The closing ceremony of the 61st Locarno International Film Festival took place on Saturday, August 16th 2008 at the Piazza Grande.

Golden Leopard: "PARQUE VIA"
Directed by: Enrique Rivero, Mexico

Special Jury Prize: "33 SCENY Z ZYCIA" (33 Scenes from Life)
Directed by: Malgoska Szumowska, Germany/Poland

Best Director: Denis Côte for "ELLE VEUT LE CHAOS," Canada

Leopard for Best Actress: Ilaria Occhini in "MAR NERO"
Directed by: Federico Bondi, Italy/Romania/France

Leopard for Best Actor: Tayanç Ayaydin in "THE MARKET – A TALE OF TRADE"
Directed by: Ben Hopkins, Germany/UK/Turkey/Kazakhstan

Prix Netpac: "DAYTIME DRINKING"
Directed by: Noh Young-seok, South Korea

Prix FIPRESCI: "PARQUE VIA"
Directed by: Enrique Rivero, Mexico

Prize of the Ecumenical Jury: "MAR NERO"
Directed by: Federico Bondi, Italy/Romania/France

Prix FICC / IFFS: "YURIEV DEN" (Yuri’s Day)
Directed by: Kirill Serebrennikov, Russia/Germany

Prix Art & Essai CICAE: "SONBAHAR" (Autumn)
Directed by: Ozcan Alpers, Turkey/Germany

Prix SRG SSR idee suisse /Semaine de la critique: "LATAWCE" (Kites)
Directed by: Beata Dzianowicz, Poland
C.P. Company Golden Leopard / Filmmakers of the Present Competition: "LA FORTERESSE"
Directed by: Fernand Melgar, Switzerland

Ciné Cinéma Special Jury Prize / Filmmakers of the Present Competition: "ALICIA EN EL PAÍS"
Directed by: Esteban Larraín, Chile

Leopard for the Best First Feature: "MÄRZ"
Directed by: Händl Klaus, Austria (International Competition)

Golden Leopard- SRG SSR idée suisse Prize for the International Leopard of Tomorrow Competition:
"DEZ ELEFANTES"
Directed by: Eva Randolph, Brazil

The Boccalino Prize for Best Actor: Kssenia Rappoport for "Yuriev Den"
Directed by: Kirill Serebrennikov

The Boccalino Prize for the Most Significant Film: "Beket"
Directed by: Davide Manuli

Silver Leopard- Eastman Kodak Company Prize for the International Leopard of Tomorrow:
"KAUPUNKILAISIA"
Directed by: Juho Kuosmanen, Finland

Golden Leopard- IKEA Prize for the Leopards of Tomorrow National Competition: "LA DÉLOGEUSE"
Directed by: Julien Rouyet, Switzerland

Silver Leopard- Eastman Kodak Company Prize for the
Leopards of Tomorrow National Competition: "UN DIA Y NADA"
Directed by: Lorenz Merz, Switzerland

Prix du Public UBS: "SON OF RAMBOW"
Directed by: Garth Jennings, UK/France/Germany

Variety Piazza Grande Award: "BACK SOON"
Directed by: Sólveig Anspach, Island/France

Filmmakers of the Present Competition Jury composed of:
Bertrand Bonello, director, composer and writer,France, Benedek Fliegauf, director and writer, Hungary, Cao Guimaraes, director and video artist, Brazil, Corso Salani, director, Italy, Franz Treichler, muscian and composer , Switzerland

The Leopards of Tomorrow Jury is composed of:
Fulvio Bernasconi, director, Switzerland, Eran Kolirin, director, Israel, Angele Paulino, TV5 Monde, Dick Rijneke,
director and producer, The Netherlands, Orsi Toth, actress, Hungary

The Bocaalino Prize Jury is composed of: Alberto Castellano, President, Angelo Franco Aschei, Ugo Brusaporco, Lorenzo Buccella, Valentina Cattaneo, Jordi Picatoste and Damiano Realini

The Netpac Jury is composed of: Sanling Chang,
Taiwan, Bee Thiam Tan, Singapore and Antonio Weinrichter, Spain

The Fipresci Prize Jury is composed of: Nicole Hess,
Swiss, Radovan Holub, Czech Republic, Emma Gray Munthe, Sweden, Javier Porta Fouze, Argentina, Mateusz Werner, Poland

The Ecumenical Jury Prize is composed of: Alexander Deeg, Germany, Alexander Deeg, Felipe Espinoza Torrese, Mexico, Douglas Fahlesone, Ireland, Serge Molla, Swizerland, Astrid Polz-Watzenige, Sham P. Thomas, India.

The FICC / IFFS Prize Jury is composed of: Csaba Bardose, Hungary, Briana Berg, Switzerland, Eoin Hayes, Ireland

Prix Art & Essai CICAE Jury is composed of: Sino Caracappa, Italy, Andre Ceuterick, Belgium, Rita Linda Potyondi, Hungary

Semaine de la Critique Jury is composed of: Stephanie Bunbury, Australia, Azzedine Mabrouki, Algeria, Mariano Morace, Switzerland

Images of the 61st Locarno Film Festival Awards Ceremony:
1.) Junior Jury Special award, Gideon Koppel, Director of the film SLEEP FURIOUSLY
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
2.) Federico Bondi, director of the film MAR NERO, third prize of the Junior Jury
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
3.) Richard Szyotori, director of the film AU CAFE ROMAND, Leopards of Tomorrow Junior Jury Award for the best Swiss short film
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
4.) Isamu Hirabayashi, director of the film BABIN, Junior Jury Leopards of Tomorrow Award
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
5.) Julien Rouyet, director of the film LA DELOGEUSE, Junior Jury Leopards of Tomorrow Award
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
6.) Malgoska Szumowska, director of the film 33 33 SCENY Z ZYCIA, Junior Jury Award
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
7.) Junior Jury Award, Denis Côté, director of the film ELLE VEUT LE CHAOS with the Jury
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
8.) Ecumenical Jury Award, from left Serge Molla, member of the Jury, Federico Bondi, director of the film MAR NERO, Alexander Deeg, member of the Jury
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
9.) Enrique Rivero, director of the film PARQUE VÍA, FIPRESCI Award
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
10.) Özcan Alper, director of the film SONBAHAR, Art & Essai CICAE Award
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
11.) SRG SSR idée suisse Award - Semaine de la critique, Beata Dzianowicz, director of the film LATAWCE
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
12.) Ilaria Occhini, Leopard for the best feminine interpretation for the film MAR NERO
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
13.) Tayanç Ayaydin, Leopard for the best male interpretation for the film THE MARKET - A TALE OF TRADE
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
14.) Fernand Melgar, director of the film LA FORTERESSE, C.P.Company Golden Leopard - Filmmakers of the Present
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
15.) Händl Klaus, director of the film MÄRZ, Leopard for the best first film, Prize of the City and Region of Locarno
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE
16.) Malgoska Szumowska, director of the film 33 SCENY Z ZYCIA, Special award for the Jury, Award of the Country of Ascona and Losone
© FOTOFESTIVAL / DAULTE

The Leopard of Honour at the 61st Locarno International Film Festival will be awarded to Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai in person. Several Amos Gitai films will be shown during the festival to mark the occasion.

Born in Haifa in 1950, with forty mid-length and feature films to his credit, Amos Gitai first made his name as a documentary director. A member of the official jury
at Locarno in 1992, his work has featured several times in the Filmmakers of the Present section, notably with "The Arena of Murder", about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin (1996). In parallel, his fiction films, often constructed as trilogies, have won him world-wide recognition and been screened at the most important international festivals, from "Esther" (1985) to "Free Zone" (2005), via "Berlin-Jerusalem" (1989), "Kadosh" (1999) and "Kippur" (2000). "Disengagement," featuring Juliette Binoche, was screened at the Venice Festival in 2007, and "One Day, You Will Understand", with Jeanne Moreau, was shown at the last edition of the Berlin Festival.

Frédéric Maire, Artistic Director comments, “Amos Gitai occupies a very special place in the landscape of contemporary cinema. Deeply rooted in a geography and a history – that of Israel - his work constantly interrogates both past and present, current events and memory, travel and exile, man and his homeland. But above all, every one of his films confronts us with the infinite complexity of reality, whether it be via political documentary, economic treatise, historical or mythological panorama, a story of war or social portrait. A highly prolific filmmaker, Gitai is above all a civic-minded free spirit, for whom film is first of all the expression
of a critical look at the world.”

The Locarno International Film Festival’s Leopard of Honour pays tribute every year to a major director who is still active. Previous recipients of this prestigious award include Jacques Rivette, Manoel de Oliveira, Samuel Fuller, Jean-Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, Joe Dante, Daniel Schmid, Ken Loach, Ermanno Olmi, Terry Gilliam, Abbas Kiarostami, Wim Wenders, Alexander Sokurov and, in 2007, Hou Hsiao-Hsien.

During the 61st edition of the Locarno International Film Festival, the Raimondo Rezzonico Prize will be awarded to American producer Christine Vachon. With this prestigious award the Locarno Festival highlights the work of major independent film producers.

Christine Vachon’s name is primarily associated with thatof director Todd Haynes, whose provocative first feature "Poison" she produced in 1991 (and which was screened in competition at Locarno the same year), followed by "Safe" starring Julianne Moore in 1994. Thus began a long and productive collaboration, whose most recent successes include "Far from Heaven" (4 Oscar nominations in 2003) and "I’m not there" (which won both Special Jury Prize and Best Actress for Cate Blanchett at last year’s Venice Film Festival).

Through her production company Killer Films (founded in 1995), Christine Vachon launched the careers of filmmakers such as Larry Clark ("Kids", 1995) and John
Cameron Mitchell ("Hedwig and the Angry Inch", 2001). She has also worked with established directors such as Robert Altman ("The Company", 2003) and John Waters
("A Dirty Shame", 2004). Alternating low budget films with more ambitious projects, Christine Vachon has an impressive filmography to her credit, with an eclectic range of titles, from Todd Solondz’ "Happiness" (1998), to Mark Romanek’s "One Hour Photo" starring Robin Williams (in competition at Locarno in 2002), and Kim Pierce’s "Boys Don’t Cry" (1999), which won an Oscar for actress Hilary Swank.

Frédéric Maire, the Festival’s Artistic Director, comments: “Locarno is celebrating an exceptional producer, who has made a decisive contribution to independent American cinema over the last fifteen years. Fearless in the face of risk and controversy, Christine Vachon has carved out a distinctive path through the Hollywood industry. She has encouraged innovative filmmakers with unusual tenacity,
and developed projects that go against the grain, often on taboo subjects. Her passion and audacity have been to the enormous benefit of both film and audiences.”

The Raimondo Rezzonico Prize was inaugurated in 2002, in memory of the man who was President of the Locarno Festival for almost twenty years. The Locarno Festival
chose to create this prize to focus the spotlight on a profession that all too often remains in the background, and to pay tribute to producers who have the courage and commitment to make quality independent films. In recent years recipients of the Raimondo Rezzonico Prize have included Paulo Branco, Ruth Waldburger, Karl
Baumgartner, Jeremy Thomas, Agat Films, the collective led by Robert Guédiguian, and, in 2007, Lita Stantic.

Open Doors, the Locarno International Film Festival’s co-production lab, organized with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), continues to grow and prove its international appeal. For the 2008 session, devoted to Latin American cinema, over 300 projects have been submitted, almost triple the number of applications received in 2007.

Vincenzo Bugno, Open Doors’ project manager, comments, “We have developed a very extensive network of relationships between the Festival and the Latin American industry for the 2008 session. In all the countries we have visited we have built up our contacts base with filmmakers, producers and institutions dealing with film. This groundwork has proved highly productive."

18 different countries have submitted projects, the highest number being from Argentina, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia and Mexico. There is also substantial
participation from Peru, Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia. The Festival has also received a wealth of project submissions from smaller Latin American nations such as
Panama, Porto Rico, Guatemala, Costa Rica and the Dominican Republic.

The Locarno Festival’s Artistic Director Frédéric Maire notes, “Judging from the number and amount of projects received, the potential for Latin American cinema far
exceeds that of the larger producing countries we usually see at festivals. Open Doors has aroused enthusiastic interest across the whole of the Latin American region, including those countries that are still not established in terms of cinematic production: which proves that the situation is really starting to shift there. For us, everything has come together in such a way that we are guaranteed to come up with a selection of really fascinating projects.”

Over the next few weeks, Open Doors’ expert jury will select 12 projects for participation in the final phase that will take place during the Locarno Festival (6-16 August 2008). The list of selected projects will be announced in mid-June.

The directors and producers of the chosen projects will be invited to participate in the Open Doors Factory (10-11-12 August). The objective of this workshop, organized in collaboration with the Festival’s Industry Office, is to assist directors and producers to find co-production partners and the means with which to complete their films. At the close of the workshop, two grants for development and production, offered by the SDC each to the value of 50,000 Swiss francs, will be awarded by a jury composed of representatives from the Festival and Swiss production support fund "visions sud est." Support to the value of 10,000 Euros will also be awarded to a first feature film project in development from the Centre National de la Cinématographie (France).

In addition, throughout the Festival, the Open Doors Screenings will enable the public to discover film production from Latin America via a selection of key films
made in recent years.

For further information, contact opendoors@pardo.ch

The official jury of the 60th Locarno International Film Festival, composed of:

• Walter Carvalho, cinematographer and director, Brazil
• Saverio Costanzo, director, Italy
• Irène Jacob, actress, France
• Jia Zhang-Ke, director, China
• Romuald Karmakar, director, Germany
• Bruno Todeschini, actor, Switzerland / France
Awarded the following prizes:

Golden Leopard
Grand Prize of the city and region of Locarno (90,000 CHF to be shared equally between the director and the producer) to :
“AI NO YOKAN” (THE REBIRTH) by Masahiro Kobayashi, Japan


Special Jury Prize:
Prize of the cities of Ascona and of Losone (30,000 CHF to be shared equally between the director and the producer) awarded to the film that best conveys the spirit of communication between people and culture to:
“MEMORIES” by Pedro Costa, Harun Farockis, Eugène Green, South Korea


Best Director:
Prize of the city and region of Locarno (30,000 CHF to be shared between the director and the producer), to the best director :
Philippe Ramos for “CAPITAINE ACHAB,” France/Sweden


Leopard for Best Actress:
Marian Alvares in “LO MEJOR DE MI,” Spain


Leopard for Best Actor:
Joint winners:
Michel Piccoli in “SOUS LES TOITS DE PARIS” by Hiner Saleem (France)
And
Michele Venitucci in “FUORI DALLE CORDE” by Fulvio Bernasconi (Switzerland/Italy)


Special mention to:
Cho Sang-Yoon, cinematographer in the film “BOYS OF TOMORROW” by Noh
Dong-Seok

Building on the success of last year's inaugural programme, the Locarno Festival will offer a selection of films directed by or featuring those jury members, across the various sections, who are filmmakers or
actors/actresses. The Locarno audience thus has an opportunity to discover a range of films, some of which are impossible to see outside the festival circuit - including some real rarities - and to see again a number of contemporary cinema masterpieces.

The programme includes the following films:

The International Competition Jury:
"La double vie de Véronique" by Krzysztof Kieslowski (featuring Irène Jacob, France)

"Hamburger Lektionen" by Romuald Karmakar (Germany)

"In memoria di me" by Saverio Costanzo (Italy)

"Moacir - Arte Bruta" by Walter Carvalho (Brazil)

"Platform" by Jia Zhang-Ke (China)

"Son frère" by Patrice Chéreau (featuring Bruno Todeschini, Switzerland/France)

The Filmmakers of the Present Jury:

"Kurpe" (The Shoe) by Laila Pakalnina (Latvia)

"L'orchestra di Piazza Vittorio" by Agostino Ferrente (Italy)

"Tan de repente" by Diego Lerman (Argentina)

The Jury for the Best First Feature Film:

"Johanna" by Kornél Mundruczó (Hungary)

"Satin rouge" by Raja Amari (Tunisia/France)

The Leopards of Tomorrow Jury:

"After the Last Sky" by Alia Arasoughly (Palestine)

"Alex" by Lyes Salem (Algeria/France)

"Das Fräulein" by Andrea Staka (Switzerland)

"Horst Buchholz... mein Papa" by Christopher Buchholz (Germany)

The 60th Locarno International Film Festival and Cinecittà Holding pay tribute to actresses in Italian cinema with a special program entitled “Signore & Signore” (curated by Piera Detassis). 19 films produced from 1941 through to today have been selected for the program. The list includes both milestones in the history of Italian cinema and others that have been forgotten. Of all 19 films new prints will be shown in Locarno.

Frédéric Maire, artistic director of the Festival, “Locarno has always had a close relationship with Italian cinema. Many of these actresses have attended the Festival over the years and for our 60th anniversary, we wanted to offer our audience some of the gems from a prolific industry that has often brought the auteur and mainstream filmmaking together. This program, which spans six decades, is an opportunity to pay tribute to the wonderful actresses who have put life and body into Italian filmmaking.”

Sandro Battisti, President of the Cinecittà Holding states, “We are honoured that the 60th Locarno International Film Festival is paying tribute to the Italy’s finest women in cinema and collaborating with Cinecittà Holding.”

The Locarno audience will have the opportunity to see on the big screen, 19 “First Ladies” of Italian cinema in their career-making roles. The “Signore & Signore” program celebrates the following actresses and films:

Alida Valli (Piccolo mondo antico, Mario Soldati, 1941)
Anna Magnani (Bellissima, Luchino Visconti, 1951)
Gina Lollobrigida (Pane, amore e fantasia, Luigi Comencini, 1953)
Lucia Bosé (La signora senza camelie, Michelangelo Antonioni, 1953)
Tina Pica (La nonna Sabella, Dino Risi, 1957)
Franca Valeri (Il vedovo, Dino Risi, 1959)
Sofia Loren (La ciociara, Vittorio De Sica, 1960)
Claudia Cardinale (La ragazza con la valigia, Valerio Zurlini, 1960)
Stefania Sandrelli (Io la conoscevo bene, Antonio Pietrangeli, 1965)
Giulietta Masina (Giulietta degli spiriti, Federico Fellini, 1965)
Silvana Mangano (Teorema, Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1968)
Monica Vitti (Dramma della gelosia, Ettore Scola, 1970)
Mariangela Melato (Mimi, metallurgico ferito nell’onore, Lina Wertmüller, 1972)
Ornella Muti (La stanza del vescovo, Dino Risi, 1977)
Margherita Buy (Maledetto il giorno che ti ho incontrato, Carlo Verdone, 1992)
Asia Argento (Il fantasma dell’opera, Dario Argento, 1998)
Monica Bellucci (Malena, Giuseppe Tornatore, 2000)
Laura Morante (La stanza del figlio, Nanni Moretti, 2001)
Giovanna Mezzogiorno (La finestra di fronte, Ferzan Ozpetek, 2003)

The 60th Locarno International Film Festival is the first Festival to present “Signore & Signore”. The American Premiere will be held on the 6th of July at the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York.

The Program is curated by Cinecittà Holding with the support of Direzione Generale Cinema del Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali.

A special thanks for the right holders of the films goes to: Movietime, Intramovies, Doro TV Merchandising, Surf Film, Compass Film, Wild Bunch, Media Fiction, Celluloid Dreams, Medusa Film, Adriana Chiesa Enterprises, Centro Sperimentale di Cinematografia, Associazione Philip Morris-Progetto Cinema, Titanus.

Hairspray, the upbeat musical comedy featuring John Travolta, Christopher Walken, Michelle Pfeiffer, Queen Latifah and young star Nikki Blonsky, will be presented on Locarno’s Piazza Grande during the 60th International Film Festival.

This new screen version has been adapted from one of the most successful Broadway shows in recent years, based on the 1988 hit picture of the same name by John Waters. The new movie, directed by Adam Shankman, picks up the vibrant tone of its predecessor in glorious color while delivering a trenchant commentary on the integration of Afro-Americans in U.S. society in the 1960s.

Hairspray is a New Line Cinema production, distributed in Switzerland by FOX-WARNER.