From Chuck Norris or Jean Claude Van Damme to John Cassavetes and Jean-Luc Godard—Menahem Golan never feared contrasts. Last week, Menahem Golan was awarded the best independent producer at the Locarno Film Festival.

Back in the late seventies, the Israeli film maker started Cannon Films in Hollywood with his cousin. Menahem Golan started producing a number of B movies, action and ninja films starring Van Damme and Chuck Norris. But Golan’s passion was elsewhere. Thus, he started working with the likes of John Cassavetes for his last film “Love Streams” and also Jean-Luc Godard for “King Lear”.

WRS’s Marc Menichini and his colleague Pierre-Philippe Cadert from the Radio Suisse Romande met Menahem Golan at Locarno and asked him how he felt about receiving this award. 

Directed by Swiss film maker Stascha Bader, “Rocksteady; the Roots of Reggae” explores the world of rocksteady, a musical era in Jamaica’s 1960s that developed the buoyant rhythms and bass line, beautiful vocals and socially conscious lyrics that became reggae.

WRS’s Marc Menichini met the Swiss writer and director in Geneva and started by asking him how his rocksteady project started.

Even though he won’t acknowledge it, Romanian filmmaker Corneliu Porumboiu is at the forefront of new Romanian cinema, a movement the Cannes Film Festival brought into the limelight when it awarded two such films the prestigious Palme d’Or (Cristi Puiu’s The Death of Mr. Lazarescu in 2005 and Cristian Mungiu’s 4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days in 2007).

The 34-year-old Porumboiu saw his first feature film awarded a Caméra d’Or at the 2006 Cannes Festival and last year his Police, Adjective won a Jury prize (also at Cannes). The film tells the story of Christi, a young detective who struggles with the dilemma of turning in three hashish-smoking students, believing that their lives will be ruined for what he considers a minor crime.

WRS’s Marc Menichini caught up with Corneliu Porumboiu in March during the Fribourg Film Festival and started by asking him about the reasons behind the long and silent first sequences of his film:

For more than four decades, Frederick Wiseman has used a lightweight 16mm camera and portable sound equipment to study human behavior in all its contradictory and unpredictable manifestations. While his films have portrayed  American life in all it’s various forms, and recently he’s turned to the cultural life of Paris. Wiseman’s latest documentary “La Danse” follows the Ballet of the Paris Opera. Earlier this week Wiseman was in Switzerland ahead of his film’s premiere at Nyon’s Visions du Réel festival. WRS’s Marc Menichini was there and asked Wiseman about the idea behind “La Danse”: