Festival Data:

• Established: 1946
• Genre: General
• Attendance: 186000
• Media Attendance: 1146
• Accredited Industry Attendance: 3743
• Total Number of Films Screened: 335
• Total Screenings: 335
• # of Shorts Screened: 166
• # of Features Screened: 169
• Accreditations: AMPAS, FIAPF, FIPRESCI, FICC

• Competitive
• Film Market
• Has Panels

Festival Website:

Festival Description:

Throughout its long history, the Locarno International Film Festival has occupied a unique position in the landscape of the major film festivals. Every August, around 190,000 cinema-goers, over 1,000 journalists, and 3,700 professionals converge on the small Swiss-Italian town of Locarno, right in the heart of Europe, which becomes the world capital of auteur cinema for eleven days.

Geographically located at the crossroads of three major European cultures (Italian, German and French-speaking), with an audience that reflects these three regions of Switzerland, the Locarno Festival has made an asset of this particularity. Its long-standing tradition of openness and dialogue have made it an ideal platform for the promotion of national cinemas from Europe and the world over, from South America to Asia. Locarno knows no borders, neither geographic, thematic nor stylistic, and via its dozen different sections welcomes all kinds of films, and all kinds of formats.

The crowning distinction of the Locarno Film Festival is the enormous Renaissance square that can accommodate over 8,000 viewers every night.  The Piazza is both the Festival’s heart and its showcase. With its giant screen, endowed with truly exceptional projection quality, the Piazza is one of the finest cinemas in Europe, and open-air to boot.

The Program:

The rich and bold programming mix mirrors the Locarno audience itself: diverse, open-minded, curious, keen for all kinds of experience. It is a knowledgeable audience, with whom filmmakers, actors and producers can develop a real dialogue.

During the day filmgoers enjoy a demanding selection of fearlessly radical films that chart new trends in independent film.  The international slate of films initiates a journey of discovery of countries and welcomes filmmakers who would struggle to find their voices heard elsewhere. The festival offers opportunities to see both the first flashes of brilliance from talented young filmmakers and the challenges that established filmmakers continue to set themselves. At nightfall, the famous open-air screenings in the Piazza Grande are celebratory and magical occasions for all 8,000 people who attend.

The Piazza audience also serves as the biggest jury on the planet, since every year they vote for a very special award: the prestigious Prix du Public UBS.

The Festival’s flagship, the International Competition presents a stimulating panorama of contemporary auteur cinema, where young talent rubs shoulders with that of established directors. A jury of seven major figures is charged with choosing one of the twenty competing fiction features from all over the world, regardless of format, from 35mm film to digital cinema, screened as world or international premières, to win the prestigious Golden Leopard.

Renowned for its rigorous selection, the Filmmakers of the Present Competition offers films that are radical and innovative in their approach, subject or style, that question both the complexities of contemporary life and cinema itself. With around twenty films (over 30 minutes) screening as world or international premières, from documentary to fiction and including the most hybrid and contemporary of cinematic creations, this section opens up a fascinating space for reflection and discovery.

At the junction of cinema, video art and all the other arts, resolutely facing the future, Play Forward is the privileged look-out post on all kinds of contemporary audiovisual experimentation. Open to all formats, running times, and digital technologies, this section, created in collaboration with Harald Szeeman, followed by Francesco Bonami, assembles a line-up of powerful and remarkable work, sometimes extreme in form and/or content. 

The Locarno International Film Festival’s Open Doors section is focused each year on specific regions of the world. This program, organized with the support of the Swiss Foreign Ministry’s Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) encourages filmmakers and films from countries where film production is still relatively undeveloped. The directors and producers of selected projects participate in a workshop held during the Festival that aims to help them find co-production partners, particularly in Europe, to speed their ability to complete their films. At the end of the workshop, several prizes are awarded. Two grants, one for development, one for production, offered by the SDC, each amounting to 50,000 Swiss, are jointly decided by the Festival and Visions Sud Est, a Swiss production support fund. Another prize of 10,000 Euros, offered by the Centre National de la Cinématographie (France), goes to support a first feature film project currently in development.

Leopards of Tomorrow is an arena for revelation and discovery. This competitive short film section screens mostly fiction work (maximum running time 40 minutes), whose directors have not yet made feature films. Every year the section has two competitions: one is international, open to films from all over the world, the other is traditionally devoted to films by young Swiss filmmakers.  In the past, this section has showcased the very first films made by Fatih Akin, Barbara Albert, Paul Thomas Anderson, Laurent Cantet, François Ozon, Andrea Staka, Roberta Torre among so many others.

Ici et Ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere) is a programming initiative that offers a choice of films, documentaries and fiction which share an original vision of contemporary life, touching on politics and history as much as they do society and the arts. This selection presents an ensemble of event films – powerful works that arouse debate, as well as snapshots of the current world, that function as invitations to reflection and observation on the complexity of the times we live in.

Each year, the programming is rounded out with retrospectives, panels, parties and celebrity guest appearances. In short, Locarno provides a convivial and informal ambiance, a good-time festival, where, together, the public, professionals and creative talents alike come to get a taste of the youth and vitality of contemporary cinema. Far reaching in its quest both for innovation and films to inspire the imagination, the Locarno International Festival lives through and for cinema, tirelessly fostering respect and eagerness for both films and filmmakers.

Film Submissions:

• Call for Entry: http:/ / entryform.pardo.ch/

Curent Film Previews:

• A real life
• Those Who Disappeared