Blue News stopped a few days in Ticino for the 78th International Film Festival in Locarno. Films, meetings, interviews and immersion in the field: our impressions.
Find our Best of Locarno this evening at 7:40 p.m. on Blue Zoom.
The Locarno International Film Festival is a whole experience. The whole city has leopard colors – The price awarded to the best film in competition is a golden leopard – and while walking on the cobblestones, it is not uncommon to meet cinema stars or political figures.
This year, a Blue News team stopped by the Major lake from August 6 to 9, to live the first days of the high mass of cinema. An opportunity to draw up a subjective assessment of the adventure.
The world class of Emma Thompson
The British actress with long filmography like the arm counted among the guests of honor of the demonstration. She received the “Leopard Club Award” award for her entire career.
Dynamic, sparkling, intelligent: the star has not disappointed. On the contrary, Emma Thompson succeeded in a magnificent tour de force by delivering a speech in Italian in front of the crowd gathered on August 8 on the Grande Piazza … when she does not speak at all the language of Dante!
KEYSTONE
From the age of 66, the heroine of “Love Actually” or “reason and feelings” has the world class. Low hat.
The audacity of the programming
In opening film, the Locarno festival has chosen to project “Le Pays d’Arto”, with Camille Cottin at the head of the poster. A choice at least daring by the theme addressed: the story of a Frenchwoman married to an Armenian for 20 years, who discovers the country of her husband after the death of the latter. Coming for a simple formality, she will realize that the one she thought of knowing by heart lied to her … A film which approaches the endless war in Armenia, the resilience of the population and the deep suffering induced by conflicts. And if the result was a little long, let’s recognize the L’Audace festival of its selection.
Among the 223 films on the program this year, we will also note the documentary “She”, by Parsifal Reparato. Here again, the film attracts the spectator’s attention to a problem that seems distant for European eyes: the trajectory of Vietnamese women working for a large technological company. Through the account of several of these workers, we become aware of what can be modern slavery, of the ravages which it causes in thousands of lives, but also of some of the advantages of this system for the local population. A real sociological work, which took several years to the director.
The organizers of the festival often recall this: one of the goals of cinema is to arouse reflection, to open the debate, by offering different looks on the reality of the world. These are two examples among so many others to say that the bet is once again won.
Locarno is also a unique opportunity for different universes to meet and dialogue. This year, the Federal Councilor and Minister of Culture Elisabeth Baume-Schneider was there. Met during the traditional political dinner of the demonstration -the 24th of the name -, she told Blue News that her favorite film was often “the last she had seen”, explaining for example that she had appreciated the day before in Locarno “The Birthday Party”, with Willem Dafoe. But she says she was also marked by other films in certain periods of her life, such as “E La Nave Va”, by Fellini.
KEYSTONE
Organized by the GARP (AUTORS GROUP • TRICES, DIRECTORS • TRICES AND producers • TRICES), dinner has enabled cinema professionals to meet with different federal and cantonal elected officials. On the menu: discussions around the financial constraints of cinema and funding increasingly difficult to obtain, while the branch strives to revalue working conditions in this sector. Another subject addressed during the evening: the still little explored potential of Switzerland as a place of filming. For Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, it is clear: “People of Cinema and Politicians have a lot to say to each other, and everyone has their role to play”.
It’s sad, but that’s how: while Emma Thompson was praised for the whole of his career, it was not – and far – not his best film that was screened on the Grande Piazza. On paper, “The Dead of Winter” seemed promising: a fisherman finds herself stuck in a snowstorm in Minnesota. In the midst of nowhere, she fortuitously interrupts the kidnapping of a teenager and will realize that she is the only hope of the girl. She promises to do everything to save her. Unfortunately, we may be dealing with an excellent actress, when the scenario is not up to the task, miracles rarely occur. And there, between nostalgic scenes with rose water and slow story, no miracle took place.
Okay, security is important. But all the same, have we ever seen a gourd attack? Films on Piazza Grande starts at 9:30 p.m. If you want to have a correct place, you have to come around 7:30 p.m. to 8 p.m., because there is no possible reservation. And we’re in Ticino: it’s hot. So we take his gourd with ourselves, filled with fresh water to hold on. Especially that in real life, the film begins much later than 9:30 p.m., since the public is entitled each evening to the images of the festival, to the parades of the stars on the red carpet and a few speeches before the real kick -off of the film. This year, therefore, surprised at the entrance to the Piazza Grande: the security staff searches the bags and asks all the gourdes holders to place them at the entrance. As in the locker room, we give you a small number that will allow you to recover your gourd at the exit. Spend at least three hours sitting on a plastic chair in the middle of a huge crowd and being deprived of its water: for us, it is a red card.
