Locarno, Italy
What’s It All About?
Throughout its 67-year history, the Festival del Film Locarno has occupied a unique position in the landscape of the major film festivals. Every August, for 11 days, the Swiss-Italian town of Locarno, in the heart of Europe, becomes the world capital of auteur cinema.
Thousands of film fans and industry professionals meet here every summer to share their thirst for new discoveries and a passion for cinema in all its diversity. The audience is the soul of the festival, as exemplified in the famous evenings on the Piazza Grande, whose magical setting can accommodate up to 8,000 film-goers every night. Geographically located at the crossroads of three European regions, (Italian, German and French), Locarno is a unique launch platform for new films from all over the world.
Thus for industry professionals Locarno is an unmissable rendezvous and an opportunity to unearth gems from a challenging selection of world premières, to take the pulse of new trends and explore new terrain in contemporary cinema.
Watch Out For!
Opening Film
Lucy
This year, Luc Benson’s Scralett Johanson-Morgan Freeman starrer Lucy will open the festival. The film is a sci-fi thriller about a woman caught in a dark deal who turns the tables on her captors and transforms into a merciless warrior.
Piazza Grande line-up includes the international premieres of:
• Dancing Arabs
• Land Ho!
• Clouds Of Sils Maria
Some of the other feature showcases include:
• A Hitman’s Solitude Before The Shot
• A La Vie
• Geronimo
• Tour De Force
• Les Plages D’Agnes
• Love Island
• Marie Heurtin
• Pause
• Schweizer Helden
• The Hundred Foot Journey
World premieres this year include Jasmila Zbanic’s latest film Love Island and Florian Mischa Boder’s A Hitman’s Solitude Before The Shot.
• A Blast
• Alive
• Horse Money
• Cure – The Life Of Another
• Dos Disparos
• The Fool
• Fidelio L’Odyssee D’Alice
• Gyeongju
• The Princess of France
• La Sapienza
• L’Abri
• Listen Up Philip
• From What Is Before
• White Nights On The Pier
• Perfidia
• The Iron Ministry
• Ventos De Agosto
Actress Juliette Binoche will receive the festival’s Excellence Award Moet & Chandon, and German film actor, painter, writer and musician Armin Mueller-Stahl will pick up the Lifetime Achievement Award.
American actress Mia Farrow will be honoured with the Leopard Club Award, which was introduced only last year.
The festival will also honour versatile Italian thesp Giancarlo Giannini with a career award. There will be several screenings of his films, including his big-screen debut Don’t Bother The Mosquito.