FRED’s Chiara Nicoletti meets versatile and eclectic actress Edwina Findley, intense protagonist of Jake Mahaffy‘s FREE IN DEED, in competition at the 72nd Venice Film Festival in the Orizzonti section, in which it was awarded the Best Film Prize.
In the film Edwina plays Melva Neddy, a single mother desperately looking for a cure to her son’s autism in a society in which she’s left with no help from social services or healthcare system. Edwina Findley explains how the film explores the difficulty of judging a woman in her character’ situation and how, even death, can de liberating in a very desperate sense.
FREE IN DEED: Set in the distinctive world of storefront churches, and based on actual events, Free in Deed depicts one man’s attempts to perform a miracle. When a single mother brings her young boy to church for healing, this lonely pentecostal minister is forced to confront the seemingly incurable illness of the child… and his own demons as well. The more he prays, the more things seem to spiral out of his control.
For the first time in its history, the Cannes Film Festival reveals two official posters for its 78th edition, inspired by Claude Lelouch’s 1966 Palme d’Or-winning masterpiece A Man and a Woman.
Alice Rohrwacher has been appointed President of the Caméra d’or Jury at Cannes 2025. Known for her poetic and visionary cinema, Rohrwacher will award the best first feature at the festival’s closing ceremony on May 24.