry to give a sensitive depiction of the bond between Stella and Mariama, and evokes the male characters in the film. “MAYA”: THE THIRD CHAPTER OF THE TRILOGY On the third instalment of her trilogy, Maya, already in the works: “So the trilogy is really about women living on the sidelines and trying to find themselves and establish themselves in the world, and enjoy their rights and be prominent and be out there and be respectful – to themselves first, and towards each other – and get respect from others. So in general, it’s really about women rebelling […]. So I started with Stella in Pause, a 50-year-old woman who was oppressed and tried to find a way out… […]” “And then the third one is called Maya and it’s about a 30-year-old woman, so I’m going down in age, and again it’s similar – she feels different, she’s trying to fit in, etc. –, but it’s actually a genre film, it’s a fantasy film. So I am using another genre but again, it’s character-based, so it’s really about her finding herself as she inherits a house in the countryside and leaves the city to go there, and enters a patriarchal world of hunters in the woods, killing lots of animals, and finds herself attracted to this world, and meets goblins in the forest.” The post “The Lion at My Back”, an interview with director Tonia Mishiali [https://www.fred.fm/the-lion-at-my-back-an-interview-with-director-tonia-mishiali/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].

“Only Beautiful Things to Look At”, an interview with director Ivan Ostrochovský and producer Katarína Tomková

This year at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2026, not only was Ivan Ostrochovský selected in the main competition with Only Beautiful Things to Look At, his third fiction feature [https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/84/49760-only-beautiful-things-to-look-at] after Goat (2015) and Servants (2020, chosen as the Slovak candidate for the Oscars), but he also world-premiered, amongst the Special screenings of the Classics section, his new documentary, Igor and After, dedicated to visionary Czechoslovak cinematographer Igor Luther (who worked with Juraj Jakubisko, Volker Schlöndorff on his Palme d’or winner The Tin Drum, and Andrzej Wajda on Danton, amongst others). He also produced the winner of the Special Mention of the Proxima Competition, Anna and Šimon Domček’s 33 Steps. Only Beautiful Things to Look At, the suggestive title of which is all the more intriguing that the film deals with the State-funded sterilisation of Roma women in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s, ended up earning Ostrochovský the FIPRESCI Award of the Crystal Globe Competition. This bodes well for the US remake of the film (focusing on the forced sterilisation of almost half of the Native American women which was conducted across the pond between the 1970s and the 1980s) he has already started working on, with the help of his regular producer Katarína Tomková. FRED met with her and the prolific filmmaker on a balcony of the famous Thermal Hotel to discuss the very unique angle he chose, in his KVIFF critics’ favourite, to tackle a sordid issue through images and situations often beaming with serene harmony and human connection. A DOCTOR WHO SEES STERILISATION AS COMPASSION On the choice of approaching the subject of enforced sterilisation through the eyes of a female doctor who sees sterilisation as a compassionate procedure: “I met a lot of doctors from the 80s, and the problem is that some of them really thought it was helpful to these Roma women, that having three kids instead of ten would make their lives easier. […] So the law says yes, and in context, it seems okay, but morally it’s not, and this is a problem for all times, not only the communist era.” “There was forced sterilisation in the US, in Norway, in Australia, in Canada: it’s not limited to the eighties in Czechoslovakia, it has also happened in democratic countries. […] This is also related to the desire to have a nice, comfortable life. These doctors think that if you only have two kids, you life will be easier: you can go on vacation, have a car. [This notion] of a nice life is how you end up having sterilisation.” INGRID AND AGATA: THE BOND BETWEEN DOCTOR AND VICTIM On the bond which develops between Ingrid, the doctor played by Aňa Geislerová, and Agata, the Roma nurse who tries to hide her origins, and on the complexity of both characters, Ostrochovský says that he found interesting to understand how the doctor thinks, but also wanted to find a way to make her change and see things differently, which he did by introducing this young girl who is a victim, ie. using the victim to confront the person responsible. CASTING SIMONA BOLEDOVIČOVÁ AS AGATA On the choice of Simona Boledovičová to play Agata: “She had never played in a movie. It took a lot of time to find her, also because we wanted her to be half Roma – so many films with gypsies have been made before that [if you work from a set of stereotypes] about gypsies, you’re not interesting.” “Also, if it [forced sterilisation] happens to a woman who is only half Roma, it’s a short way away from happening to Slovak women with social problems […] and the idea of cleaning social problems in this manner. [If you show] it as a problem which affects not only gypsies, but also poor people, our hope is that in this way, we can get under the skin of people holding stereotypes.” BEAUTY HIDING DARKNESS: THE FILM’S VISUAL APPROACH On the beautiful, serene aesthetics of this superbly lit and sunny film, interspersed with oneiric scenes showing an almost magical nature as well as moments of tenderness and laughter: “The topic is already tough, so we did not want to push it further visually. We wanted to find nice places, since these people want a nice life for the gypsies, and so visually we wanted [everything to be beautiful] and then to have [darker] things hiding in these nice visuals, and then slowly amp it up.” “Because if the film is nice visually and thus goes against the topic, maybe it is more scary than if you show an ugly socialist hospital and ugly places and bad cars. Visually, [we wanted to represent] Ingrid’s idea of a nice life – she wants a nice life for everybody, and she destroys many lives.” SHOOTING ACROSS THREE COUNTRIES AND THREE SUMMERS Katarína Tomková on the challenges of the production of a film with such rich visuals and interesting locations: “It was a bit challenging because for example when it came to the architecture, we were looking, not for the typical communist architecture, but for a turn-of-the-century architecture which I would call Habsburg, from the end of the imperial era – buildings which of course, in the 80s, were a little bit rundown –, because these buildings do exist, but now they have been reconstructed, they have plastic windows, etc.” “So it was tough to find this one complex place in one location. The hospital, I think, was shot in six or seven different locations spread around the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. […] But Ivan had a specific idea of the visual aspect he wanted.” “[…] So in those terms, yes it was a little bit challenging to have the production happen across three countries, with crew from three countries and cast from three countries, and also we shot across three summers – which had a lot to do with filming [the doc] Photophobia the first summer, because the film was reacting to the situation in Ukraine.” “But I think that we had an amazing cast and crew, and our partners and coproducers all understood and followed Ivan’s vision, so I feel like we all formed a coherent team, which eventually got us to this wonderful premiere here in Karlovy Vary.” The post “Only Beautiful Things to Look At”, an interview with director Ivan Ostrochovský and producer Katarína Tomková [https://www.fred.fm/only-beautiful-things-to-look-at-an-interview-with-director-ivan-ostrochovsky-and-producer-katarina-tomkova/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].

“Black Money for White Nights”, an interview with directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov

Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov bring their fifth feature film [https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/84/50251-black-money-for-white-nights] to the main competition of the Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2026, where they won the Crystal Globe for The Father in 2019. With Black Money for White Nights, the Bulgarian directing duo, also known for their ‘newspaper clippings’ trilogy, which started with their internationally acclaimed debut 2014 The Lesson (followed by Glory in 2016 and completed with “Triumph” in 2024), they offer the type of cruel social satire they have become known for – paired with a moral tale where money plays a major role, and a breathless race from one hurdle to the next, all the while running with scissors. At the centre of the film is the plight of a nearly retired married couple (played by Tanya Shahova and Ivan Savov), who have become infected by a lifetime spent living in a corrupt society where deceit is part of daily life, and keep carrying outdated values inherited from the communist era into an indifferent capitalist world where they still get crushed by the old mechanisms they help perpetuate (by continuously scratching their backs, so to speak). BUILDING CONTRADICTION INTO THE TITLE On the strange sense of balance suggested by the title of the film, “it was very important for us to build this contradiction in the title,” says Grozeva, “because we hoped that this would reflect the mood of the whole movie. I think this contradiction contains both the tragedy and the comedy, the low and the sublime.” “The creative process behind the title was very important” and a key foundation on which to build the film, adds Valchanov, who points out that it is a distortion of the Bulgarian version of the phrase “saving money for a rainy day”, which talks about “saving money for a black day.” ON DECEIT AND RETRIBUTION On deceit and retribution, Kristina Grozeva explains: “They live in lies all the time and they pretend that everything is OK, but this way of living has a price, somehow, and they have to pay it.” As her partner-in-crime reveals, the way they balance the diverse set of values from which they operate was inspired by many people in real life. The film, he says, “is about this generation who has made it a part of their life during the communist period and then, after it, in the democratic period.” VICTIMS OF THEMSELVES “This system doesn’t allow you to have a dignity,” Grozeva points out, prompting Valchanov to also underline the fact that the couple at the centre of their film “are also victims of themselves.” “They mostly suffer because of their own decisions,” adds Grozeva. “We wanted to dig into the topic of corruption, but not only the corruption in the political or social sense – [we also wanted to talk about] this kind of inner corruption that puts black spots in our souls. Somehow, it felt very important to capture this moment when you corrupt your intimate world: your dreams, your marriage, even your relationship with God, everything.” NO CLICHÉS, NO SUPERFICIALITY On the well-roundedness and the many nuances of the characters, the directing duo insists that they “did not want to build clichés, or characters who are superficial. We wanted to build deep human beings with contradictions, and that is why we wanted to create this couple, so that they would be capable of love and tenderness, and at the same time of manipulation and deception.” A BREATHLESS RHYTHM On the relentless succession of catastrophic events depicted in the film: “It was very important for us to create this rhythm and build this sense of tension. We wanted the audience to feel their feelings.” The post “Black Money for White Nights”, an interview with directors Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov [https://www.fred.fm/black-money-for-white-nights-interview-with-directors-kristina-grozeva-and-petar-valchanov/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].

“The Guest”, an interview with director Mads Mengel

Danish director Mads Mengel‘s debut feature [https://www.kviff.com/en/programme/film/84/50262-the-guest], The Guest, was more than well received at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival 2026. This sensitive and psychologically nuanced account of an initially jolly family reunion for a newborn baby’s naming ceremony, suddenly tainted by the arrival of an unwanted guest, the mentally unstable, unpredictable mother (a part in which Trine Dyrholm delivers a captivating performance) of the young father (a distraught Simon Bennebjerg with whom the viewer cannot help empathising, as we see him unravel) was awarded the Special Jury Prize, and earned Mengel the Best Director Award. We spoke to the filmmaker – and co-writer of the film with Christian Bengtson, with whom Mengel is already working on a new project –, which says his approach of this family’s conundrum was very much informed by this quote from poet David Whyte: “To forgive is to assume a larger identity than the person who was first hurt.” ON FORGIVENESS AND MENDING OLD WOUNDS On going against the grain of what one would expect of a Danish film on a disrupted family reunion turning tense: “I think the film, at its core, is about forgiveness and trying to take the first steps towards being able to mend old wounds. We wanted to give the audience a feeling that it’s never too late to change some dynamics which may seem like they are forever set in stone.” ON MENTAL ILLNESS AND ACCEPTANCE On mental illness and acceptance: “When you have a loved one who is suffering from mental illness or struggling in any way, there will always be longing in you for it to not be so, and I think accepting the situation – in Karl’s case, accepting that this is his mother, good and bad – is what can open him up to maybe forgiving some of the things that have been hard on him.” TRINE DYRHOLM AND THE TENSION OF AN UNPREDICTABLE MOTHER On the tension deriving from the ambiguity of the mother’s effervescent behaviour, and on Trine Dyrholm’s turn in this constantly borderline role: “We wanted to convey that experience to the audience as well, because that’s what her kids in the film have grown up with, always not knowing what’s gonna happen next. […] I think Trine captured that tension perfectly. I think she’s the greatest actor we have in Denmark, so we couldn’t believe our luck when she said yes. That was a dream come true for all of us, especially for me.” SIXTEEN DRAFTS TO FIND THE RIGHT BALANCE On the film’s nuanced approach and finding that balance in the script: “I think we wrote sixteen drafts of the script. We went back and forth with the actors, each time using the actors’ notes to rewrite. We [also] shot an 18-minute pilot, over two days, to figure out who these characters were and how they talked to each other, and then went back to the writing room. It was very important to us that the viewer would have sympathy for all the characters, in the end, but also that their sympathy would switch sides, maybe from scene to scene [and that they] would understand everyone, in some way. […] We didn’t want a clear hero or a clear villain. Everyone should be to blame a little bit, because I think that is a reflection of real life, especially within the context of a family. There’s a lot of complexities and nuances. […] Nothing in the world is really black-and-white, there is always a bunch of grey nuances and I think you can have two feelings which are polar opposites rising at the same time, and both of them can be true at the same time.” The post “The Guest”, an interview with director Mads Mengel [https://www.fred.fm/the-guest-an-interview-with-director-mads-mengel/] appeared first on Fred Film Radio [https://www.fred.fm].