Cinephilia and professional commitment at Locarno
Tomorrow, the Locarno Film Festival opens its first edition under the direction of Olivier Père, who was previously artistic director of the Cannes Directors’ Fortnight. This year’s event is marked by the desire to focus the festival on three main points: the discovery of new talent, the financial network and glamour, an essential ingredient for all film festivals.
Père commented: “I want to put the emphasis on new trends rather than on more institutionalised cinema”. The International Competition (see news), which combines debut films and works by established directors, testifies to this.
The awarding of the Leopard of Honour to Swiss director Alain Tanner (see news) is also a subtle nod to this championing of young auteurs: in 1969, Tanner’s first narrative film, Charles, Dead or Alive, won the Golden Leopard at Locarno.
This positioning at the forefront of new formal trends involves professional commitment from the festival to help films find producers, buyers and distributors. “This is how activism works today”, said Père.
The Industry Days market thus gives professionals the chance to discover all the selected films during the first three days of the festival. And the Open Doors section – devoted to films from Central Asia – aims to draw their attention to productions from a region whose difficulties haven’t impeded its dynamism.
With the major retrospective on Ernst Lubitsch and a Leopard of Honour going to Chinese director Jia Zhang Ke, cinephilia takes pride of place.
Finally, parties and glamorous guests make a comeback at Locarno, with actress Chiara Mastroianni (Christophe Honoré’s Man at Bath [+see also:
trailer
film profile] in International Competition), who will receive the Moët & Chandon Excellence Award, and actor John C. Reilly (who stars in Jay and Mark Duplass’ Cyrus, to screen on the Piazza Grande).
Did you enjoy reading this article? Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive more stories like this directly in your inbox.
