The Locarno Film Festival expresses solidarity with the filmmaker Jafar Panahi, following his arrest in Teheran.
The poster for the 63rd edition, created by Jannuzzi Smith, concludes the major exercise of re-branding the Festival that began in 2007. This project, spread over a three-year period, aimed to renew the event’s visual identity by bringing the leopard back into the heart of its marketing strategy. The new design was conceived in such a manner as to enable its use in traditional formats, on the Festival’s screens as well as in ‘new media’ applications – through images of the moving leopard.
At the 63rd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival, a Swisscom Leopard of Honour will be awarded to the Swiss director Alain Tanner, who will hold a public Masterclass.
In an interview new artistic director Olivier Père outlines his vision of the Festival and ambitions for the future at Locarno.
The Festival's new selection committee comprises Philip Cheah, Jean-François Deveau, Mark Peranson, Roberto Turigliatto and Agnès Wildenstein. The make-up of the Piazza Grande committee, with the Swiss Frank Braun, Jean-Michel Bühler and Beki Probst, remains unchanged. Alessandro Marcionni, Philippe Clivaz, Martina Malacrida and Françoise Mayor have also been reappointed as members of the committee for the Leopards of Tomorrow Short film competitions.
Once again, titles which premiered at Locarno last year have made good ground on the international distribution circuit, as a result of sales agreements reached during or just after the event itself, and thanks to the focused effort of the Festival’s Industry Office. Many films from Locarno have also been enjoying considerable success at festivals around the world.
Following Greater China in 2009, the Locarno International Film Festival’s co-production lab Open Doors 2010 will focus on countries in central Asia: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
From Sept. 25 to 29, a selection of films premiered at the 63rd Locarno Festival will be screened at the Cinema Cittadella in Lugano (Corso Elvezia 35).
Three films premiered in the Locarno Int. Competition and one premiered on the Piazza Grande have been picked up just after the Festival
For the 63rd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival (4-14 August 2010), the work of German born American director Ernst Lubitsch will be the subject of an exhaustive retrospective, in collaboration with the Cinémathèque française.
The 62nd Locarno International Film Festival drew to a close on Saturday 15 August with a surprise concert in the Piazza Grande given by Mongolian singer Urna, following the world premiere of the film The Two Horses of Genghis Khan by Byambasuren Davaa.
The award-winning films will be screened on Sunday, August 16th at La Sala and L'altra Sala from 10 a.m. Free entrance for accreditation holders.
The closing ceremony of the 62nd Locarno International Film Festival took place on Saturday, August 15th 2009 at the Piazza Grande.
While in Locarno as chairman of the International Competititon jury, US director Jonathan Nossiter, also had a sip of the local wine.
On Friday, August 14 at the Rialto 1 at 6.30 pm the legendary set and costume designer, and painter Rolf Gérard will attend the screening of Invitation to the Dance (1956) by Gene Kelly, for which he created some of the sets and costumes. The screening will be followed by a public conversation.
The awards for the 2009 Open Doors Factory, the Locarno Film Festival’s co-production lab that is organised with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), were announced on Wednesday August 12.
Tonight at 9.30 pm on the Piazza Grande the Swiss-Italian Minister Gabriele Gendotti will present the Ticino Cinema Prize to the Director of Photography Renato Berta. The Ticino Cinema Prize is a new initiative suggested by the Swiss-Italian Parliament and launched by the Ticino Council of State in collaboration with the Locarno International Film Festival.
On Tuesday, August 11th at 11.30 pm the world première of Il mio cuore umano will be screened at the Kursaal.
Opening the Manga Night on Monday, August 10 at 9.30 pm, the Italian director Maurizio Nicchetti (Ladri di saponette, 1989) will deliver a Honorific Leopard to the Japanese animation Master Yoshiyuki Tomino.
On Friday August 7th, the French Embassy in Switzerland and Unifrance held a cocktail and dinner at the Locarno International Film Festival for French and Swiss film professionals.
A special event entitled “Mankind at War: In Commemoration of the 60 Years of the Geneva Convention” will take place on Monday, August 10 at 4pm at La Sala, as part of the “Ici & Ailleurs” section.
In support of the world premiere of Yves Hinant’s film Les Arbitres (The Referees), some of international football’s most celebrated referees will be arriving in Locarno on Monday, August 10th.
For reasons of ill health, Polish film maker Andrzej Wajda cannot attend Locarno as initially planned for the event dedicated to him on Monday August 10. In a letter to the Festival Wajda expressed his deep regret at being unable to attend and discuss the screenings with the audience, but hoped they would enjoy the films all the same.
A special treat on Sunday evening, August 9, at 9pm: as a prelude to the following day’s international première screening of the twelfth film in the Pokémon saga, the Japanese singer Shoko Nakagawa will give a performance, accompanied on stage by a live fellow Pokémon, Pikachu.
A special screening and discussion event, “In Remembrance: 15 Years since the Rwanda Massacre” will take place on Sunday August 9 at 4.15pm at La Sala, as part of the “Ici & Ailleurs” section.
Tonight at 9.30 pm on the Piazza Grande the Italian actress Anna Bonaiuto will deliver the Excellence Award - Moët & Chandon 2009 to Italian actor Toni Servillo. During same night it will be screened Paolo Sorrentino's Le conseguenze dell’amore (2004).
The winner of the CSS Assurance’s competition, held during the Pre-Festival evening on the Piazza Grande on Tuesday, August 4, are:
Due to a family emergency, Mexican filmmaker Enrique Rivero has had to cancel his participation in the Leopard for the Best First Feature Jury at the 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival.
The 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival opens on Wednesday August 5th.
The Industry Office of the Locarno Film Festival is proud to announce that the international distribution rights for two films in the International Competition have been acquired following the announcement of the line-up mid-july 2009.
The recipient of the first «Premio Cinema Ticino» (Ticino Cinema Prize), awarded as part of the 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival, is Director of Photography Renato Berta. The award ceremony will take place on August 11th on the Piazza Grande.
As a tribute to Renato Berta, the Locarno Festival will present, on August 12th, Heute Nacht oder nie (1972), the first feature film directed by Daniel Schmid.
The 12th film in the Pokémon saga, entitled Pokémon Diamond & Pearl the Movie : Arceus and the jewel of life, will be presented as an international premiere at the forthcoming Locarno International Film Festival.
One of the special events at the forthcoming Locarno International Film Festival will be a special evening devoted to the Polish director Andrzej Wajda, who will attend in person, on Monday August 10 at 8.30 pm at La Sala.
Once again this year the Locarno International Film Festival is delighted to offer the public a free screening on the Piazza Grande on the eve of the Opening Night, on Tuesday, August 4th, 9:30 pm – thanks to the support of CSS Assurance.
Artistic Director Frédéric Maire announced the 2009 line-up of the 62nd Locarno Festival, which will take place from August 5 to 15, 2009.
The event "OPEN SPACE: Cinema in Piazza Grande", is back for a second year with two evenings of open air cinema in Locarno, on July 31 and August 2.
For the length of the project “Manga Impact – The World of Japanese Animation” the Locarno Film Festival is offering the many Manga fans and all young festival goers budget dormitory accommodation at the civil protection rest centre in Ascona, near Locarno. The centre is just 30 minutes away from Locarno on foot and 15 by bus (regular line bus 1, via Pancaldi Mola Station). It will be open from 5th to 16th August. Price 25 CHF per night.
For its 62nd edition, the Locarno International Film Festival is working with the Union of Film Music Composers of Switzerland (UFMC) to celebrate the Centenary of Film Music. The celebrations will commence on Wednesday 5 August 2009, 5 p.m., at the Fevi Auditorium, with a special screening of Fredi M. Murer’s Vitus (2006), preluding the Festival’s opening night.
The Swisscom Leopard of Honour for the 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival will be awarded to American director William Friedkin, and To Live and Die in L.A. (1985) starring William L. Petersen and Willem Dafoe will screen during the Festival to mark the occasion. A masterclass will also take place at the Spazio Cinema (Forum) and is open to the public.
The Locarno International Festival has endorsed a new partnership with the Europa Distribution network that groups around 70 independent distributors from 19 European countries. Its aim is to foster contacts between producers of the films selected by the Festival and members of Europa Distribution, in order to facilitate distribution agreements.
The American romantic comedy, Marc Webb’s 500 Days of Summer, will open the 62nd edition of the Locarno Film Festival on Wednesday August 5th, 2009 on the Piazza Grande.
The line-up for the official selection in Competition is now shaping up, and several world premières have already been confirmed.
The 62nd Locarno Film Festival will screen in the official selection Musashi: The Dream of the Last Samurai, the latest film conceived and written by the renowned Japanese animation director Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell, The Sky Crawlers) and directed by Mizuho Nishikubo (Legend of Heavenly Sphere Shurato, Otogi Zoshi). The film, produced by animation studio Production I.G (Ghost in the Shell, Kill Bill: Vol. 1), will be released theatrically in Japan on June 13.
The jury for the Locarno Festival’s Open Doors co-production lab has selected 12 projects (out of 114 applications from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan Island) to participate in the final phase of the 2009 session. This year the Open Doors Factory is devoted to Greater China, and will take place from 9 to 11 August 2009, during the 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival.
The “Swiss Cinema Day” will take place as usual during the 62nd Film Festival Locarno, on Wednesday 12 August 2009, one day later than in previous years.
The 62nd Locarno International Film Festival is to welcome the well-known Italian theater actor and director Pippo Delbono, presenting his entire filmography. Among the latter will be a number of works never before screened and his latest full-length feature, La Paura, co-produced by Forum des Images (Paris), just completed and filmed entirely on a mobile phone.
At the 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival the Raimondo Rezzonico Prize 2009 for Best Independent Producer will be presented to French producer Martine Marignac.
On Tuesday, May 26 in the city of Bellinzona, the Department of Education, Culture and Sports of the Canton Ticino (DECS), in collaboration with the Locarno International Film Festival, presented the Ticino Film Award (Premio Cinema Ticino).
The multimedia pages of the Locarno Festival website www.pardo.ch now offer free downloads of official wallpapers and ringtones.
The Locarno Film Festival held its traditional cocktail in Cannes on Sunday, May 17th.
The "David di Donatello" Prize for the Best Italian Actor of the year went to Toni Servillo for his role in Il Divo by Paolo Sorrentino, as announced during the awards ceremony which took place on Friday, May 8 in Rome.
The Variety Piazza Grande Award, first introduced at the 61st Locarno Festival, is to be continued.
The official juries for the next Locarno International Film Festival are already shaping up, with several personalities having already confirmed their participation.
In order to clarify the programming line-up and also for financial reasons, the Locarno Festival will not this year be running the Play Forward sidebar dedicated to visual experimentation and cross-disciplinary arts projects.
Italian actor Toni Servillo will be one of the guests of honour at the 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival, where he will receive an Excellence Award and will also conduct a conversation with the audience.
On Thursday 2 April, at the “NexT” international short and medium length film festival in Bucharest, the Locarno Festival’s own short subject sidebar Leopards of Tomorrow presented a selection of landmark titles from the previous six years’ competitive programs.
The Locarno Festival and the Manga Impact retrospective were presented to industry professionals and the Japanese press
The two Open Doors HAF Award-winning projects were announced on Wednesday 25 March, during the closing ceremony of the HAF – Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum.
Various winners at the Quartz (Swiss Film Prize) awards ceremony held on Saturday March 7th in Lucerne had previously featured in the program at the 61st Locarno Festival last summer.
The submissions for the 62nd Locarno Film Festival are now open (deadline June 1st, 2009).
To submit your film, click here.
The submissions for Open Doors, the Locarno International Film Festival co-production lab, are now open. In 2009 Open Doors is dedicated to projects from Continental China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. Deadline for submission: April 10th, 2009.
To submit your project, click here.
The 2009 poster is part of the Festival’s new visual identity, developed by the agency Jannuzzi Smith to span several years.
Following the success of the previous edition devoted to Latin America, in 2009 the Locarno International Film Festival’s Open Doors section will focus on Greater China.
The Locarno International Film Festival is pleased to announce its collaboration with the George Foundation in Winterthur, which, over the next three years, will be one of the official partners of the Leopards of Tomorrow section.
A special event dedicated to the Locarno Festival will take place at the
Théâtre2Gennevilliers, near Paris, on November 14th and 15th.
The Locarno International Film Festival is joining forces with one of the most prestigious of European Film Museums, in Turin, to organise an ambitious project for a retrospective and exhibition about the world of Japanese anime, particularly the close relationships with the comic strip books (manga) that provide much of its inspiration. Manga Impact will thus offer a fascinating journey through all their genres and styles – from the most commercial to the most cutting-edge – and exploring its more distant roots, from both narrative and graphic perspectives. This event will be accompanied by a comprehensive publication, with a wealth of written and iconographic content, intended as a reference work for anyone interested in discovering the diversity and originality of Manga and Anime.
The Board of the Locarno International Film Festival, at an extraordinary meeting on September 25th, appointed Olivier Père, currently in charge of the Director’s Fortnight at Cannes, as the new Artistic Director for the Locarno Festival, who will start at the end of next year’s festival (5-15 August 2009). He will succeed Frédéric Maire, who, as was announced last June, will become head of the Swiss Cinémathèque on 1st November, 2009.
For the 8th consecutive year, a selection of films of the 61st Locarno Festival will be presented in Rome, in the frame of "I grandi festival… Locarno a Roma", from August 31st until September 5th, at the Piazza Vittorio Arena
A selection of films from the 61st Locarno Festival will be presented in Milan from September 8 to 14, 2008.
Three films of the 2008 Festival will be screened in Piazza Manzoni, Lugano, on August 22-23-24.
The closing ceremony for the 61st edition of the Locarno International Film Festival took place on Saturday August 16 on the Piazza Grande. The Golden Leopard was awarded to Parque via by Enrique Rivero (Mexico). This first feature is also the first Mexican film to win the Locarno Golden Leopard ever.
The award-winning films will be screened on Sunday, August 17th at La Sala and L'altra Sala from 10 a.m.
The closing ceremony of the 61st Locarno International Film Festival took place on Saturday, August 16th 2008 at the Piazza Grande. The announcement of the Official Awards 2008 was followed by the screening of BACK SOON, a French / Islandic comedy by Solveig Anspach, as a World Premiere.
The “Kabaret Kino, 4 days in short” offers, for the third time at Locarno, a "lab for film improvisation", organised by the association tiKINÒ in collaboration with the short film section Leopards of Tomorrow.
The Raimondo Rezzonico Prize 2008 was awarded Thursday night to the American producer Christine Vachon.
The winners of Nanni Moretti's Filmquiz will be announced on Friday, August 15 at 4.15 p.m. at the cinema Ex-Rex, prior to the screening of Diari della Sacher. Nanni Moretti will attend the awards ceremony.
The Industry Office of the Locarno Film Festival is proud to announce that the international distribution rights for five films in the International Competition have been acquired after the announcement of the line-up mid-july 2008.
Nanni Moretti’s Filmquiz challenge, made especially for the Locarno Festival, was announced today.
The polish filmmaker will present his 1965 feature, chosen by Nanni Moretti in the frame of his Carte blanche as "filmgoer"
The awards for the 2008 session of the Open Doors Factory, the Locarno International Film Festival’s co-production lab that is organised with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) were announced on Wednesday August 13.
A game, with many prizes for the winner, devised as a real “film quiz”, written, directed and performed by Nanni Moretti.
Keep it short: A meet the filmmakers session, in the two Leopards of Tomorrow competitions
Locarno celebrates the anniversary of the trigon-film association with Yasujiro Ozu’s silent classic, Umarete wa mita keredo (I was born.. but, 1932).
On Sunday, August 10 at 7.30 p.m. (Rialto 1), Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai, Leopard of Honor 2008, will introduce his film "Kippur" (2000), together with actor Livo Leron, member of the Jury for the International Competition.
A conversation with the American writer Chuck Palahniuk will take place at the Forum (Spazio Cinema) on Sunday, August 10th, at 11 a.m. Free entrance according to places’ availability.
A conversation with Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai took place on Thursday, August 7 at the Forum (Spazio Cinema).
To mark the presentation of “Locarno meets Gennevilliers” as the opening programme in the Filmmakers of the Present Competition, a special performance of Le début de l’A., a play/concert devised by and featuring Pascal Rambert (theatre director and director of the Théâtre2Gennevilliers near Paris) and Kate Moran will take place at the Teatro Paravento on Thursday August 7 at 18h.
Entrance is free, subject to seating capacity. (The show lasts around 1 hour)
The 61st edition of the Locarno International Film Festival will open on August 6th, with a twofold inauguration.
A new Cinema Palace in Locarno: the ecological projects of the students in architecture (Accademia di architettura di Mendrisio) – Exhibition
Nanni Moretti, the Italian director, actor and producer was given a carte blanche to pick a set of films which will be screened during the 61st Locarno International Film Festival as a complete retrospective dedicated to him.
The photos exhibition "Nanni Moretti, on set from Aprile to Caos calmo" has been inaugurated on Saturday, August 2nd in Locarno.
At the traditional Pre-Festival, the British documentary Young@heart by Stephen Walker (2007) will be screened on the Piazza Grande, on Thursday, August 5th at 9.30 pm.
Expecting the Locarno International Film Festival, as a warm up OPEN SPACE presents three cinema nights in Piazza Grande, on August 1-2-3.
The 61st Locarno International Film Festival will be dedicating a special event to Kitaro, a cult figure in Japanese animation, well-known to manga enthusiasts of all ages.
The Locarno International Film Festival pays tribute to Egyptian director Youssef Chahine who died on July 27.
The photos exhibition “Mélancolie Cinéma, le(s) cinéma(s) de Simon Edelstein” has been inaugurated on July 31st in Ascona.
Two new films have been added to the official selection of the 61st Locarno International Film Festival, which opens on August 6th.
The Screening schedule for the Piazza Grande and the International Competition selection is available in PDF.
The American actress Anjelica Huston, who was due to come to the forthcoming Locarno International Film Festival to receive the Excellence Award, has to cancel her trip.
Choke di Clark Gregg will be screened as an European Premiere on Saturday August 9th at 11.30 p.m. on the Piazza Grande, in attendance of the director Clark Gregg, scriptwriter Chuck Palahniuk, the film’s producers Flynn Beau, Johnathan Dorfman, and co-producer Lisa Zambri.
The 2008 selection of the Locarno International Film Festival has been announced. The Press Kit is available in four languages. The film details and the screening schedule will be published soon.
The 61st edition of the Locarno International Film, which opens on August 6, has been made possible thanks to the contribution of numerous sponsors and partners in the private sector.
The Swiss Cinema Day with three Swiss World Premieres, young actors in the limelight and the Appellations Suisse programme
A spectacular treat is in store for Saturday 9th August 2008 on the Piazza Grande, with the world première of Nordwand (North Face) by Philipp Stölzl.
The Locarno International Film Festival’s short film section Leopards of Tomorrow once again demonstrates great energy and promise.
For its forthcoming edition, the Locarno International Film Festival will screen Lezione 21, the directorial debut by renowned Italian writer Alessandro Baricco (Silk, Novecento, City).
Anjelica Huston receives the Excellence Award 2008 and screens Choke on the Piazza Grande.
The line-up of the 61th edition of the Locarno International Film Festival will be announced on Wednesday, July 16th.
12 projects from 10 Latin American countries out of a total of 332 submissions have been selected for participation in the Open Doors co-production lab focusing on Latin America.
The governing board of the Swiss Film Archive has designated Frédéric Maire, currently Artistic Director of the Locarno International Film Festival, to succeed Hervé Dumont as head of the institution.
The Jury for the International Competition of the 61st edition of the Locarno International Film Festival is shaping up. Four noted individuals have already confirmed their participation.
The whole team of the Film Festival Locarno deeply regrets the death of of Sidney Pollack, deceased on May 26th.
The Locarno International Film Festival Delegates are presently attending the Film Festival in Cannes, where they are meeting professionals from all over the world.
For its upcoming edition (6-16 August 2008), the Locarno International Film Festival in collaboration with Variety will introduce a new prize: the Variety Piazza Grande Award.
Open Doors, the Locarno International Film Festival’s co-production lab, organised with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), continues to grow and prove its international appeal.
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.
Film submissions for the 61st Locarno International Film Festival will be opened until June 1st, 2008.
The Locarno International Film Festival is pleased to announce a new collaboration with the Film Annex, an online film promotion and distribution company and social network based in New York.
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.
From 31st of March until 2nd of April, the International Film Festival Locarno has been on a promotion tour meeting representatives of the catalan film industry and the local press in Barcelona.
Two of the official juries for the next Locarno International Film Festival are already in place: that of the Filmmakers of the Present Competition and that of the Leopard for the Best First Film.
Movie people and gentle atmosphere during the traditional Locarno cocktail organised in occasion of the 58th Berlinale, with the attendance of President Marco Solari and Artistic Director Frédéric Maire.
The retrospective for the 61st edition of the Locarno International Film Festival (6 -16 August 2008) will be devoted to the work of the Italian filmmaker, actor and producer Nanni Moretti.
The Locarno Festival will take part at the international short film showcase for mobile phones, organized in the frame of the Mobile World Congress 2008 (Barcelona 11-14th February 2008).
The poster for the 61st edition is the first in a series that will play on the image of the Festival’s new leopard, created by the agency Jannuzzi Smith.
On Friday August 7, the French Ministry of Culture and Communication held a cocktail and dinner at the Locarno International Film Festival for French and Swiss film professionals.