Presskit English
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PressKit english 1 Information for journalist Locarno 2020 Presskit is available also at Locarno Film Festival website www.locarnofestival.ch The following link provides journalists with press material on the Locarno 2020 - For the Future of Films projects as trailers, film extracts, film and director images and film presskits. Access: https://filemanager.pardo.ch/index.php/s/nf1OsosubAOrtlK password: leopard2020 A selection of photographic material proposed by the Press Office on Locarno 2020 can also be downloaded at the following link. Contacts Press Office phone: +41 91 756 21 21 email: [email protected] Press area on the Festival’s website; https://www.locarnofestival.ch/it/LFF/press Facebook: @ LocarnoFilmFestival Instagram: @filmfestlocarno Twitter: @FilmFestLocarno LinkedIn: @LocarnoFilmFestival 2 Contents 1. Introduction by Marco Solari, President 4 2. Introduction by Lili Hinstin, Artistic Director 5 3. Introduction by Raphaël Brunschwig, Chief Operating Officer 6 4. This is Locarno 2020. The present and the future, with 72 years of history 7 5. Official Juries 10 6. Opening and closing nights at Locarno 2020: cows, robots and lockdown 12 The Films After Tomorrow and A Journey in the Festival’s History 13 Pardi di domani 19 Open Doors Screenings and Through the Open Doors 22 Secret Screenings 24 7. Locarno Pro Online Edition 25 StepIn in partnership with Variety 27 SwissBiz Round Table 28 Heritage Online 29 Open Doors 30 8. Locarno Kids 33 9. Youth Advisory Board 34 10. USI and the Locarno Film Festival to create a joint professorship on the future of cinema and the visual arts 35 11. Forward back: discovering Locarno Film Festival’s archives 36 Locarno on demand: Collaboration between Locarno Film Festival and VOD platforms 38 Il Pardo a casa tua 41 12. Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films at a glance: all online and physical activities 43 13. Screenings in theaters 44 14. Attachments 45 3 Renewing confidence in the future This year we must do without Piazza Grande, the handsome 19th century square that is both the historic core of the city and the symbolic heart of the Festival. The Piazza is irreplaceable, since by definition a Festival is a meet- ing place. Nevertheless, the Canton Ticino is used to approaching everything with a positive attitude, and this is no exception. It may well be that the Italian trait in our character allows us to take life with a smile, to be unfazed by a crisis that would otherwise leave unyielding pride or self-certainty demolished in its wake. Instead, we face up to this difficult challenge with two objectives in mind. First, to maintain worldwide, thanks to a Festival both physical and digital, the position, renown and credibility achieved in more than seven decades of artistic rigor and consistency. Second, not to disappoint the expectations of our audience, the driving, motivating force behind the Locarno Film Festival, instead continuing to share with them — all the more so in this year in which di- alogue has been “locked down” — the stories, gazes and visions that have enlivened us for 73 years: the movies. At the time of writing the signs are positive. If we succeed in renewing the confidence of film professionals and cinephiles around the world, and of those who have always been close to the Festival, I am convinced that we will emerge from this trial even stronger than before. Marco Solari, President of the Locarno Film Festival All language versions of the text, including French and German, are available here 4 Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow A remarkable phenomenon: the entire world is going through a collective experience. Besides terrible suffering, the pandemic has brought the revelation of a truly global world, one that we are still engaging with. We have ourselves become the center of this world, living it in our homes on the screens of our phones and computers. Given that film is a medium through which the world is presented in sounds and images, perhaps those of us who work with films were more prepared for this moment than others. Nonetheless, for all of us this is a new expe- rience: being turned back on ourselves and of experiencing a sense of time in which reflection finds more space than usual, as the relentless speed of society has slowed down and relaxed its grip on us. As a result, this is a moment for profound self-examination, an opportunity for us to rethink the Festival and ask ourselves what should be its underlying mission, its essence. Answer number one: to defend, support and be there for the filmmakers and their work. We do that through the choices we make, presenting a temporary map of the state of the world to the audience and the press, along with the aesthetic hypotheses that represent it. The whole complex structure of the Festival, the partners and sponsors, all contribute to drawing up that map and the pathways it charts ahead. Therefore, in this health crisis — to which, at time of writing, there is no end in sight (these words make me feel like I’m writing the secret diary of a Philip K. Dick character) — me and the Selection Committee have decided to follow two clear guiding principles: responsibility and solidarity. We acted responsibly in giving up our large-scale venues, especially the iconic Piazza Grande, even though they are one of the glories and pleasures of Locarno (one of the very few great festivals where you can almost guaran- tee to get in to see a movie), which in turn has meant canceling our various competitive sections for full-length features. The idea of presenting auteur cinema on small screens in the middle of August, right after lockdown, struck us as a completely inappropriate way for the films to impact their audience. Instead, we decided to use part of the money destined for the traditional prizes and create The Films After Tomorrow. With additional contributions from various partners, this project will offer funding ranging from CHF 30,000 to 70,000 to films whose completion has been threatened by Covid-19. At the same time, we felt it was also necessary to act in solidarity with the other end of the production and dis- tribution chain, one of the sectors hit hardest by the pandemic: movie theaters. When watching any of the titles that we will be presenting online, every user will be invited to make a donation towards helping independent theaters in Switzerland. This “scaled-down” edition of the Festival will therefore be one that, more than ever, looks to the future: by contributing directly to upcoming film productions; by supporting independent movie theaters that program auteur cinema; and also by giving renewed emphasis to two of the sections that are linked especially closely to the future of cinema: Pardi di domani and Open Doors. The short films section Pardi di domani includes directors who have yet to make their full-length debut, while Open Doors, celebrating its 18th birthday, is dedicated to the cinemas of so-called “emerging” nations who represent the world of tomorrow. Lastly, the hybrid edition of the Festival that we have created this year, steering a course between the physical and the dematerialized, is also a first step in an ongoing internal debate as to how our content will be accessed in years to come. And so, as someone said to me recently, we could think of this as a “collector’s edition” of the Locarno Film Festival, a special edition that looks to the light from the shadows, like the man in the picture from Hugo Santi- ago’s Invasión, which illustrates our program. At the same time, this is an edition that, like all its predecessors, is profoundly in touch – not to say grappling! – with its time. Lili Hinstin, Artistic Director Locarno Film Festival All language versions of the text, including French and German, are available here 5 Opportunities in a time of crisis The need for a step forward in quality The continued success and even the very existence of a world class event, in a territory like Italian-speaking Switzerland, cannot be taken for granted. That was the premise when President Marco Solari and the Board of Governors asked the Locarno Film Festival’s Chief Operating Officer and his team for a thorough review of all the various organizational factors at play in tackling the current situation. Locarno 2020, the Festival goes on In a year when the global pandemic has swept away so many of the occasions for socializing that were formerly part of our daily routine, the Festival has done its utmost to remain present. A response made possible by the solid support of our Partners The Locarno Film Festival is in a position to reassert its values thanks to the trust placed in us by our institutional and private sector Partners, who stood by us during months in which gloom and uncertainty clouded the hori- zon. Their exemplary solidarity not only allowed the Festival to react positively to the crisis, but also gave us the momentum to conceive a project of great symbolic significance, capable of securing and energizing the resourc- es available in our region, but also of maintaining and improving our connections with the rest of the world. A launching pad for the Festival of the future The project for this special edition Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films is not intended to be merely a stopgap pending resumption of normal service. On the contrary, the intention is that it be a launching pad for Festivals to come, laying the foundations for all the indispensable innovations required by a contemporary event deter- mined to maintain its strong global resonance.