by Paolo Mereghetti
Clouds not always have a silver lining . When, on October 1970, Sandro Bianconi and Freddy Buache resigned the office of directors of Locarno’s Festival, it seems that for Ticino’s Film Festival at its twenty-third edition, there is no possible future.
The two curator’s idea to create a film festival with “its own identity within artistic and cultural values by making a programme of young film-maker’s works and young national cinemas in order not to use it as an excuse for worldly pleasure and escape but as an urge for debates, discussions and exchange of information with the public and the Swiss filmdom” clashed with “public opinion’s indifference, lack of understanding and conflict”, also considering the utmost discomforts to which they felt obliged to work “ because of the total lack of basic structures and facilities needed for an international event”.
The divorce cannot be more radical than that and the resignation of art film’s paladins who presented during their last edition, among others, Aram Avakian, Med Hondo, Arturo Ripstein and Claude Goretta’s works, gives vent to those who see the festival in particular as an useful link to the industry and tourism. So, 1971’s edition was held again during summer(but on August, from the 6th until the 15th and not on July as it was until 1967) and above all Piazza Grande is turn into an open-air cinema: a twenty-metre large and fifteen-metre high screen supported by tubular structures able to seat up to three thousand spectators.
Locarno’s inhabitants welcomed architect Livio Vacchini’s idea but with some reservations, it becomes instead the real revolution of the festival capable of imposing a new idea of film fruition that gives impetus to the relationship between public and film work which was going to become tiresome, as well as being able to impose in actual facts a film choice closer to people’s tastes and needs of those who see the cinema, first of all, as a mass performance. Criticisms obviously arose: “cinema requires a compromise from the commissions of the programmes and the festival’s directors” Martin Schaub known as “keeping in with both sides” wrote, but in 1971 those are still deep wounds that an edition created too quickly is unable to heal up ( the selection of titles is coordinated by a commission appointed only few months before the festival).
The selection is rather seesawing despite the participation to the competition of interesting works such as México, la revolución congelada by Raimundo Gleyzer, an Argentinian director who will pay for his commitment with his life or Private Road by Barney Platts-Mills or yet Viva la Muerte by Fernando Arrabal, but at this point the die is cast, the screen in Piazza Grande is now open ( with the showing of  Samperi’s film, An Eel Worth 300 Million) and it will never stop showing.
In 1972, with the twenty-fifth edition of the festival, Moritz de Hadeln and his wife Erika’s age begins leading Locarno until 1977 for six editions not only by imposing an open and dynamic idea of festival(sometimes even too much willing to compromises) but mostly being able to create a cultural and organizational structure for the festival that meets the needs of a “little big international festival”. We can notice that since the creation of a Swiss Company of International Festivals which joins Nyon (where de Hadeln was already at the head of documentary film festival) and Locarno’s efforts and that for the first time is funded by a federal grant equal to one hundred thousand francs able to offer at last an economic and organizational autonomy to the two events.
With a certain ability, de Hadeln goes along with local authorities’ ambitions (the mayor stresses again in public that Locarno, after overcoming several technical, psychological, political and financial problems, won’t make over not even the smallest right to host the main national film festival nor does it bring forward those rights ), he strives to make an alliance with national political associations( Swiss Film Association) but also with the powerful International Federation of festival-makers particularly committing himself in order to spread the concept of festival at an international level; not forgetting the most important success: he created a festival for public where authors and producers were able to directly check spectator’s reactions (those who paid, not forgetting that: to watch a movie in Piazza Grande we must have a ticket) offering to everybody, simple spectators and people concerned a various and definitely attractive opportunity. In fact, with de Hadeln the programme takes shape slowly and will be carry out with slight adjustments even with the following directors, dividing itself into a series of interactive events: there is the official competition (where the restrictive concept of first and second work disappears to be replaced by  “new film perspectives”, both new film-makers and young national cinemas); the official not competing showings; International Film Festival dedicated to short films; a Retrospective given to the Cinémathèque Suisse; Swiss Information Programme of Swiss Cinema Centre; the free Gallery given to Thérèse Scherer, Matthias Brunner and David Streiff when, a bit on the wave of Cannes’ Quinzaine, interesting and innovative films can be seen as well as often far-seing debates can be organized. Not to mention the market that from 1975 will also interest Locarno’s festival.
“The offer was adequately varied so that anyone could find something. Locarno became the well-equipped drugstore that de Hadeln wanted to organized” (it’s Martin Schaub still speaking) and in fact during its six years of running, the festival pleased almost everybody, showing in Piazza Grande films that undoubtedly call to mind Andrej Rublëv by Tarkovskij or We All Loved Each Other So Much by Scola, The French Connection II by Friedkin and The Tree With The Wooden Clogs by Olmi, enriching the competition with Mike Leigh, Ken Loach, Jacques Rivette, George Lucas, István Szabó, Marguerite Duras, Sembene Ousmane, Gianni Amelio or Margarethe von Trotta’ works and proposing retrospectives dedicated not only to Swiss cinema history but also to Douglas Sirk and to Totó ( in 1975, with an exemplary critical far-sightedness), not forgetting “the scandals” left to Bawdy Tales by Sergio Citti, with Pasolini in Piazza Grande to defend him from the attacks, to Conte Immoraux by Borowczyk( that the bishop asks to take off the programme) and to Pasolini’s work of Saló or The 120 Days Of Sodom,  for which three additional showings were planned view the large attendance. Meanwhile, the free gallery was showing the best of research cinema during those years.
In 1978, the festival metaphorically anticipated because of the weather intemperances (the 7th of August Locarno flooded), the relationship between Locarno’s organizers and de Hadeln broke off, this latter resigned leaving in any case, an already developed and well structured event, known at an international level besides the more and more attractive competition of  the other big European festivals and above all, proud of the relationship with its public. To overcome the decade, Jean-Pierre Brossard was entrusted with the festival together with an executive committee with the function of supervising. Its running lasts three years, during that time the festival didn’t change that much compared to de Hadlen’s conception but it widened the showing space which will become one of the legitimate areas for the festivaliers to come: Morettina’s  school complex  where a wide showing room is prepared inside the gym with a seating capacity of more than one thousand and five houndred. Always during Brossard’s running in 1981, Raimondo Rezzonico, a regular visitor of the festival (in 1947 he already cooperated as presenter), is elected president of the festival’s executive committee. He will pervade all his enthusiasm, sometimes a bit exaggerated, during the following two decades of the festival and he will favour David Streiff’s appointment on December 1981 as director of the festival. A film expert, cultivated and prepared person who already showed his unerring taste as a co-director of free Galleries, Streiff will lead Locarno towards a greater international fame trying to organize as well as he could an even that sometimes ran the risk of being entangled. With Streiff the competition is moved to Morettina’s area, leaving “the not competing films of the year” and some selected previews to be showed in Piazza Grande. With him, retrospectives become unique opportunites (Powell and Pressburger, Lux film distributor, Boris Barnet…), discoveries are an everyday occurrence (Terence Davis, Jim Jarmusch, Adoor Gopalakrishnan, Chen Kaige, just to mention some), under his direction, festival expands in Tv-movies world (in a competitive section given to Gian Carlo Bertelli). David Streiff’s dream is obviously a festival that is not bound by competition. He thinks about an “easy festival where many good films are showed even if some of them have already been showed (elsewhere) without pressures due to competition”. But he knows well that competition represents the lever that can increase (or decrease) both national and international interest for Locarno. His effort, besides winning out the Leopard of Honour  with more and more interesting titles, is to offer a real wide film overview from past masterpieces to new trends, according to a specific utopia of those years that saw a small or large keystone in the most relevant events able to give an opening to all film complexity. Absolutely everything and more. And his Locarno will grow year after year, offering his visitors always something new and interesting. It’s Locarno’s festival that I know, the one that made me love more and more cinema and the one for which I will be eternally grateful to.