A fresh new wind blows towards the Locarno Film Festival

by Giorgia Del Don

13/07/2016 - The programme of the 69th edition of the Locarno Film Festival was unveiled today at a double press conference in Bellinzona and Bern

A fresh new wind blows towards the Locarno Film Festival

La idea de un lago by Milagros Mumenthaler

How could the 69^th edition of the Locarno Film Festival be dedicated to anybody else but the two iconic filmmakers Michael Cimino and Abbas Kiarostami? The wind, which is a central theme for this, the latest Locarno-based cinematic adventure, is firmly entrenched in the two directors’ filmographies. Their movies, much like the wind itself, sometimes blow up a storm, while at other times, they gently whisk us far, far away, where day-to-day life inspires hope.

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Carlo Chatrian, the director of the festival, labels the 69th edition as varied, uninhibited and surprising, a real return to the original spirit of the gathering, “which left room for the least well-known cinema and emerging directors, making Locarno an avant-garde, political, poetic, visionary and maverick festival”.

In the international competition (which includes 17 films, all of which will be having their world premieres), we find titles hailing from Egypt, Thailand, Bulgaria, Portugal, Argentina and the United States. They are all united by a desire – a wind, if you will – to take up this year’s theme, a theme that nothing will ever subdue. It is a life force that pushes them ever onwards, unabated, as in the film Marija [+see also:
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interview: Michael Koch
film profile] by Swiss director Michael Koch; one that forces them on a voyage through time, as in La idea de un lago by Swiss-Argentinian director Milagros Mumenthaler; or one that reveals the apparent stillness of a hospital bed, as occurs in Scarred Hearts [+see also:
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interview: Radu Jude
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There are so many European films present in the international competition, which will lead us on a journey from Portugal to Germany, via France and Austria, not to mention the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Denmark. This electrifying and refreshing voyage seems to be perfectly positioned to inspire us with awe. There are also various Swiss films featuring out of competition, including Jean Ziegler, The Optimism of Willpower [+see also:
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film profile], the eagerly awaited new movie by Nicolas Wadimoff, the director of the moving and hard-hitting Spartans [+see also:
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interview: Nicolas Wadimoff
film profile], which won the prestigious Solothurn Award in 2014. Also of note, again out of competition, is the moving documentary by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi and Yann Coridian, Une jeune fille de 90 ans [+see also:
trailer
film profile].