We all know the influence of an artistic director upon a festival’s identity. This 63rd edition of Locarno Film Festival is the first one headed by Olivier Père (former delegate of Cannes Directors’ Fortnight for several years) and therefore the beginning of a new era for a festival considered as one of the most important cinema events in the year (along with Cannes, Berlin, Venice and Toronto film festivals). From August 4 to 14, Locarno will thus be the center of the world for cinema lovers.
“The role of festivals is to support and comment on films, not just to show them. Although the major festivals have skillfully played a role as luxury showcases for world cinema for a long time, this is no longer enough. A cinephile festival should make a real and effective intervention, expediting and encouraging recognition for filmmakers, or the emergence of a particular country on the world cinema map.” The first selection of Olivier Père is placed under the sign of discovery with two dozens of first feature films including the awaited Memory Lane by Michael Hers. Young directors will be invited along with veterans such as Benoit Jacquot, who will open the festival with his new film Deep in the Woods starring French actress Isild Le Besco -also attending as a filmmaker with Bas-Fonds.
The International Competition complies with the idea of a mix since it includes films as diverse as Christophe Honoré’s latest feature, Man at Bath, Chinese director Xu Xin’s six-hour long documentary Karamay, or L.A. Zombie by Bruce LaBruce, the story of an alien homosexual zombie starring French gay porn superstar François Sagat, also staring in Honoré’s film. The banishment of L.A. Zombie from the Melbourne Film Festival by the Australian Film Classification Commission (these things usually never happen during festivals), brought, says its director, even greater publicity to the film, which will consequently premiere in Locarno. We can not help seeing there a sad echo to our recent focus about censorship (read it here).
The Piazza Grande (outdoor place for the festival’s big screenings) will feature, amongst others and following the Festival’s policy of diversity, The Human Ressource Manager by Eran Riklis, director of Etz Limon in 2008, The Counsel by Cédric Anger, Russian Garri Bardine’s latest animation film, The Ugly Duckling, Cyrus by the Duplass Brothers starring Jonah Hill and the fantastic John C.Reilly -who will also be honoured- or the already cult film Rubber by Quentin Dupieux (Steak), the story of an avenging tyre, which was Cannes 2010 hottest sensation and provoked a crush to access its screening (see the official website).
Ernst Lubitsch will also be honoured with a retrospective featuring almost his whole filmography with a special focus upon the not so well known German part of his career. The retrospective led by Joseph McBride -if you don’t have his book Searching for John Ford stop reading this page and go get it right now!- will culminate with the screening of To Be Or Not To Be on the Piazza Grande. It will then travel through various cinematheques around the world.
We also have to mention the Leopard of Honour, which will be given to Chinese director Jia Zhang-Ke (Still Life, 24 City) and to Swiss filmmaker Alain Tanner (In the White City, Jonas Who Will be 25 in the Year 2000) and also the homage to independent producer Menhaem Golan, who gave, with his cousin Yoram Globus, so much pleasure to eighties teenagers with their legendary action films (Bloodsport, Cobra, Death Wish 3) but also produced directors such as John Cassavetes (Love Streams), Barbet Schroeder (Barlfy) or Jean-Luc Godard (King Lear).
Out of the competition we will also see two new short films by Luc Moullet shot in 2010, Always less and, as a world premiere, Masterpiece?, five short films by Jean Marie Straub including O Somma Luce as a world premiere and the short films directed by Lodge Kerrigan, Bertrand Bonello and Joachim Lafosse for the French Théâtre de Gennevilliers.
With this eclectic and challenging line up and the wider opening to a professional audience with the creation of the Industry Days (August 7 to 9) during which buyers from all around the world will have the opportunity to attend special screenings of the films and round tables, the 2010 Locarno Film Festival starts in the best way a new era, which we hope to be long and filled with great discoveries.
Francis Chérasse
Read the official line up, in pdf
“Pierre Etaix comes from a line of great comedians. But comedy means tragedy too. It’s a kind of lineage of comedians like Buster Keaton, whom terrible things happens to but who will always get out of it unharmed. His character is unflinching and clumsy, which is normal for someone alive; rational and efficient people are really sad. We know he was Jacques Tati’s collaborator. He is a great man in the film industry, a creator. His films are sad, especially “Yoyo”. It’s the tragedy of a little boy, his father is a Count and he will become a clown for his beloved one. This film shows the year 1929, during the crisis when they will be ruined. The little boy becomes a quite famous clown. He will inherit his father’s ruins, become the owner and his life is sad. But as Etaix is a man of honour, an elephant will arrive and will take away the little boy. This movie hasn’t been really appreciated by the audience, Tati and Etaix have been replaced by De Funès -it’s my point of view but I don’t think he is funny: he is nothing, not even a clown. That kind of films are made everywhere around the world, they just put an idiot completely lost in our society and it is funny. But aristocrats like Tati and Etaix lost in our society, that’s tragical.”
After studies of piano, mathematics and mecanic, Otar Iosseliani, born in Georgia, learnt filmmaking at the VGIK, Moscow pretigious film school. He settled in France in 1982 where he shot Monday Morning (Lundi matin), Farewell, Home Sweet Home (Adieu plancher des vaches) and his latest film Gardens in Autumn (Jardins en automne). His new film, Chantrapas, presented in Cannes during a special screening will open on French screens on September 22, 2010.
In the unbearable heat provoked by the Halley’s Comet passing, two rival gangs argue about the control of the vaccine that will enable to fight against the virus striking those who have sex without love. Two of the gangsters ask Alex to help them. He falls in love with Anna, the girlfriend of one of them.
“I got shocked. This movie came out quite anonymously in France but it received some nice reviews and got a great commercial life in Brazil. The story is about two guys who manage a construction company in Sao Paulo. They have a third associate with whom everything goes wrong. He threats them to quit, which jeopardizes the company and all the pending projects. The two associates decide to hire a professional killer -we are talking about a “film noir”, a suspense movie-, who is going to accomplish what he was hired for. But instead of disappearing after the job is done, he stays around and sticks to their lives, especially to their professional lives. It’s the wolf in the sheepfold: the pact with the devil turns into a blackmail. The script is terrific, the actors are unbelievable and the direction is definitely stylish and powerful.”
Emmanuel Agneray founded Bizibi Productions, which Jérôme Bleitrach quickly joined later as an associate. As a producer, he follows authors from their short films to their feature films such as Israelian director Keren Yedaya (Lulu, Or –Camera d’Or at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival-, Jaffa) or Lebanese director Hany Tamba (Beyrut After Shave, A Song in the Head) or these days actress-director Aure Atika, who is about to shoot her first feature film after some really promising shorts films.
After more than thirty years of troublemaking activities in the cinema industry, the Hays code loses its authority in the sixties, due to its inadequacy with the global changes in society. Some films manage to escape its attentiveness and weaken the power of the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America since 1945, former MPDDA). Two films can be taken as examples: The Pawnbroker by Sidney Lumet in 1964 and Blow Up by Michelangelo Antonioni in 1966. The first one is rejected by the commission due to a little too explicit sex scene and a few nude breasts. Under the pressure from the production, the film is re-examined and finds its way to the silver screens. Concerning Blow Up, financed by American funds, the MGM studio simply decided to release the film without the commission approval.
Well known in France as one of the historical writers of the most famous satyrical shows on TV, Les Guignols de l’Info, with his fellowmate Frank Magnier, Alexandre Charlot then took up film writing and gave birth to the two biggest 2008 French hits: Asterix at the Olympic Games and Welcome to the land of Shtis, amongst other works. After he directed his first feature film starring Catherine Frot, Imogène McCarthery, he is now preparing a new film as a director.
Emblematic director of the Japanese new wave Koji Wakamatsu made himself famous with his Stakhanov style shooting rhythm, his stylish direction and his total commitment to the subjects he deals with. This second set dedicated to his work highlights four new black and white (and pink of course) gems directed between 1969 and 1972, which mix eroticism, violence and revolt and produces as surprising an outcome as forty years ago.