Locarno anuncia su selección a competición

por Giorgia Del Don

10/07/2024 - 16 de las 17 cintas que optan al Leopardo de Oro son (co)producciones europeas de autores establecidos como Wang Bing y Ben Rivers y de talentos emergentes como los hermanos Zürcher y Virgil Vernier

Locarno anuncia su selección a competición

Cent-mille milliards, de Virgil Vernier

Este artículo está disponible en inglés.

The 77th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, which will unfold from 7-17 August, intends to highlight the potential of the cinematic medium, capable of involving and dialoguing with a large and curious public, but without necessarily looking for elite-level productions that flirt with pure experimentation. Always at the service of auteur cinema, as highlighted by its artistic director Giona A Nazzaro during the announcement of the full selection (read news on the Piazza Grande, Cineasti del presente and Semaine de la Critique sections), the festival, and more particularly the films of its International Competition, which includes a beautiful bouquet of well-known names, presents itself as ambitious “without ever giving up on pleasure”.

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For this edition, the first with Maja Hoffmann as president, there are 225 films, almost half of which are world premieres and 5 are international premieres. 15 debut features are competing for the Swatch First Feature Award. This year, many women are honoured: great director, screenwriter and producer Jane Campion (Honorary Leopard), American producer Stacey Sher (the Raimondo Rezzonico Award), French actress Mélanie Laurent who with her compatriot Guillaume Canet will receive the Campari Excellence Award, and French-Swiss actress Irène Jacob (the Leopard Club Award). Iconic Indian actor and producer Shah Rukh Khan will instead receive the prestigious Career Leopard.

Amongst the European productions and co-productions in International Competition, which includes a total of 17 films, as many as 5 are French: 100,000,000,000,000 [+lee también:
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entrevista: Virgil Vernier
ficha de la película], the third feature by Virgil Vernier, already selected in Locarno in 2018 in the Cineasti del presente section with Sophia Antipolis [+lee también:
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entrevista: Virgil Vernier
ficha de la película]; Youth (Hard Times) [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Chinese filmmaker Wang Bing, winner of the Golden Leopard in 2017 with Mrs. Fang [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], the second volume in his documentary series that began with Youth (Spring) [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], presented in competition last year in Cannes; Transamazonia [+lee también:
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entrevista: Pia Marais
ficha de la película] by South African director Pia Marais (Tiger Award at the 2007 IFFR for The Unpolished [+lee también:
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ficha de la película]) which plunges us in the heart of the Amazonian forest where ancestral beliefs, religious fervour and economic interests coexist; the intriguing Agora [+lee también:
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entrevista: Ala Eddine Slim
ficha de la película], the third feature by established Tunisian filmmaker Ala Eddine Slim (Lion of the Future at Venice 2016 for The Last of Us), in which three people who were thought to have disappeared forever reappear mysteriously in a village in Tunisia; and Green Line [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], the first feature by Sylvie Ballyot, whose particular cinematic language, between realism and oneirism, has already been recognised at the international level.

Switzerland is instead present with two films, The Sparrow in the Chimney [+lee también:
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entrevista: Ramon y Silvan Zürcher
ficha de la película], an intriguing and conflictual story of two sisters, from the great Zürcher brothers (Ramon directs while Silvain produces), whose The Girl and the Spider [+lee también:
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entrevista: Ramon Zürcher y Silvan Zür…
ficha de la película] won the Best Directing award at the 2021 Berlinale in the Encounters section; and the co-production Fire of Wind [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], the debut feature by Portuguese director and artist Marta Mateus. Italy and Lithuania are also present, thanks to three and two films respectively: Luce [+lee también:
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entrevista: Silvia Luzi y Luca Bellino
ficha de la película] by Silvia Luzi and Luca Bellino, already known as an artistic duo; Weightless [+lee también:
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entrevista: Sara Fgaier
ficha de la película], the debut feature by Sara Fgaier, the story of an ethno-musicology professor grappling with terrible amnesia, and the co-production New Dawn Fades [+lee también:
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entrevista: Gürcan Keltek
ficha de la película], the second feature by Turkish filmmaker Gürcan Keltek, which plays with the limits of human perception; and Toxic [+lee también:
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entrevista: Saulė Bliuvaitė
ficha de la película], Saulè Bliuvaitè’s debut feature, and Drowning Dry [+lee también:
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entrevista: Laurynas Bareiša
ficha de la película], the second feature by Laurynas Bareisa (after Pilgrims [+lee también:
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entrevista: Laurynas Bareisa
ficha de la película], Best Film in Orizzonti at Venice 2021), which observes the reactions of the members of a family confronted with a tragic event.

Also in attendance will be British artist and filmmaker Ben Rivers with Bogancloch [+lee también:
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entrevista: Ben Rivers
ficha de la película], a film midway between documentary and fiction which continues to observe his character Jake Williams, a man who has been living in the middle of a forest for decades; Kurdish-Austrian director Kurdwin Ayub (Best Debut Feature at the 2022 Berlinale for Sonne [+lee también:
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entrevista: Kurdwin Ayub
ficha de la película]) with Moon [+lee también:
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entrevista: Kurdwin Ayub
ficha de la película], an intriguing second feature which follows a former professional kickboxer; German director Christoph Hochhäusler with his new film after Till the End of the Night [+lee también:
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entrevista: Christoph Hochhäusler
ficha de la película], awarded in competition at last year’s Berlinale, Death Will Come [+lee también:
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entrevista: Christoph Hochhäusler
ficha de la película], which pays homage to the French police film genre (the so-called “polar”); and the Catalan filmmaker Mar Coll with Salve Maria [+lee también:
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entrevista: Mar Coll
ficha de la película], a drama about fragile maternity with touches of psychological horror. The new film by South Korean director Hong Sangsoo, By the Stream, closes the selection.

Out of competition, 10 of the 11 films are European productions or co-productions. France dominates here as well with three (co)productions: Dragon Dilatation [+lee también:
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entrevista: Bertrand Mandico
ficha de la película] by the always intriguing Bertrand Mandico, My Darling Family [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by actress and screenwriter Isild Le Besco which stars, amongst others, Jeanne Balibar, Elodie Bouchez and herself, and The Passion According to Béatrice [+lee también:
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ficha de la película] by Belgian filmmaker Fabrice Du Welz which, between documentary and fiction, draws the portrait of explosive actress Béatrice Dalle. Representing Switzerland, meanwhile, there will be Samir and his new docu-film The Miraculous Transformation of the Working Class Into Foreigners [+lee también:
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entrevista: Samir
ficha de la película] and Belgian-Swiss filmmaker Bruno Deville with his mountain series Endangered Species [+lee también:
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entrevista: Bruno Deville
ficha de la serie]. There are also two Romanian films out of competition, both signed Radu Jude: Eight Postcards from Utopia [+lee también:
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entrevista: Radu Jude y Christian Fere…
ficha de la película], a documentary assembled exclusively from ads from post-socialist Romania co-directed with Christian Ferecz-Flatz, and Sleep #2 [+lee también:
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entrevista: Radu Jude y Christian Fere…
ficha de la película], a kind of remake of Andy Warhol’s Sleep, as described by the filmmaker himself. Also out of competition, veteran filmmaker Marco Tullio Giordana, who presents his film The Life Apart [+lee también:
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entrevista: Marco Tullio Giordana
ficha de la película], adapted from the homonymous novel by Maria Pia Veladiano. Finally, as for European (co)productions, we also find Telepathic Letters [+lee también:
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entrevista: Edgar Pêra
ficha de la película] by Portuguese director and filmmaker Edgar Pêra and Fréwaka [+lee también:
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entrevista: Aislinn Clarke
ficha de la película], a horror film by Belfast-based filmmaker Aislinn Clarke.