FRED Film Radio - English Channel

Belgian filmmaker Isabelle Tollenaere, already known and acclaimed at major festivals for her highly poetic hybrid documentaries exploring “the interplay between the rapid transformation of our physical world and the human experience of time and memory”, such as Battles (2015) and Victoria (2020), has just presented her first scripted feature film, a docufiction suggestively titled Paris Paris, in the Proxima Competition of the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival (July 3-11, 2026).

This work – another beautiful and deeply moving expression of her fascination with places and their constant transformation in resonance with the individuals inhabiting them, and with what traces they leave...

After premiering his first feature (Namo, 2020) at the Berlinale, his second (The End, 2022) in Busan, and collecting the Audience Award in Venice with the third (The Witness, 2024), acclaimed Berlin-based Iranian filmmaker Nader Saeivar celebrated the premiere of Hijamat, his fourth feature as a director, Czech style, at the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival (July 3-11, 2026).

The narrative pace and style of this contender for the Crystal Globe, set in Berlin amongst a rather instantly claustrophobic Turkish community presenting a boisterous mosaic of stifling religion-related conundrums, clearly bears the signature which has earned Saeivar international recognition as a...

Director Jan-Eric Mack and co-writer and actress Anna Schinz met us during the 60th Karlovy Vary Film Festival (July 3-11, 2026) to talk about the former’s first solo feature, A Happy Family, the first ever Swiss film to run for the prestigious Crystal Globe.

This story of a struggling single mother, covered in debts and juggling several menial jobs which distract her from properly taking care of her two children despite her best efforts, which then leads social services to entrust the kids to a temporary foster family on the other side of the country, owed Anna Sc...

Serbian director Miroslav Terzić has just premiered his third feature, 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 the...

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, 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...

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 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 Spec...

Kristina Grozeva and Petar Valchanov bring their fifth feature film 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 whi...

Danish director Mads Mengel‘s debut feature, 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...

David Boreanaz is one of the prominent actors participating in the Italian Global Series 2026, in Riccione. Our conversation was recorded to explore his reflections on acting, character development, and his perspective on one of his most iconic roles as Angel in “Buffy The Vampire Slayer“ during the festival’s second edition.

The importance of continuous learning in acting

Boreanaz emphasizes the significance of ongoing education and self-reflection in his career. He reflects on the past year, noting that it’s essential to be patient with oneself and understand that the work invested today will bear fruit ov...

Lithuanian filmmaker Arnas Balčiūnas arrives at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2026 with Past the Hill of Napoleon’s Hat, one of the ten short films showcased in Future Frames, the European Film Promotion initiative that introduces Europe’s most promising young directors to the international film industry through screenings, masterclasses and networking opportunities. Rather than offering a conventional family drama, Balčiūnas builds an intimate and restrained portrait of emotional distance, where silence speaks louder than confrontation.

Set on a single early spring day, the short film follows Martynas as he picks up his father f...

For Hae-Sup Sin, Half-moon is not simply a story about reunion. It is about everything that remains unresolved once that reunion finally happens. Presented at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2026 within Future Frames, the European Film Promotion initiative showcasing emerging European filmmakers, the short film follows a Swiss adoptive mother and her son as they travel to South Korea to meet his biological mother for the first time. Set almost entirely within a traditional Korean restaurant, Half-moon explores identity, belonging, and motherhood through restrained performances, quiet observation, and the emotions that emerge when words are no longer enough.

Selected for Future Frames at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2026, Júlia Coldwell Serra brings Nobody Barks, a darkly comic short that explores guilt, family ties and emotional avoidance through an increasingly absurd premise. Presented as her final master’s project, the film follows Candela, a middle-aged woman who accidentally runs over her young nephew’s dog. Unable to tell him the truth, she invents an extraordinary story: the dog has left on a pilgrimage to a sacred tree, and together they set out to find it.

The premise is both humorous and unsettling, allowing the direc...

Selected for Future Frames at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2026, André Vaara presents Sister of Mine, a subtle and emotionally restrained short film that explores identity through the eyes of a ten-year-old boy. Rather than engaging in explicit dialogue about gender and family dynamics, the film relies on gestures, sound, and physical sensations to immerse the audience in the child’s emotional world.

“I wanted to ask what happens when your sibling has access to expressions that you don’t,” Vaara explains. “Is there room to explore another identity as a child?”The story follows a young boy who...

At the Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema 2026, organized by European Film Promotion and the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Croatian director Jozo Schmuch presents Shallow Ground. Shot on 16mm, the film imagines a son who vanished during Croatia’s war of independence returning to his elderly mother three decades later, unaged and unmarked, a reunion whose warmth is shadowed by disbelief. Schmuch’s graduation film, it draws directly on the disappearance of his own uncle.

A closure that never came

Schmuch describes Shallow Ground as “a magica...

At the Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema 2026, organized by European Film Promotion and the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Finnish director Helmi Donner presents The Lightning Rod (Matalappa). Her graduation film from film school in Finland, it premiered a year ago in La Cinef, the Cannes Film Festival’s student film section, an experience she still describes as both thrilling and frightening, not least because the film is deeply personal to her.

A house of silence

Donner describes The Lightning Rod as “a poetic horror film,”...

At the Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema 2026, organized by European Film Promotion and the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Ollie Launspach presents Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, his graduation film from the Netherlands Film Academy, previously selected for the shorts competition at IDFA, the International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam. What began as a portrait of his partner Sterre and the effect of his gender transition on her became, over the course of making the film, something closer to a self-portrait.

Starting a conversation with a camera

At the Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema 2026, organized by European Film Promotion and the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, Teilo Quillard presents his short film Zampano, a dreamlike story of vertigo, inheritance and the bond between a father and a son. Born to a French trapeze artist and an English aerial acrobat, Quillard grew up in the world of the circus and speaks five languages, as many as are heard in his film.

A circus of languages and cultures

Being selected for Future Frames feels, Qu...

At the Future Frames – Generation NEXT of European Cinema 2026, organized by European Film Promotion and the 60th edition of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, David Champaigne presents his short film Self-Sown. Selected without his knowledge by the Slovenian Film Center while he was still finishing his master’s degree in film directing, Champaigne arrives at Future Frames with a story rooted in his own adolescence, set over one summer in Ljubljana.

Kids who raise themselves

Self-Sown follows Nicola, a teenager forced to grow up fast by his family circumstances, who searches on the...