Locarno International Film Festival

Click on Thumbnail for Large Image

Photo Credits

1	2	3
4	5	6
7	8	9
10	11	12
13	14	15
16	17	18
19	20	21
22	23	24

Locarno, Switzerland August 06 - 16, 2008
Call for Entry Deadline: June 01, 2008
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:
www.pardo.ch
Festival Description:

Throughout its 60-year 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 3,200 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 2008 Locarno International Film Festival’s Open Doors section will focus on the regions of Central and South America. This program, organized with the support of the Swiss Foreign Ministry’s Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) for the sixth consecutive year, continues to encourage filmmakers and films from countries where film production is still relatively undeveloped. The directors and producers of selected projects will participate in a workshop held during the Festival that aims to help them find co-production partners, particularly in Europe, and to speed up their ability to complete their films. At the end of the workshop, several prizes will be awarded. Two grants, one for development, one for production, offered by the SDC, each amounting to 50,000 Swiss, will be 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), will go 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/
Email: info(at)pardo.ch

Phone: (41) 91 756 2121

Fax: (41) 91 756 2149

Mailing Address: Via Ciseri 23,
Locarno 6601
Switzerland

Email:	info(at)pardo.ch
Phone:	(41) 91 756 2121
Fax:	(41) 91 756 2149
Mailing Address:	Via Ciseri 23, Locarno 6601 Switzerland

Enter Your Post

MAY 09 02:53PM FFW Festival Editor writes:

Leopard of Honour 2008: Amos Gitai

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.
report
MAY 09 01:54PM FFW Festival Editor writes:

The Raimondo Rezzonico Prize goes to producer Christine Vachon

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.
report
MAY 09 01:07PM FFW Festival Editor writes:

Over 300 project submissions from Latin America for Open Doors 2008

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
report
AUG 20, 2007 05:41PM FFW Festival Editor writes:

Award Winners of the 2007 Locarno International Film Festival

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
report
JUL 26, 2007 02:02PM FFW Festival Editor writes:

Films of the Juries

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)
report
JUL 18, 2007 10:37AM FFW Films Editor writes:

Locarno pays tribute to Italy’s finest women in cinema

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.
report
JUL 18, 2007 10:36AM FFW Films Editor writes:

Hit musical Hairspray comes to Locarno’s Piazza Grande

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.
report