Locarno international film festival under way

The renowned film festival in the southern Swiss town of Locarno is under way, with 20 films competing for the top award, the Golden Leopard.

The renowned film festival in the southern Swiss town of Locarno got under way on Wednesday, with 20 films competing for the top award, the Golden Leopard.

Organisers of this year’s event are presenting a wide range of movies from various countries. Overall, 218 films will be shown.

Spectators will likely find it hard to feel relaxed with all the pigeons and lakeside seagulls around, when a highlight of this year’s festival is a restored version of Alfred Hitchcock’s horror classic, “The Birds”.

The film, made in 1963, tells the story of a woman — played by Tippi Hedren — and the mass bird attacks that follow her around an isolated California community.

The film will be shown in the festival’s unique open air venue in Piazza Grande, which boasts a state of the art sound system and a screen measuring twenty-six metres wide by fourteen metres high.

The screening of “The Birds” will coincide with the centenary of Hitchcock’s birth on August 13.

Another film-maker being celebrated in Locarno is Switzerland’s Daniel Schmid.

In a career stretching back to 1968, the Flims-born director has won plaudits from international critics and film-goers alike.

His best-known works include “Out of Season” and “Tosca’s Kiss”. His latest film, “Beresina”, a political satire starring Geraldine Chaplin, will be premiered in Piazza Grande on Saturday.

Schmid will receive an honorary Golden Leopard — Locarno’s top film prize — before the screening.

Other films being shown at the event — which lasts until August 14 — include Joe Dante’s “Matinee”, featuring John Goodman, and a re-cut version of “The Legend of 1900” by Giuseppe Tornatore, the Italian director who shot to international fame with “Nuova Cinema Paradiso”.

There are also showcases for recent Swiss productions, for new directors working in the short-film format, and for films exploring the confines between fact and fiction.

Another retrospective is devoted to directors who started their careers under the tutelage of the legendary American film-maker, Roger Corman.

Last but by no means least, an independently organised Critics Week is well worth a visit or two.


Written by SRI staff.