Locarno Festival Director 2024 Lineup Interview, Letterboxd, Awards

The Locarno International Movie Pageant likes to name itself the “world capital of auteur cinema,” and whereas the Swiss occasion can not declare the star energy or business heft of Cannes, Venice or Toronto, in the case of the celebration of pure cinema, Locarno has few friends.

For the 77th Locarno fest, which runs Aug. 7-17, creative director Giona A. Nazzaro has once more lined up an eclectic mixture of established arthouse faves — new movies from Hong Sang-soo, Christoph Hochhäusler, Radu Jude and others — alongside function debuts and experimental shorts, and a bespoke number of viewers favourite from Cannes, together with Laetitia Dosch’s Canine on Trial, Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and Claude Barras’ animated feature Savages.

However the movies alone should not what makes Locarno distinctive. It’s the presentation. The first attraction is the Piazza Grande, the primary sq. within the Swiss mountain city, which is was an 8,000-seat open-air cinema through the competition. As a spot to observe the world premiere of Gianluca Jodice’s French revolution drama Le Déluge (Locarno’s opening evening movie), the 4K restored director’s lower of Tarsem Singh’s The Fall, or the Italian dubbed model of E.T. (a part of the festival’s tribute to the movie’s sound designer, Ben Burtt), it’s exhausting to beat.

Forward of Locarno’s 2024 version, creative director Giona A. Nazzaro spoke to The Hollywood Reporter about breaking down the borders “that ought to not exist” between arthouse and style cinema, the “no-brainer” tributes to Burtt and indie producing legend Stacey Sher, and his timeless love of analog cinema.

How do you see your job, as Locarno’s competition director? What are you making an attempt to do?

In a nutshell, I hope to construct a group. The general expertise of Locarno is a part of this community-building course of. The movies are on the middle, on the perimeters, above and under this expertise, however before everything, it’s about constructing a group by means of the totally different gaze on the movies that we share and, I hope, the alternative ways of referring to the filmmaking course of and the sharing of movie heritage.

It’s additionally about maintaining the inventive filmmaking course of, about exhibiting filmmakers that may deliver their tasks, their movies, right here and so they received’t be pigeonholed. If you wish to deliver your inventive documentary right here, you are able to do so. If you wish to deliver your style movie, you are able to do that as nicely. Over the previous 4 years we’ve had success with movies from Radu Jude’s [Romanian social satire] Do Not Anticipate Too A lot From the Finish of the World to Canadian filmmaker Rob Jabbaz’s The Unhappiness [a Taiwanese body horror movie]. My thought just isn’t solely to search out and help movies for our Locarno group but in addition open up among the borders between movie genres and movie communities, which I believe shouldn’t exist.

Do you’re feeling this movie group is beneath risk, particularly now with folks watching motion pictures on streaming companies, curated by algorithms?

To be clear: Locarno just isn’t about streaming content material. That doesn’t imply that platforms can not help inventive filmmaking, however what we’re about is about experiencing movies in a movie show with a group. We’re additionally large followers of movie, that means 35-millimeter, 16-millimeter celluloid. This yr, we’ve nearly 40 prints that we’re exhibiting, restored new prints and prints on mortgage from cinema archives. We’ll be opening [in a pre-screening event Aug. 4] with a 35mm screening on the Piazza, an Italian model of E.T., which will likely be a homage to sound designer Ben Burtt [receipiant of this year’s Locarno Vision Award]. It’s a particular providing for the kids in Locarno. For me, it is extremely necessary, additionally symbolically, that after we open the Piazza, for the very first screening, that we will hear the sound of the projector, the damage and tear, that we will see the sunshine going as much as the display. You can not cease expertise, and we don’t intend to. I took a prepare yesterday and noticed a lady watching one thing on her cellphone, sobbing. Emotion lives on, nonetheless it’s conveyed – be it cellphone or platform. However I’m the creative director of a movie competition, so we try to talk movie, to talk cinema. We try to champion that very particular expertise.

However we aren’t dwelling in some nostalgic bubble. My colleague, Marcus Duffner from the business facet of Locarno, Locarno Professional, will likely be presenting a number of talks and keynotes this yr on the usage of A.I. and one of many movies within the official program is a film made completely utilizing synthetic intelligence. What I’m making an attempt to say is that we’re completely conscious of the world we’re dwelling in, however on the similar time, we’re movie buffs. We expect movie nonetheless means loads, particularly to people who find themselves making an attempt to make their first movie, as a result of it’s a really highly effective option to share concepts, to convey your concepts in regards to the world. So going again to your first query, the thought is to create a group the place folks, whether or not they’re making their first quick movie, making an attempt to get their first function off the bottom, can have a look at Locarno and see that there are like-minded individuals who would welcome their work.

Is that concept of group behind your new collaboration with film fan social media website Letterboxd, together with the brand new Letterboxd award?

As a cinephile, I’m actually captivated with this collaboration with Letterboxd, as a result of after I log in to Letterboxd, I see the passion about movies from folks which can be discovering movies I noticed manner again within the day, individuals are championing their style for gradual cinema, for documentaries from the ’70s, no matter. It’s a really erudite group that is aware of what they’re doing and is aware of what they like. They’ve very refined tastes. Even when it comes all the way down to extra C-grade movies or style movies, there’s at all times this very acute understanding of what a movie is. And I believe the collaboration with Letterboxd is extraordinarily helpful for a competition like Locarno. We hope it would have each a horizontal attain, that means that it’s going to deliver Locarno to folks that wouldn’t have heard of or come to us in any other case, and in addition a vertical integration, so that folks within the Letterboxd group is perhaps excited by participating in Locarno occasions that exist outdoors the 11 days of the bodily competition, like our Open Doorways program [which supports filmmakers from under-represented regions around the world], like our residency program for folks within the business. I’m hoping it may possibly snowball in a really inventive and constructive manner.

Wanting over this yr’s program, what shocked you when it comes to surprising themes or topics linking the flicks in your 2024 lineup?

Thanks for the query, as a result of normally after I get requested if there are purple threads working by means of the choice, I say “no.” However this yr, possibly due to the instances we live it, there are some themes that you simply would possibly say are transversal, that lower diagonally by means of the choice. Initially, is the theme of the concern of an authoritarian world. You may see it in movies about households, movies about establishments, movies about relationships that turn into tyrannical, and so forth.

One other theme that we understand was fairly essential is A.I., within the sense of what does it imply to be human people, inventive folks, when there’s custom-made software program that may take out every little thing that we’re or suppose we’re, and do it higher?

One other apparent theme is the dialog across the previous feminist feminine id and the totally different declinations of such id within the current. I don’t wish to do any mansplaining, however we’ve felt that this can be a enormous factor stepping into a unique course proper now, with the queer sensibility, the LGBTQ+ sensibility, this entire post-feminist gender dialog may be very of the second. You may see that notably within the quick movies we’ve chosen, the place these components pop up. But additionally in competitors with Salve Maria, the brand new movie by [Spanish director] Mar Coll, a few girl, a brand new mom, who turns into obsessive about a case of infanticide and she or he begins questioning her id as a lady, as a mom, and what’s anticipated from her.

That is tied to a different theme going by means of the competition choice: ‘What does it imply to have a household at present? What does it imply to narrate to a household?’ A movie like Transamazonia by Pia Marais [about a daughter of missionaries growing up in the Amazon], asks this query in a really difficult manner.

I seen you’re screening Mohammad Rasoulof’s The Seed of the Sacred Fig, which premiered at Cannes and may be very a lot about how an authoritarian society infects a household.

Sure, however we even have the Turkish movie New Daybreak Fades by Gürcan Keltek, which we’re exhibiting within the Concorso part. It’s a really psychedelic mystique movie about a teenager going by means of Istanbul, however slowly you perceive that the town is remodeling itself, that the society is altering.

One other movie that performs with this theme is The Sparrow within the Chimney [by Swiss director Ramon Zürcher], in competitors, which offers with a household that’s on the verge of both exploding or imploding. It’s one other movie the place household and society overlap and mix into one another. Or there’s the Hungarian movie Classes Realized [director Bálint Szimler’s feature debut]. Right here it’s a college which turns into the theater of what’s dysfunctional in society, with a younger youngster who can not adapt to the authoritarian methods by which the college is run. As a result of authoritarianism doesn’t imply that issues work, that the trains are on time, it merely signifies that you can be thwarted as a person.

There’s a movie from Tunisia, Pink Path, by Lotfi Achour, which tells the sadly true story of some shepherd children who have been killed by a gang of so-called terrorists, however the query it asks is: How do you reside with this perennial violence — violence to your physique, your group, your id — that you simply can not management and that disrupts your means to dwell your life?

And, after all, there’s our opening movie, Le Déluge by Gianluca Jodice, which offers with the final days of Louis the XVI and Marie Antoinette [played by Guillaume Canet and Mélanie Laurent] when they’re delivered to their palace to await their destiny as a brand new world dawns. It reminds us that even the idea of the trendy republic was primarily based on that brutal act. It’s important to kill the symbols of the earlier world, you must kill the king and queen, order to have a brand new world. I’m simply naming a number of at random, however it’s a widespread theme.

It’s not like we have been in search of these movies, in search of these themes. It’s solely after you observe again from the acute close-up of the choice that you simply get a greater understanding of the entire panorama and you’ll see these threads going by means of. But it surely was not achieved on function.

However choosing your lifetime honorees was achieved on function. One of many surprises was Ben Burtt, the Oscar-winning sound designer on the Star Wars motion pictures. His affect on cinema has been immense, however you hardly ever see a sound designer getting honored by a movie competition.

We’re good associates with Bernardo Rondeau who works on the Lucas Museum of Narrative Artwork in L.A. and, after all, we knew about Ben Burtt and we began speaking. Clearly, I see the thought of giving the Imaginative and prescient Award to somebody who’s a sound designer, sound editor, might sound unusual, however Ben Burtt is such an affect. On us all! It’s his sounds on everybody’s cellphone, on our WhatsApp messages, our ringtones. For years, I had “I’m your father” on my cellphone at any time when my son was calling. So I assumed, how can we discover a option to current what this gentleman has achieved for all of us and the way influential his work has been? Ultimately, it was a no brainer. If you see what this gentleman has achieved, it’s phenomenal. Star Wars wouldn’t be the identical universe with out him.

Your choose for the Raimondo Rezzonico indie producers award, Stacey Sher, producer of Pulp Fiction, Erin Brockovich and Get Shorty, wants much less rationalization.

Positive. That was one other no-brainer. Should you say, U.S. unbiased cinema of the ’90s, no matter movie touched your emotions, your feelings and your reminiscence, likely, it has Stacey concerned in it. And you may detect her affect. I imply, for me, being an enormous [Steven] Soderbergh fan, having liked Actuality Bites and clearly bowing on the altar of [Quentin] Tarantino, it was apparent. [French film critic] André Bazin spoke in regards to the “la politique des auteurs” however there’s additionally a “politique des producteurs”. Stacey may have achieved no matter, however she selected her tasks very rigorously, the tasks have been nearly tailored. Her understanding of the zeitgeist was phenomenal, poetic, and by no means cynical.

Generally, you realize, after we converse in regards to the administrators we love, we overlook that filmmaking is a collective course of. Clearly, there’s somebody’s voice, the filmmaker’s, which must be heard. However when the movie doesn’t exist, when it’s solely a bit of paper, then you definitely want visionary producers like Stacey Sher doing the leap of religion, risking the stability within the checking account, and saying: ‘We’re going to do that as a result of I imagine it.” If, a yr and a half later, you will be at the hours of darkness of a cinema with lots of of individuals and revel in a movie, it’s as a result of somebody believed in it.

We needed a homage to this act of religion of somebody who supported movies that in all probability nobody else would have supported, movies that outlined the instances by which they have been launched, which isn’t any small accomplishment. There are such a lot of movies which can be being made, however so few that outline our instances.

Undoubtedly. I discover Ben Burtt is the cinema of my childhood. And Stacey Sher very a lot represents the flicks of my school years, after I first actually started to know motion pictures…

I’m going to steal that for my subsequent interview. And I’m not going to cite you. I hope that’s OK!

You’re additionally celebrating the centenary of Columbia Photos with a retrospective. A variety of festivals have achieved related issues just lately as the massive studios all flip 100. However you’ve mentioned you wish to give a unique perspective on the studio’s historical past. How are you planning to do this?

Nicely, the very first thing is that I don’t imagine in “heritage movies” as a result of I believe all movies are within the current tense. If this afternoon you watch a movie from the silent period, a masterpiece you’ve by no means seen, you’ll relate it to every little thing round you at this second. It turns into a recent movie. That is what we needed to do with Columbia, what we’re making an attempt to do with all our retrospectives. It isn’t in regards to the previous, it’s in regards to the current. And Columbia was a really fascinating studio. This concept for a retrospective got here collectively very simply with [retrospective curator] Ehsan Khoshbakht. There may be an excessive amount of cinematic wealth right here that has been very tapped into. They’ve been restored however festivals by no means display them as a result of they’re smaller movies from so-called “lesser” administrators. It isn’t true that we haven’t seen all of those movies. Removed from it. And it’s not true that every little thing about movie historical past has been mentioned. There are movies which have by no means been seen and that deserve an opportunity to be seen. Perhaps probably the most well-known movies we’re exhibiting are [Howard Hawks’ 1934 screwball comedy] Twentieth Century, or Orson Welles’ The Girl From Shanghai (1934). We actually needed to select motion pictures that folks have by no means seen.

And by limiting it to 1929 to 1959, we will concentrate on the movies beneath studio boss Harry Cohn, a person that was supposedly a horrible dictator, however who had extremely good style and was so ruthlessly savvy in regards to the enterprise that each one the movies that he put his arms on have been good. We’re nonetheless speaking about this work. So I’m not saying that’s condoning something however this can be a very fascinating second in historical past that may inform us loads about cinema at present.

We’re celebrating Columbia on one hand, however we’re additionally celebrating the movies of [legendary 1960s avant-garde director] Stan Brakhage. Now, Columbia and Brakhage couldn’t be additional aside, however the thought is principally the identical. How many individuals at present have skilled Brakhage’s movies on movie in a movie show as a substitute of logging on to search out if something is offered?

The factor is, movie has its personal textual custom. It has its personal philology, and all of this can be a pleasure to expertise. It’s a pleasure to be uncovered to it. This isn’t a job, it isn’t boring, it’s a pleasure. So the thought, the substance, and the subtext of all of this group constructing is pleasure. Come to Locarno. Let’s have some pleasure collectively.