Yesterday a first taste of the festival with the screening of the film that crowned the duo Terence Hill and Bud Spencer in the new genre. Tomorrow, the look of the successful world premiere co-production between Switzerland, Germany and Czech Republic titled GOTTHARD. But let's get to the news this year that are synthesized as well by the artistic director Carlo Chatrian: "I dedicate to Michael Cimino and Abbas Kiarostami this edition. Not just as a thank you for the emotions that have given to the Festival audience, but also because they represent cinema that is at home in Locarno. Cinema Law that reality and transfigures, film that is not afraid to be thought even when facing great stories that "small" are never, cinema that uses the whole tone scale, the wide field to the foreground. Film that comes as a breath of wind, and take you away with it ". In tribute to Abbas Kiarostami is presented posthumously his laboratory in Cuba: 7 short films that communicate with the last work created by the great filmmaker who died recently. In the international competition were the directors who come from Egypt, from Thailand, Bulgaria and Portugal, Argentina and United States with the same characteristic that their protagonists are all on the move. As if driven by a wind that breathes within them, they move from one end of a continent like the brilliant "revisiting Shakespearean" proposed by Piñeiro, or restless in the folds of a city like Marija in the movie. they move, despite themselves, in time, as it happens all'ornitologo João Pedro Rodrigues or mother, described by Milagros Mumenthaler. They also move when the film is enclosed in a place: It is the case of the beautiful tracking shots that follow the paths of seduction designed by Yousry Nasrallah. And when they are immobilized in a hospital bed with its occupant to move like Scarred Hearts. He asks the Artistic Director: "What tells quest'irrequietezza? Perhaps the desire to see things and people from another point of view, the feeling that a movement is necessary when this does not fit to our desires. So are movies errant those chosen for the edition 69, films seeking their own entity going to fathom the past as is the fascinating portrait proposed by Anocha Suwichakornpong ". The same happens in the Piazza Grande program and other sections. Films that investigate the actuality, such as the path of Islamic radicalization in The Countdown ciel or history in its most famous exile in Latin America traces of Stefan Zweig in Von der Morgenröte or those destined to oblivion as the disappearance of an Indonesian poet under the regime Suharto in Solo, Solitude. Piazza Grande in addition to the two Pre-Festival provides 16 titles. two of which are dedicated to the history of cinema. Therein expected blockbusters and art films, debuts and other established directors. There is also the return of Ken Loach's Palme d'Or 2016 and the grandiose staging conceived by Ashutosh Gowariker in his Mohenjo Daro, film that will close the 69 edition.
The International Competition includes 17 works, all in world premiere. Of these eight see the presence of directors behind the camera, if we are not equal, close enough. There are then several times invited artists and dear to the festival as João Pedro Rodrigues, Tizza Covi Rainer Frimmel e, Matías Piñeiro, Yousry Nasrallah and young directors that have been launched by the Locarno Film Festival as Mumenthaler and Tomita, but other authors to whom the Festival has closely followed the path as Ropert, Jude, Schanelec, Azevedo Gomes and others discovered during the selection as Matuszyńsk, Kristina and Petar Grozeva Valchanov, Koch, Petrova, Suwichakornpong.
Outside the competition section includes films that arise each as a small event. They are for various reasons the first film The Italian amateur - portrait of a Milanese architect of the fascist period through his private archives and grand narrative orchestrated from the pen of Antonio Scurati – it toccante documentario di Valeria Bruni Tedeschi e Yann Coridian A girl 90 years, or the harrowing film testimony, The nature of things.
But let the composition of the jury of the International Competition with President Mexican director Arturo Ripstein,the same, assisted by Kate Moran, actress (France / United States), Rafi Pitts, director (Iran), Rodrigo Teixeira, producer (Brazil) e WANG Bing, director (China). Instead of the Filmmakers of the Present Competition jury is chaired by Dario Argento, assisted by Greek actress Angeliki Papoulia, Antonin Peretjatko, director (France), Cornelia Seitler, producer (Switzerland) e da Sean Price Williams, photography director (United States).
Section Leopards of Tomorrow has as jury president German director Edgar Reitz, and as members of the Spanish actress Marian Álvarez, Julie Corman, producer (United States), Shahrbanoo Sadat, director (Afghanistan) and the Swiss director Nicolas Steiner.
Finally, the First Feature jury is composed by Jonathan Romney, critic (UK), Ryan Werner, programmer and marketer film (United States) and Chus Martínez, curator (Spain).
This year the Swisscom Leopard of honor went to Alejandro Jodorowsky which will be projected a large event such as The Dance of Reality of 2013, THE SACRED MOUNTAIN 1973, the new film POESÍA SIN FIN year and SANTA SANGRE ddel 1989.
With the retrospective dedicated to the cinema of the young Federal Republic of Germany after the war the Locarno Film Festival returns to turn your eyes to a nearby cinema. The program has the task of bringing to light a new film production of great interest, so much for its cultural aspects and its production mode because of the values of the individual works.
The Franco-British singer and actress Jane Birkin voice, face and elegance transgressive sixties, It will host the 69th edition of the Locarno Film Festival on the Square that nine years ago (2007) Tribute Michelangelo Antonioni, one of the masters with whom he worked, getting the lifetime achievement award. So commented Carlo Chatrian, Artistic Director of the Festival: "I am very pleased to reward the extraordinary career of an actress as Jane Birkin, who went through the history of modern cinema with a trajectory that has no equal. Able to ignite the frame with his presence, to decline the word seduction in an original way, to be fashionable while being fashions side, Jane Birkin has created characters who remain impressed by that singular note of lost innocence that will vibrate in her ".
Finally Locarno will pay tribute to the beloved Italian actress Stefania Sandrelli which this year celebrated 55 year career and her "70 times the spring". She will be handed over in Piazza Grande, Friday 5 August, il Leopard Club Award 2016.
Alongside will be held 27. Edition of the Semaine de la critique - independent section of the Locarno International Film Festival. from 1990 It is organized by the Swiss Association of Film Journalists and presents 7 documentaries made in very special 2016:
Bezness As Usual - Alex Pitstra - First International Netherlands / Tunisia
Sea Tomorrow - Katerina Suvorova - prima mondiale Kazakhstan / Germany
African Book - Heidi Specogna - World prima Svizzera / Germany
Monk of the Sea – Rafał Skalski – prima internazionale Polonia
El Remolino - Laura Herrero Garvin - First International Mexico
According to Me - Pavel Cuzuioc - World Austria
Communion - Anna Zamecka - prima mondiale Polonia.
so we expect the opening with the screening of The Girl With All The Gifts in the Piazza Grande 3 August. very strong stomachs for film.