FRED Film Radio - English Channel

John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell bring Wild Horse Nine, directed by Martin McDonagh, to the Venice Film Festival 2026, where the film is in competition. At the heart of the film is the friendship between two CIA agents, set against the backdrop of Chile in 1973.

An old friendship, forged out of fear

Rockwell and Malkovich go back years, long before Wild Horse Nine. “We’re old pals,” Rockwell says. “We became pals on this movie, but we know each other from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy...

Martin McDonagh returns to the Venice Film Festival 2026, in competition at the 83rd edition with Wild Horse Nine, starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell as longtime CIA partners Chris and Lee. Set just before the 1973 Chilean coup, the film follows the two agents as they are sent by their section chief, MJ (Steve Buscemi), from Santiago to Easter Island, where, among the island’s ancient statues, Chris’s new bond with two rebellious students (played by Mariana Di Girolamo and Ailín Salas) threatens to unravel everything. Balan...

The Girl with the Leica opens the Orizzonti section of the 83rd Venice International Film Festival 2026. Directed by Alina Marazzi, with lead actress Emilia Schüle, the film follows the photographer Gerda Taro: her life in Germany in the early 1930s, her exile in Paris, where she meets fellow exile Robert Capa, and her work documenting the consequences of war on the civilian population in Spain.

On FRED, Alina Marazzi and Emilia Schüle introduce The Girl with the Leica starting from a sentence Gerda Taro says at one po...

Start your day on FRED Film Radio with Venice Production Bridge 2026 morning preview: for the first six days of the market, Carolina Mancini joined by VPB director Pascal Diot, Chiara Marin, Coordinator of the market and Curator of Book Adaptation Rights Market and Alessandra Speciale, Curator of Final Cut in Venice, walks you through the unmissable events and the highlights of the Venice Production Bridge, taking place between the Hotel Excelsior, the Venice Immersive Island (Lazzaretto Vecchio) and the Match Point Arena.

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Stay up...

Ink, the film that opens the 83rd Venice International Film Festival 2026 in official competition, tells the story of The Sun, the British tabloid launched in 1969 by Rupert Murdoch and Larry Lamb. “1969: the year we first walked on the moon, and the year Rupert Murdoch and Larry Lamb launched a newspaper that was to change the world far more,” says director Danny Boyle, who describes it as born to become “a new tabloid that, against all the odds, became the biggest-selling newspaper in the world”: “cheeky, irreverent, daring… the ‘super soaraway’ Sun challenged the establishment an...

Global Critics Venice Voice, hosted by internationally renowned film critic Rita Di Santo, is the daily podcast of the Venice International Film Festival 2026, produced by FRED Film Radio directly from the Lido di Venezia.

Each episode takes listeners inside the Festival with exclusive and thoughtful conversations with leading international film critics, and in-depth analysis of the year’s most anticipated films.

Rita Di Santo and her guests bring to life the unique atmosphere of Venice, offering a rare insider’s view of the stories, talent, and cinematic moments that make the Mostra one of the world’s m...

Start your day on FRED Film Radio with Venice Production Bridge 2026 morning preview: for the first six days of the market, Carolina Mancini joined by VPB director Pascal Diot, Chiara Marin, Coordinator of the market and Curator of Book Adaptation Rights Market and Alessandra Speciale, Curator of Final Cut in Venice, walks you through the unmissable events and the highlights of the Venice Production Bridge, taking place between the Hotel Excelsior, the Venice Immersive Island (Lazzaretto Vecchio) and the Match Point Arena.

Choose your panels and set your agenda with FRED Film Radio!

Stay up...

The second feature film of Tunisian-born director Youssef Chebbi, Plague, is one one of the six feature films selected at the 14th edition of Final Cut in Venice, the program of  Venice Film Festival and Venice Production Bridge that supports film in post-production from all African countries and six countries of the Middle East (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen).

Plague is a story about two twin brothers working in palm tree exploitation in Tunisia. The plot revolves around their daily lives, which take a turn when one brother encounters a palm tree-eating parasite.

U...

Madi Makambu is the second feature of congolese director and screenwriter Machérie Ekwa Bahango about the lives of the two lovers, Madi and Djino, who experienced a denied pregnancy.

It is one of the six feature films selected at the 14th edition of Final Cut in Venice, the program of  Venice Film Festival and Venice Production Bridge that supports film in post-production from all African countries and six countries of the Middle East (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen).

The challanges of filmmaking in the DR of Congo

After her successful de...

Rula Nasser, producer (with The Imaginarium Films) of the film Occupational Hazards by Bassel Ghandour, discusses this compelling Palestinian family dark comedy and drama. The film is one of the six feature films selected at the 14th edition of Final Cut in Venice 2026, the program of Venice Film Festival and Venice Production Bridge that supports film in post-production from all African countries and six countries of the Middle East (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen).

A  perspective on Palestinian resilience amid restrictions

The story of Occupational Hazards centers on a P...

A Quarter to Thursday by Algerian screenwriter and director Sophia Djama, is one of the six feature films selected at the 14th edition of Final Cut in Venice 2026, the program of Venice Film Festival and Venice Production Bridge that supports film in post-production from all African countries and six countries of the Middle East (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen).

Sophia Djama is a filmmaker whose work explores surrealist worlds and political themes. With A Quarter to Thursday, she aims to address issues of fascism, authoritarianism, and gender rights through a satirical lens, set...

Francesca Duca, producer (from Le Moindre Geste) of Eldorado, the taste of the South by Tunisian director and screenwriter Alaa Eddine Aljem. Eldorado, the taste of the South is one of the six feature films selected at the 14th edition of Final Cut in Venice 2026, the program of Venice Film Festival and Venice Production Bridge that supports film in post-production from all African countries and six countries of the Middle East (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen).

Eldorado, the taste of the South explores the themes of migration and societal borders, blending...

Tamara Mariam Dawit, producer from Gobez Media, and acclaimed Ethiopian director Abraham Gezahagne, are the creative team behind the film Mehal Sefari, which is one of the six feature films selected at the 14th edition of Final Cut in Venice 2026, the program of Venice Film Festival and Venice Production Bridge that supports film in post-production from all African countries and six countries of the Middle East (Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria and Yemen).

Mehal Sefari is the first project from Ethiopia’s to make it into Final Cut in Venice: this emphasizes the im...

Presented in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2026 and arriving in Italian theaters via MUBI from August 19, Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma is the new film from Jane Schoenbrun, the American director behind We’re All Going to the World’s Fair and I Saw the TV Glow. Schoenbrun talks about making a film from the other side of transition, the joyful chaos of horror, and how a childhood spent making homemade slasher movies and writing fan fiction became the key to remaking shame into liberation.

A first post-transition film

Schoenbrun describes the...

Mamadou Dia returns to Locarno 79 with “Atcha Atcha”  out of Competition

After winning Golden Leopard for Filmmakers of the Present in 2019 with his first feature , senegalese director Mamadou Dia  returns to the 79° Locarno Film Festival  2026 with he documentary “Atcha Atcha”, screened out of competition.

“Atcha Atcha” was also developed inside Final Cut in Venice 2025, where it won the prize offered by Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF).

L’École des Sables in Senegal and Germaine Acogny

“Achacha Atcha” is a phrase used in local languages like Wolof  to mean “let’s go”: it serves as a symbol f...