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LOCARNO 2022

Daniela Persico • Responsable, Locarno Residency

"No queremos que los puntos de vista de los directores jóvenes se estandaricen, los queremos diversos y únicos"

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- La responsable del nuevo proyecto Locarno Residency habla con entusiasmo del enlace entre el Festival de Locarno y los jóvenes cineastas

Daniela Persico • Responsable, Locarno Residency

Este artículo está disponible en inglés.

On the occasion of the Locarno Film Festival announcing its new Locarno Residency project, which is aimed at supporting young authors and is due to be launched during the event’s 75th edition (3-13 August), we seized the opportunity to chat with Daniela Persico who’s heading up the project and who’s been a long-time collaborator of the Locarno-based festival.

Cineuropa: Could you tell us a little bit about the new Locarno Residency project?
Daniela Persico:
We decided to create Locarno Residency because, unlike other festivals, the Locarno Film Festival didn’t yet have a lab for developing projects by young authors, so it seemed only right to create one, not least because the Locarno Film Festival is known for its discoveries and its promotion of new talent. We want to help them make the crucial leap from shorts to feature films: find the right partners, the right producer and the right crew members to accompany them on their long and complex journey. It’s important that these young authors find the right story to tell from the outset, and that they preserve the uniqueness of their voices without falling into the trap of overly standardised projects. The Locarno Residency will be part of this process, helping them develop a first work, supporting participants over almost a year, from the project writing phase through to the search for the best possible collaborators who can bring it to life. The Locarno Residency will consist of three main phases. First, we will choose ten projects whose teams will be invited to the 75th edition of the Locarno Film Festival. During this initial phase, the directors in question will meet with various sector professionals by way of one to one pitches in which the former will present their projects. These professional partners will join with us to form a jury to decide which of the ten projects (three in total) will go on to take part in the Locarno Residency. The second phase sees the project beginning to take shape. It will mostly consist of online activities, based on two brilliant in-person events: in the first half of December, the selected directors will write and work on their film treatment in a very special location in Venice: the Palazzo Trevisan. Then, for the whole of March, the directors will be guests at Locarno’s Eranos Foundation in order to develop what will eventually become the early stages of the film’s screenplay. The third phase will take place during the 76th Locarno Film Festival and will allow these young authors to take part in targeted, tailored meetings with producers and co-producers. In the end, one of the three projects will win a prize to the tune of CHf 5,000. We want this professional assistance to come from authors and script advisors who are in tune with the projects; professionals who know how to get the best out of these young authors and who are sensitive to their artistic world.

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How exactly will the selection process unfold?
Projects will be assessed by Locarno’s artistic committee. Luckily, we’re a small and very close-knit team and we’re able to work together intensely. At the beginning of the process, we don’t ask very much of the authors; all we really need is the subject-matter of their film, because we want to experience the whole writing process alongside them, which begins and is developed within the Locarno Residency. What’s important for us is the paths these young authors have walked along, their artistic outlook; we ask to see the short films they’ve made previously, for example. With this in mind, we’re obviously going to pay particular attention to directors who have taken part in Locarno’s Pardi di Domani section in recent years, but we’re also totally open to candidates who haven’t travelled down a Locarno-based road, authors who might have taken part in and made an impression at other festivals and in other contexts. But candidates should definitely have solid experience under their belts.

The Locarno Residency looks to act as a bridge between film schools and the professional arena. In your opinion, do you need to have studied at these schools to become directors or to produce your first film?
The Locarno Film Festival has always been open to more unusual filmmakers too, who often haven’t attended film schools. It’s important to stress that over the past two years, our festival has carried on with its initiative to support young directors, which began ten or so years ago via the Locarno Academy. Our festival aims to be a partner for young directors who are starting out on their artistic journey, a journey which we’re piecing together step by step alongside them. Compared to the Locarno Film Festival’s other projects, the Locarno Residency is a more ambitious project aimed at a limited number of directors. We want to support and advise these young authors, not least because finding reliable partners is becoming increasingly difficult. We don’t want their approaches to become standardised, we look for diverse and unique approaches.

Which authors have taken part in the Locarno Festival’s previous support projects and which of these authors has impressed you the most?
Representing Switzerland, I’d say Cyril Schäublin who was one of the first to take part in the Filmmakers Academy. He was later selected for the Cineasti del Presente line-up (with Those Who Are Fine [+lee también:
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) and he won the Best Director prize this year in the Berlinale’s Encounters section (via Unrest [+lee también:
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). Outside of Switzerland, it would have to be Zhannat Alshanova, a director with a truly impressive approach who came to Locarno via the Spring Academy headed up by Béla Tarr. The short film she shot on this occasion was subsequently presented at Sundance. She’s now developing her first fiction film. It’s journeys like these which drive us to carry on promoting and assisting young talent.

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(Traducción del italiano)

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