Pardo 16.08

CAMPION

ESTABLISHING SHOTS

Giona A. Nazzaro ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

Selezionare i nomi che andranno a comporre le diverse giurie è un po’ come immaginare delle sezioni parallele del Festival. Si tratta di individuare non solo artisti che amiamo e rispettiamo profondamente, ma anche di chiamarli a lavorare insieme a programmatori, tutor e professionisti affinché possano individuare i film da premiare con i nostri Pardi. Un lavoro, dunque, nel quale si mettono in relazione mondi e talenti. E poi c’è anche il desiderio di ampliare i perimetri delle conversazioni possibili intorno al cinema. Immaginare, insomma, una comunità nella quale le opere cinematografiche e la creatività siano il valore centrale. Un valore da condividere e trasmettere. Rispetto all’osservazione che emerge puntuale nei

festival secondo la quale i premi non servono a nulla, c’è da fare una precisazione. È vero che partecipare al Locarno Film Festival è già una distinzione importantissima ottenuta sul campo, ma è altresì vero che un premio, soprattutto per le produzioni indipendenti, può determinare una serie di cambiamenti molto positivi per la vita successiva di un film. Per questo motivo la scelta delle giurie è un elemento fondamentale della composizione del mosaico del Festival: significa creare il primo tassello di una comunità che vivrà anche dopo che il sipario cala.

Buon cinema, e ci vediamo in Piazza Grande!

Ciao Gena. Che passaggio magnifico è stato il tuo. Un segno dolcissimo e potente, un’autentica scia d’amore dalla quale siamo stati toccati tutti. Uno sguardo indimenticabile e una presenza dalla forza nervosa incomparabile. Una filmografia impeccabile.

Tanti capolavori. Una stella che brillerà per sempre.

HIGHLIGHTS

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Christopher Small

LEAD EDITOR: Leonardo Goi

DEPUTY EDITORS: Hugo Emmerzael, Maria Giovanna Vagenas, Keva York

STAFF WRITERS: Laurine Chiarini, Savina Petkova

CONTRIBUTORS: Enrico Vannucci, Pamela Biénzobas, Victor Morozov, Christina Newland

TRANSLATORS: Tessa Cattaneo, Anna Rusconi

BRAND, EDITORIAL & MEDIA: Oliver Osborne

DESIGN: Joshua Althaus, Nadine Curanz, Alex Furgiuele

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Elia Bianchi, Julie Mucchiut, Ti-Press, Davide Padovan

PHOTO INTERN: Indra Crittin

COVER PHOTO: Patrick Swirc

PARTNERSHIPS: Marco Cantergiani, Laura Heggemann, Nicolò Martire, Fabienne Merlet

CROSSWORD DESIGNER: Nicholas Henriquez

Credit: Menah Wellen

“Your Enthusiasm Must be Greater Than Your Fear”

A Conversation with JANE CAMPION

In this in-depth conversation with Jane Campion – Palme d’Or awardee, Oscar winner, and now, the recipient of Locarno’s very own Pardo d’Onore Manor – the New Zealand auteur speaks about her career, meditative creative process, and going the extra mile.

by Leonardo Goi

Leonardo Goi: How well do you remember your first festival? You won the Palme d’Or for Best Short with Peel (1986). What was the whole experience like?

Jane Campion: It was really traumatic, actually. They’d put together a collection of my shorts and a feature I did for the ABC [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] in a program for Un Certain Regard. But there were all sorts of technical mess-ups. Cannes is really famous for its amazing projections, but because they had to project three pieces they just didn’t have time to test them all. The subtitles had kind of bled into one of the films, which made them almost unreadable. It was… well, it was pretty bad! [laughs] Lots of people left because they struggled to figure out what and where the subtitles were. Or maybe they just didn’t really like what they were watching. I felt absolutely sick anytime I saw or heard someone leave… I remember going up to Pierre Rissient, this legendary talent scout for the festival who’d put together my program, at the end. “That was really bad,” I told him, “I’m so sorry.” But he thought the opposite; he’d said it had gone well. “How could you possibly say that?” I said. “Because the right people stayed.” And sure enough, I got some great write-ups about the shorts; people really appreciated them. I didn’t understand what was happening.

I also remember Pierre telling us to not get upset if we didn’t win anything. And the night of the awards ceremony he took us up for an amazing dinner on the hills above Cannes. We just missed the whole show! I didn’t

ask anyone; I just assumed we didn’t win. And we were walking back to the hotel after dinner, walking along the Croisette, when someone from the Edinburgh Film Festival walked up to me and said, “Hey, congratulations: you won!” I was like, “Won? What? Why?” “Well, you won Best Short; your name was called out and someone from Australia jumped up and got it for you.” So there I was; I’d gone through some pretty confronting moments and some pretty amazing ones – and to find out that I’d actually won a prize… That’s the thing with awards. Even though they may not be meaningful in any way, they’re still something you can wave at everybody and go, “Look, here it is!” They’re tangible. They’re real. And that award was something I could wave at myself too, and feel like I was on the right path, and should start planning a proper feature.

LG: You didn’t go to film school right away; first, you studied anthropology. I wonder if that subject shaped the way you approached filmmaking later?

JC: Anthropology was a revelation for me. We had a great professor at Victoria University, in Wellington, where I studied. He’d worked with Claude Lévi-Strauss and was very big in the field of myths. And that’s what really fascinated me: how every culture has its myths, and how those myths, in a subtextual way, perhaps, can describe some of the underlying oppositions and frictions around us. Myths have always served to both hold information and account for the mysteries of a culture. And that’s some-

thing I use in my own work, too. It may sound very basic, but whenever I get around to writing something, I go, “Okay, what are the underlying oppositions here?” And then it’s a question of figuring out what to do with those tensions. Do we keep them oppositional, are we going to mediate them, will they be switched or changed? I think anthropology has made me very aware of the surfaces and shapes that operate underneath a culture. And I think that once you start studying it you become aware that all human beings are equal in their intelligence. They all have a language and a mythology, which is equally complex, no matter where they’re from. And I think that gives you a real sense of respect for the differences between you and the others; you know that everyone’s going to have their own way of seeing and figuring everything out. Everyone has their own sort of poem within them; people can be very poetic in what they yearn for, what they’re disappointed by, what they love. And that’s got nothing to do with one’s level of education. The bottom line is that we’re all humans, and share very similar yearnings, desires, and needs. Long answer!

LG: But it’s an honest one! I always find it refreshing when filmmakers can be so open about the way their previous occupations or studies might have influenced their craft.

JC: Yes, but I don’t really know much about anthropology! [laughs] I mean, sure, I went to university, learned a bit about the subject, grew up, but my overriding education has always been novels – especially by female writers.

When I was young, it was in literature that you’d hear female voices. You weren’t going to hear them in films, because there were very few female filmmakers or script writers.

LG: You pivoted to fine arts after anthropology. Would you also say that painting shaped your approach to film?

JC: I think going to art school, the great wake-up call for me was realizing that seeing is a visual language in itself, and that I had a very old-fashioned, locked-in idea about what art was. I thought I’d just do the same stuff my favorite artists were doing; I didn’t understand that I had to find my own voice. Painting taught me to be super aware of the atmosphere. I remember I was studying overseas and really missing, in a bodily way, what I remembered about the New Zealand landscape and bush, and how deep a love I had for it. That’s why The Piano (1993) was so special for me, and why I really wanted to do something inside that bush; I find that it really talks to me in certain ways. As for the actual painting, well, I got better at it, but I wasn’t that good. By the time I got to my third year I started making shorts because I’d fallen in love with films. I just taught myself how to do it with the equipment at the art school. It wasn’t much, but I was completely committed. I mean, every waking hour of my life, I’d be doing something towards what I loved. It wasn’t painful or difficult; it was just play. I’d fallen in love with cinema while in London, where I didn’t know anybody much and would often feel quite lonely. I just went to see films all the time – that was my companionship.

LG: One of your avowed influences, David Lynch, has described his creative process as a kind of fishing: there are ideas swimming deep inside you, and you need to muster the calm and discipline to find them and reel them in. How does your creative process work?

JC: It’s a very beautiful metaphor. I always think about my own process as walking into a forest and being patient and quiet enough so that animals can come out and reveal themselves. Your ideas need to trust that you’re going to be there long enough before they can fully share themselves with you. Nobody thinks of an idea; it always arrives from somewhere. And it’s usually when you’re at your most relaxed, when you’re not thinking. It’s magical, in a way. There’s an exercise I invented for myself and now share with my students: spend four hours at your desk with nothing but paper and pen – and some tea, if you like, or a little snack – but no computer and no distractions whatsoever. Just write, and don’t give up until the very end, because it’s usually in that last half hour that the goods arrive. And once you establish that relationship, you do that for however long it takes to finish your project.

LG: There’s also something to be said about the importance of teaching yourself to be familiar and comfortable with the unknown.

JC: Yes. And that was something I really had to learn because I was a little impatient about mystery when I was younger. I didn’t understand poetry; I thought it should be like a mathematical equation, that poems could be worked out. And it took me a long time to not feel so threatened [by them] and to realize that poems just have a different way of working. I had to learn to just let them be, that even if you don’t get everything about one you can always come back to it later and something else may reveal itself. Keats famously talked about negative capability, the idea that you have to build within yourself a capacity to live in the mystery without reaching out to facts and reason. And that the quality of your work is going to be in some way equal to the amount of time that you can handle that mystery.

LG: When and how do you think that transition happened?

JC: I suppose it’s a result of just growing up. You become a little more subtle, less black and white. Teenagers are famous for being pretty dogmatic; I think for me it was a bit of a civilizing time! [laughs] And then at some point I made the decision to go all in. To have absolute skin in the game. I decided I’d put everything I had into this effort to make films. There was a time when I was too scared to do that because I was afraid that my expectations regarding my own potential would not be equal to what that potential really was. I withheld it. I didn’t want to explore and find out there was nothing there. But as you get older you realize that potential isn’t of much use for people over 30, that you need to start taking risks, and that the worst thing is to never even try. And that was really a massive, massive decision. It made me feel very bold and willing to fail. And I failed big time, many times. But somehow I was always resilient. It wasn’t like it didn’t hurt – it really did! [laughs]. But I think filmmaking is all about making mistakes, trying stuff, learning. What’s essential is that your enthusiasm must be greater than your fear. Because fear destroys everything. And when you’re enthusiastic, you just can’t imagine failing – you’re just too excited about trying out new things.

LG: This idea of resilience and self-actualization is a good way of thinking about AnAngel atMyTable (1990). I must confess that when I read you’d picked this as one of the two films you’ll be showing in Locarno, I was a little surprised. It features all the leitmotifs and preoccupations that would surface in your later works, but it’s perhaps not as canonical as other films of yours.

JC: Well, the film plays very well to wildly different types of people. It’s based on Janet [Frame’s] autobiographies, which are remarkable pieces of writing – about a life, about childhood, about an artistic child who didn’t look artistic at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. As a kid, she was this slightly chubby, fuzzy redhead girl. But she had a beautiful, delicate mind. And I think people feel that vulnerability and connect with it very deeply. The most surprising people all have that fuzzy-headed, redhead person inside them, so insecure and unsure. I certainly do.

LG: One of the most galvanizing things about the film is the way art is presented as a means of self-reconciliation

– a way to make peace with yourself and the world around you. It’s a liberating force.

JC: Well, I got to meet Janet: I had to convince her to give me the rights to her book. I was about 27 at the time; I hadn’t even made a short film. But I just loved the book, the first of her autobiographies, and that was the only one that was out and about at the time. And when I first saw her, I remember thinking: this is a free person. She was so truly free. She’d set up this very conventional little suburban house in a little town in New Zealand in the most original way. She had double bricked the front, because she’s allergic to sound, and the grass on the lawn was all long, and inside she had separated the rooms with sheets strewn across them, like in a hospital ward –she’d work on a project in one corner, and on another thing in another. It was like her own playpen. She didn’t have a lounge or a dining room, but she did have a bed, and we sat on either side of it, as if we were visiting a sick person… So beautiful. And she herself is a big cinephile. I remember her telling me she loved Last Year in Marienbad (L’Année dernière à Marienbad, 1961) – which I hadn’t even seen at the time. And she told me she really loved bold young people, and that she was going to save [the book] for me, but that I should wait till the others were published in case I didn’t like them. And we’d take it from there. It’s still amazing to think about that.

LG: This is also the very first of your literary adaptations, and I’m always fascinated by how, even as you embrace someone else’s story, these films are always unfailingly yours. How do you retain your own voice when looking at the world through someone else’s eyes?

JC: That’s a good question. I guess I find it much more comfortable to explore someone else’s work because when I choose to do that it means I’ve fallen in love with it, and I have this passion to protect it, too. I feel like I understand what it is they’re saying, and how, and I know what to do with it. Adapting Thomas Savage’s book for The Power of the Dog (2021) was an interesting project because there was a much bigger gap between the two of us. He was an older gay man from America; I was a woman from New Zealand. I mean, my parents did have a farm and I had a horse and could ride pretty well… but there was still a big gap between us. I just loved the story. But in that case it was super important to go and do a lot of research in Montana on the ranch where he lived, and where the book was set, and to meet his biographer and his relatives and Annie Proulx, who wrote the book’s afterword. By the end of that research trip I felt like I’d earned my props; I’d paid the respect and done the work, and that’s what it’s about, ultimately. It’s not really a matter of luck. You have to go the extra mile.

LG: The Power of the Dog is a Western, but it’s also that rare film that constantly challenges the tropes and clichés of the genre. I must confess that anytime I think of genre films I think of rules, of boxes that need to be ticked…

JC: Maybe I should think a bit more like that… [laughs]

LG: Really? Because whenever I think of your approach, I feel the opposite. All your genre films radiate a kind of subversiveness. They don’t play by the rules; they break them.

JC: Well, with Thomas Savage’s book, I feel like underneath it is pure, lived experience. This is not genre, in a way. It’s a book written by somebody who actually did live on a ranch, who actually was gay and had an asshole of an uncle who would torture this mother. I think all those things give the novel a specificity that pushes against this idea of following the genre gameplan. I don’t even know if I like genre, to be honest. The only genre film I really like is Alien (1979).

LG: Fair enough!

JC: I love it! [laughs] I dunno if Deliverance (1972) counts as a genre film, but I love that too.

LG: Let’s talk about your approach to directing actors. Do you usually come to set with a very strict idea of all the marks your actors must hit, or do you leave room for improv, too?

JC: I used to be a lot stricter. Now I’m working with actors who like a lot of space and have got a lot to contribute. The hard thing is just being in that dance all the time. I’ve had to develop more muscles for just being in the moment – but I always make sure to prepare well in advance so that I can just surrender to whatever’s going to happen on that day. We also do a lot of improvisation around who their character is and how they’re going to connect with all the others – which isn’t to say we’d improv scenes in the film. It’s just exercises and things designed to give them a very relaxed feeling as to who that person is. There’s no effort, no trying, no acting required. And once they sort of feel that character inside them, it’s a very special moment.

LG: I’ve been reading a few reviews of your films and it’s striking how often people have resorted to the words “feminine sensibility.” I’m not sure how you feel about that. Does it even make sense to you? I’m asking because even as your works most definitely – thankfully – steer clear of a male P.O.V., they always seem to transcend gender.

JC: As a person, I’m not very gender-y. I don’t worry about myself being a woman or a man or anything like that. Gender’s just not my main identification. If anything, I’m an artist, and that’s got different responsibilities; it’s just much more interesting. I work with other artists, and it doesn’t matter what their gender is. Of course, I’m respectful to everybody; I understand that for some, gender issues are very important, and that if you’re born into a different gender than you identify with that’s very stressful. But I like being around people – around men, say – who aren’t afraid to show their feminine side. I really enjoy that. I suppose it’s hard being a guy because that doesn’t give you much space, sometimes. But when you really are comfortable expressing your feminine

side, you know, that’s when I think friendship can blossom. When people drop their power issues and there’s plain exploring, that’s what I love. What I feel comfortable with. And my films basically express that. Of course, because I’m a woman, it is a bit different, especially in areas of love and romance. This idea of being a pioneer female director… I mean, I think The Piano was a shock for people. It wasn’t for me, or my collaborators, or my arty people, you know? But for people outside that, to see female desire in a way that insisted on itself, that was very different. And it still looks quite bold.

LG: You used the word pioneer, which is another label I wanted to hear your thoughts on. It’s been thrown at you since your very first projects – and awards – but how do you feel about it?

JC: I never really thought about it, basically. And I truly feel for those artists who work with a lot of expectations on their shoulders, because it feels like you’re almost bound to fail. Of course, I was aware of people like Liliana Cavani, and her The Night Porter (Il portiere di notte, 1974). Talk about exciting movies! You watch it now and it’s still ground-shattering. I recently met Liliana – she’s in her nineties, a beacon of immortality. She’s got this most beautiful clarity. And Lina Wertmüller, of course, who once came to the film school where I studied and suggested we all borrow and steal whatever we needed to get our stuff done. She was so beautiful and dynamic. But basically… I always feel like what came first was the inspiration, you know? I’d have an idea, and I’d work on it. I never thought about anything else. People call me a pioneer, the first person to win this award or that one, but that’s not something I ever focused on or worked towards. If I had, I think I’d have been really put off. Anytime people mention all those achievements, I’m always like, God, that’s a lot. But there’s no freedom in that kind of goal. And where I really do well is… well, I guess in obscurity! [laughs] I like feeling that I’m working in obscurity and then coming out and saying, “Well, what do you think?”

◼ AnAngelatMyTable screens tonight, 16.8 at 16:30 at the GranRex

◼ The Piano screens tonight, 16.8 at the Piazza Grande after the 21:30 screening of Paz Vega’s Rita

◼ The Conversation with Jane Campion PARDO D’ONORE

MANOR will take place on Saturday, 17.8 at 10:30 at Forum @Spazio Cinema

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JANE CAMPION:

A TIMELINE

“The point of diving in a lake,” Ben Whishaw muses in his lacerating turn as John Keats in Bright Star (2009), “is not immediately to swim back to the shore, but to luxuriate in the sensation of water.” It’s a line that doubles as a sumptuous précis of the perturbing and sensual cinema of Jane Campion, who will receive the Pardo d’Onore Manor at Locarno77. Leonardo Goi traces the steps of her illustrious and singular career.

1950s—1970s

MOVING TOWARDS FILM

Born into a prominent acting family (her parents founded the country’s first professional theater company, the New Zealand Players), Campion seems initially poised to follow a very different path. She starts a degree in anthropology at Wellington’s Victoria University, but quickly pivots to fine arts after a mind-altering, rite-of-passage trip to Europe. Like David Lynch, one of her avowed influences, she makes her first creative steps in the realm of painting and drawing, before leaving the Sydney College of the Arts to turn to cinema and the Australian Film, Television, and Radio School (AFTRS).

1986

THE FIRST PALME D’OR: Peel

A few of her earliest shorts are noticed by Pierre Rissient, an advisor to the Cannes Film Festival, and in 1986 Peel is awarded a Palme d’Or (Campion’s first) for Best Short Film. Shot with her filmschool friend and cinematographer Sally Bongers (and starring, per the title card, a “true family” comprising a young father, his sister, and rebellious son), the short explores a triangular relationship that will serve as the basic dramatic unit for many of Campion’s later films. Bristling with the same boisterous energy of its child protagonist, Peel seeks the surreal in everyday life, dredging up oneiric and lustful images from the most quotidian and unassuming interactions.

1989

IT’S IN THE SPIRITS: Sweetie

Campion’s first film for the cinema, Sweetie, premieres in Cannes to great critical acclaim. Another exploration of a dysfunctional family, it centres on a young and sexually inhibited woman (Karen Colston) as she struggles to negotiate her relationship with her mentally unstable sister and title character (Geneviève Lemon). Co-written with Gerald Lee, the director’s boyfriend at the time and collaborator ever since, and shot again by Sally Bongers, Sweetie exemplifies Campion’s preternatural ability to marry the tragic and the grotesque. Interspersed with surreal segments that echo shots by Luis Buñuel, another essential reference in Campion’s cinema, the film works with odd and sharply angled frames to heighten the abnormality of suburban life. Restlessly buoyant and playful, Sweetie doesn’t demonstrate so much as reveal.

1990

I’LL BE A POET: AnAngelatMyTable

Originally designed as a three-part TV miniseries, and later stitched together as a standalone film, Campion’s follow-up to Sweetieis a portrait of New Zealand novelist and poet Janet Frame. Based on Frame’s autobiographical writings (making this the first of Campion’s literary adaptations), AnAngelatMyTableisn’t a conventional biopic but a more sinuous and impressionistic Portrait of an Artist as a Young Woman. Instead of a staid Wikipedia-type biography, what we’re offered is a series of vignettes and memories of Frame’s struggle for independence; misdiagnosed as a schizophrenic, the writer would undergo over 200 shock-therapy treatments over the eight years she spent in and out of mental hospitals. Anticipating a theme that would animate several of Campion’s later projects, the film celebrates writing as a means of reconciliation with the world as well as one of self-actualization. By the time Frame gets to finally sit down and work – wombed in amber light, alone in her small trailer – she’s free at last.

2021

LOOK

CLOSELY: ThePoweroftheDog

If there’s any one big theme to ThePoweroftheDog, it might simply be the endless and endlessly tragic dance between our inner lives and outward appearances. Equal parts western, thriller, gothic melodrama, and study of masculinity gone awry, Campion’s most recent work, an adaptation of Thomas Savage’s 1967 novel of the same name, unfurls as a maze of domino tiles. Each secret tumbles into the next, part of a plan we only fully grasp at the end. Clues are scattered everywhere one cares to look, but what lingers here isn’t the way they coalesce into the final epiphany, but the ominous, near-supernatural atmosphere Campion is able to conjure throughout. In a film this pregnant with mysteries, to paraphrase Whishaw’s Keats from BrightStar, who would ever want to rush back to shore?

2013—2017

BACK TO TV: TopoftheLake

No stranger to TV, Campion joins forces again with Gerald Lee for Top of the Lake, a crime drama in which a detective (Elisabeth Moss) investigates the disappearance of a pregnant 12-year-old in the remote New Zealand town she grew up in. Campion’s first work for the small screen in nearly 25 years, TopoftheLake mines much of its spell-binding and spectral allure from its humbling landscapes. Campion shot it around the mountainous Moke Lake on New Zealand’s South Island, which fuels the sinister behaviours of its aloof inhabitants. This strange and threatening world might jolt you back at any moment to Lynch’s TwinPeaks(1990-91). As in that show, Moss’s detective must exorcise her own traumas as she hunts for the truth in a male-dominated world. The series’ second season, which aired in 2017, swaps New Zealand for Sydney, and sees Moss star alongside Nicole Kidman, among others.

1993

THE CONSECRATION: ThePiano

Another journey toward independence, ThePianocements Campion as one of the most singular directors of her generation. With breathtaking visual style, this tragic love story set in 19th-century New Zealand sheds the restraint Campion had observed in Angel for something much more tempestuous. Even the camerawork here seems to swoon and drift in sync with its characters. Campion spins a fable of astonishing romantic power, and a lush contemplation about the ways people communicate: through words, music, sex, and touch. Awarded the Palme d’Or in Cannes – the first of several accolades the movie would pick up – ThePianowas the first film directed by a woman to take home the festival’s coveted prize.

1996

A LIGHT THAT HAS TO DAWN: ThePortraitofaLady Campion follows up on that success with another adaptation; based on Henry James novel of the same name, The Portrait of a Lady stars Nicole Kidman as Isabel Archer, a New World emigré in 19thcentury Europe determined to pursue a life of independence and travel in lieu of marriage. No such luck. Pursued by all kinds of suitors, arguably most successfully by John Malkovich’s reptilian Gilbert Osmond, Isabel eventually capitulates to the supposition of love. But the film, unlike her many suitors, never fully entraps her; Campion builds a fortress of dignity for her protagonist, recasting James’s prose and metaphors into dialogue and images that do justice to Isabel’s curiosity and joie de vivre. “I want to get a general impression of life,” she tells her uncle ahead of her grand tour through Europe, “there’s a light that has to dawn.” It’s a feeling to which all Campion heroines might relate.

1999 GOING WILD: HolySmoke Following his turn in ThePiano, Harvey Keitel teams up again with Campion in HolySmoke, an end-of-century comedy written by the director and her sister Anna. Clad in leather and aviator glasses, Keitel stars as a professional “cult exiter” flown in from the US by an Australian family desperate to “cure” their twenty-something daughter (Kate Winslet), who’s been

2009

OUT-OF-BODY EXPERIENCE: BrightStar

Only nominally a portrait of English Romantic poet John Keats (here, played by Ben Whishaw), BrightStardoesn’t unfurl as a conventional biopic any more than AnAngelatMyTable did, offering instead a scorching chronicle of the writer’s doomed love for Fanny Brawne (Abbie Cornish), his neighbor and muse. It is also that rare movie that appears designed to match the beauty and lyricism of its subject; shot by Greig Fraser, there are times when BrightStar’s visuals create an astonishing synergy with Keats’s own verses, and the whole film soars. A grim tale of repression this is not; Campion crafts her period piece in the present tense, imbuing even its most lacerating passages with a wild vitality.

2003

SEX IN THE CITY: IntheCut Frannie, the writing teacher and amateur linguist at the heart of In theCut, was originally meant to be played by Nicole Kidman, who by then had starred in a handful of psychosexual thrillers already (Eyes WideShut, to name the most memorable). That the role goes to Meg Ryan initially short-circuits critics and audiences, who are unable to graft Ryan’s rom-com persona onto the anxiety-addled, lust-propelled protagonist of this erotic mystery thriller based on a novel by Susanna Moore. But that dislocation is the source of the film’s power, and Ryan’s Frannie, a single woman pushing 40, is wrestling with the same conundrum of many a Campion heroine before her: how to explore her desires and find a truer self in the process.

Cut © Collection Cinémathèque suisse.

Retrospective Book Now On Sale

EDITED BY EHSAN KHOSHBAKHT AND PUBLISHED BY LES ÉDITIONS DE L'ŒIL

Pick up your copy of the book that accompanies the Locarno77 retrospective of Columbia Pictures (1929-1959). Edited by curator Ehsan Khoshbakht, this volume features contributions from a slate of international writers on all aspects of the Golden Age of this major Hollywood studio. From auteurs like Frank Capra or Fritz Lang to stars like Rita Hayworth or Jean Arthur, this brand-new study delves into the rich history of the studio known around the world for its “lady with the torch”.

WRITING ABOUT THE LADY WITH THE TORCH

A 44-film retrospective to commemorate the centenary of Columbia Pictures, The Lady with the Torch was one of the jewels in Locarno77’s crown. To accompany a program so eclectic – provocatively mixing canonical titles with more obscure gems – Retrospective curator Ehsan Khoshbakht invited leading scholars and critics to contribute to an original book that would take a deep dive into the studio and the indelible films it spawned. Below is an excerpt from Christina Newland’s chapter on some of Columbia’s legendary stars.

A STRANGE CONSTELLATION: THE STARS OF COLUMBIA PICTURES

For a studio led by the so-called “meanest man in Hollywood” and operating with far fewer resources than the others, Columbia Pictures found an unusual – and rewarding – path to building its constellation of its golden age stars. Pugnacious studio co-founder and production chief Harry Cohn – from the sound era through to his death in 1958 – was a surprising and paradoxical figure, eventually able to boast that he had successfully shepherded bonafide star talent into existence, on levels ranging from screen goddesses (Rita Hayworth through to Kim Novak) to loquacious comediennes (Rosalind Russell and Jean Arthur) to stalwart, all-American leading men (Randolph Scott and William Holden).

Located in the cheaply designated lots between Gower Street and Sunset Boulevard, Columbia Pictures was both literally – and theoretically – closer to the so-called “poverty row” than it was to the powerful feudal kingdoms of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer or Paramount. Economy and resourcefulness were pivotal to Cohn; silent star Louise Brooks once remarked that you could make all of Columbia’s films on four sets in the early days of the studio. The mogul’s careful monitoring of budgets, given Columbia’s small-fry status and relative lack of resources, would extend to his attitude toward stars. Initially, this meant utilising the common practice of taking stars out on loan from other studios; but it also meant keeping close, almost obsessive watch over his cash cows for fear of them going astray.

Shrewd, dictatorial, and never above an outright threat, Harry Cohn was said to have constantly interfered with the personal lives of his personnel. The apocryphal stories are many: that because of the difference between her left side and right profile in photographs, Cohn referred to Jean Arthur as “half angel, half horse”; that he called his stable of stars “the pricks and the cunts”; that he, not unlike many of his cigar-chomping contemporaries, chased women like Ginger Rogers around his office in an attempt to grope her. Few of these rough-and-tumble businessmen were known for their angelic behaviour, but Cohn often bordered on parody, with his notorious potty mouth and propensity to fire people on a whim.

Standard seven-year contracts were sometimes nixed in favour of five-year ones at Columbia, but regardless, tended to be fixed and exploitative, with any refusal or rebellion about projects often resulting in long suspensions or punishments. Cohn, in particular, knew how to leverage what he needed to in order to keep his personnel in line, including details of personal lives. That didn’t make for a happy relationship with most of the contract players at Columbia, particularly the ones whom Cohn saw as especially valuable; the more special you were, the more controlling the mogul became. As Glenn Ford had it: “I was one of Harry’s children. There were three of us – Bill Holden, Rita Hayworth, and me. He took over our lives, decided what we’d eat, where we’d live, what cars we would have...”1

It was Margarita Cansino, a Mexican-born dancer and actress with a domineering stage father and a beautiful face, who perhaps best exemplified the image of Columbia stardom. Painful electrolysis raised her hairline follicle by follicle to give her a “less Latina” look; her hair was dyed what would become her iconic shade of Technicolor red; her name became Rita Hayworth. She was whitewashed and transformed into one of the great bombshells of the age.

Hayworth’s producer and screenwriter, Virginia Van Upp, worked closely alongside the star – and Cohn – to tailor vehicles to her. First came Cover Girl (1944), then Gilda (1946), two of the studio’s biggest box offices of that decade. Hayworth’s screen image may have been representative of the prototypical Laura Mulvey “to-be-looked-at”-ness, but she also carries a certain lightly worn rebellious gumption. There’s a gloriously amoral sexual liberation in the furrow of her brow and the purse of her lips, and it’s what makes her Gilda so timeless.

It may be that the ultimate image of Columbia stardom is Hayworth at a later stage: in Orson Welles’ noir The Lady from Shanghai (1948). That film was released toward the close of her stellar initial run at Columbia, her iconic red tres-

ses of Gilda shorn and dyed platinum in a dramatic shift. She is a shining mirage of femme fatale womanhood, wily and wise; her hairstyle differing so wildly from Cohn’s initial one for her. It speaks volumes about the tension between Cohn’s obsessive control in one respect, and his flexibility in another. Hayworth’s hairstyle (and thus a protean element of her star power) being changed enraged Cohn, but the fact that the film continued more or less unhindered by studio interference is telling.

Hayworth’s star persona was undeniably different from Columbia’s more “independent” women, like Rosalind Russell and Jean Arthur. But she was a not-inappropriate beacon for the unusually strong identity of the female-dominated Columbia star stable. Idiosyncratic, powerful, and often overwhelming their male counterparts like the solid Glenn Ford or the haplessly handsome William Holden, there is something to be said about the women in the run of Columbia pictures of the studio.

Abusive though Cohn could undoubtedly be, he did understand the fiscal benefit of having strong and capable women working for his studio when the majority of wartime moviegoers were, in fact, women. It’s fair to assume the rationale was not remotely proto-feminist (Hayworth constantly battled Cohn’s unwanted sexual advances, even ignoring her own husband, Eddie Judson, when he suggested she should sleep with the mogul to further her career), but it did give unusual freedom to the women working at the studio.

In the earliest years of the business – pre-Hayworth, even –Columbia also heavily relied on the loan system, for both actors and directors. If each of the eight important studios of the age had their own preferences, house styles, and requirements of genre, star stables were invaluable resources, and ones which, as James Stewart once pointed out, allowed them to trade and loan actors around like baseball players.2 It was more cost-effective, and it was a combination of luck and good timing to take both Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert on-loan for Frank Capra’s production It Happened One Night (1934). It’s a film which would lead the studio not only to Oscars triumph, but to a genre model it would follow brilliantly for the decade to come.

It placed the studio in a unique place to take advantage of a gap in the market, as Joel W. Finler writes. “Thus, the tiny company found itself in an unexpected role, revealing and exploiting the comedy talents of numerous top stars. The actresses, in particular, often appeared reluctant to star in any film produced by the tiny studio, but once persuaded to do so were more easily encouraged to let their hair down there.”3

Directors Howard Hawks, George Stevens, and Leo McCarey worked on their great battle-of-the-sexes comedies at Columbia; legitimate classics of the genre from Twentieth Century (1934) to The Awful Truth (1937). Both directors and cast were loaned out generously for the projects.

Stevens’ contributions to the screwball, The Talk of the Town and The More the Merrier, both co-starred Jean Arthur. In spite of a deeply contentious relationship with Cohn, Jean Arthur was one of the early major conscripts at the studio.

Arthur had spent several years ill-used at Paramount before coming into her own in fast-talking comedy; the benefit of a smaller, economically-minded studio was that Columbia intended to make the best use of all of its resources.

Arthur’s part in John Ford’s The Whole Town’s Talking (1935) caught the attention of studio kingmaker Frank Capra, and it’s easy to see why. She plays opposite Edward G. Robinson, who’s in a dual role both as a timid clerk and his doppelganger: a wanted criminal. Arthur ploughs through the movie as a brash, tough-girl ad executive who talks out of the corner of her mouth and has no truck for coppers. Thus came her sparky part as a reporter in Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936).

Arthur’s biographer, John Oller, describes her role in The Whole Town’s Talking as “the type of role with which she would always be associated: the hard-boiled working girl with a heart of gold.”4 Later, Arthur would turn in a beautiful performance in Hawks’ Only Angels Have Wings (1938), allowing tenderness and toughness to coalesce in a more dramatic romance picture. Incidentally, it was also the film which gave Rita Hayworth her first noticeable small part.

Still from The Lady from Shanghai (1947). ©1948, renewed 1975 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Still from Twentieth Century (1934). ©1934 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

la cultura in prima fila

Emozioni uniche al Locarno Film Festival con la Posta.

PARDI DI DOMANI

Love Will Tear Us Apart

by Enrico Vannucci

SELECTION

COMMITTEE

After eight days of splendid shorts, we have finally reached the last chapter of Pardi di Domani, which explores one of the most profound emotions: love. Opening the program is Revolving Rounds, which is competing for the main award in the Corti d’Autore section and for the Pardo Verde Special Mention. The short is an experimental piece that plays with the corporeal form of cinema – film stock – and its seemingly infinite loops. Created by two of the most intriguing artists working in Austria today, filmmaker Johann Lurf and architect, artistic researcher, and performance artist Christina Jauernik, Revolving Rounds stands as an ode to experimental cinema and a tribute to the medium.

Seven minutes of entertainment and frenzy radiate from Jonathan Leggett’s Better Not Kill The Groove, produced during a workshop mentored by Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel at Geneva’s University of Art and Design – HEAD, and competing in the Concorso Nazionale. A montage of images taken from the internet serves as a tool for the film’s narrator to explore their identity, emotions, and the particular kind of love they experience while riding a scooter.

Linnud läinud (On Weary Wings Go By), the second chapter in an animated series about the seasons by Estonian director Anu-Laura Tuttelberg, is an Estonian-Lithuanian co-production competing both in the Concorso Internazionale and for the Pardo Verde Special Mention. Made with porcelain puppets shot in natural settings with film cameras and without the aid of artificial light, the short is a phantasmagoria centered on a love for nature that captivates the viewer with its dazzling beauty.

The final entry in the Concorso Internazionale section, Konstantina Kotzamani’s French-Greek-Swedish co-production What Mary Didn’t Know will serve as Pardi di Domani’s closing film. Having screened her previous works in Berlin, Cannes, and Venice, Kotzamani returns to Locarno for the first time since her previous PDD contender, Yellow Fieber (2015). What Mary Didn’t Know is her latest medium-length project, which will be succeeded by her debut feature, currently in post-production. Set aboard a cruise, What Mary Didn’t Know is an entertaining tale of adolescent love that transcends all types of barriers, whether social or linguistic, a story of transition that reveals one of life’s greatest truths: love will tear us apart. See you next year!

HAI INDOVINATO LE ACCONCIATURE?

Presentato da Salone Rosi by Schwarzkopf, il concorso pubblicato ieri su Pardo assegnerà due biglietti per il film di chiusura di Locarno77 a chi avrà indovinato i film dove appaiono quattro acconciature iconiche della storia del cinema.

Ecco le risposte: GuerreStellari(StarWars) TuttipazziperMary Nonèunpaesepervecchi Aqualcunopiacecaldo

CRITICS ACADEMY x RETROSPETTIVA

IN A LONELY PLACE: PICKUP

By Victor Morozov

For Pickup (1951), his debut as a director in Hollywood, Hugo Haas also appears in front of the camera – and gets mauled by the diabolical charms of a young girl. Love – here cynical and utterly contractual – has never gotten such bad press.

Pickup is the story of the aftermath – the aftermath of the Holocaust. Haas, who was born in Brno (now in the Czech Republic), crossed France and Portugal to flee the Nazis. The film is about the aftermath of the Great Depression, too – since what is most lacking in the film is money. And finally, it’s about the aftermath of ideals, because if everyone is broke, then everyone is judged by their worth in cold, hard cash. One takes without asking, or else one gives what is not needed – like “the Professor” (Howland Chamberlain), an oddball who steals books from the library and scatters them everywhere. And if one has nothing to give, one offers their body: this is how Betty (Beverly Michaels) ends up in the bed belonging to Hunky (the dawdling worker played by Haas) – out of sheer desperation, seeking the ever-elusive “way out”. Because one must choose wisely and do the math: during a car ride with Hunky’s subordinate, Betty, presumably finding this man more to her liking, exclaims in frustration: “Young, handsome, and broke!” What can you do when life is unfair?

Except that Hunky might not be the best deal either. He starts dreaming, believing in love, taking Betty for granted; suddenly, he becomes troublesome. He’s unaware that in this world, it’s every man for himself – no benevolent soul is here to save you from the rage of others. Just like Betty, the film is ruthless in every way: poverty, old age, loneliness are simply there, the undeniable bedrock of modern capitalist society. Escaping

it can be achieved only through greater violence. The film avenges appearances, leading to purely mercantile relationships: if something seems fishy, it probably is. When the young man professes his love, Betty replies drily: “You didn’t kill yourself.” His retort: “I couldn’t afford a funeral.”

It’s an inescapable moral dilemma that the film pushes quite far. Understandably so: what better way to depict resourcefulness than in a film made with that ethos? We’ve heard it all before: critics started taking B-movies seriously when they realized that a lack of money likely meant more determination and creativity to achieve the same effects as their big-budget counterparts. Thus, two characters pretending to respect each other while plotting betrayal becomes a commentary on marriage. And a quartet is enough, ultimately, to signify “America”, with all its idealism and vice.

One idea per shot, as they used to say. Indeed, one must witness the absolutely distressing scene where Hunky, reeling under Betty’s hostile words, loses his hearing. A piercing whistle blankets the soundtrack and plunges Hunky into utter despair through a simple cinematic trick: the sound is off, with only weightless images.

The film sometimes gets symbolical, even meta-cinematic, with Hunky unwittingly embodying the various ages of cinema through his own shifting condition. Regressing to a childlike state, he eventually becomes the hero of his own silent film. And when hearing does return, it’s as if the entire film had become a talkie again, marveling at the sheer possibility of sound (cars and birds invade the soundtrack in an ingenuous, almost touching formal flourish). Yet, what we see

remains entirely concrete, the product of an unholy narrative machination. Perversity lies at its core, which makes it quite sensational as a time capsule: without alerting anyone to his unexpected recovery, Hunky returns home, pretending to still be deaf. The film shows great intelligence by turning this weakness into a strength dressed as a weakness. Pickup delights in tormenting its protagonist, making this ageing, somewhat masochistic man inert, unable to react for fear of revealing his secret. What madness to see his wife and her lover indulge in increasingly delirious fantasies right in front of him, while he is in turn forced to mimic his own decline, finding in this very degradation the determination to survive.

In putting Betty in her place, the film doesn’t necessarily side with Hunky, who turns out to be even less of a saint himself. Believing in miracles – a young blonde girl fallen from the sky – isn’t good, especially when it only has to do with libido. Cynical and lucid, Pickup finds salvation at the very last moments through the presence of a puppy, Hunky’s new companion – the sole path to innocence in this corrupted world. Ambivalent, the happy ending can only emerge at the cost of deep resignation to one’s own condition. The story comes full circle; the world isn’t getting any better.

VICTOR MOROZOV is a participant in the Locarno Critics Academy, the Festival’s workshop that prepares emerging critics for the world of film festivals and professional writing about cinema.

PAZ VEGA

“I Feel 100% Fulfilled When I’m Directing on Set”

Pardo sits down with actress turned writer-director Paz Vega in anticipation of the world premiere of her directorial debut, the tender but tense Rita, at Locarno77

by Pamela Biénzobas

For the setting of her directorial debut, Paz Vega – one of the brightest Spanish stars, ever since her international breakout Sex and Lucia (Lucía y el sexo, 2001) – chose Seville in the summer of 1984. Though Vega has worked in Hollywood and all over the world, for her first time at the helm of a project, she wanted to return to her native Andalusia, and to the era of her own childhood. Her long-gestating screenplay has been realized as Rita – in which she also appears onscreen, as Mari, mother to the eponymous girl (Sofía Allepuz) as well as to little Lolo (Alejandro Escamilla). For Pardo, Vega expounded on how directing represents the fulfillment of her creative ambitions as well as on the darker themes that shade her auspicious debut, a tale of childhood innocence impinged upon. ◼ by Keva York

Pamela Biénzobas: This is your first film as a writer and director after a long acting career, spanning almost three decades, and not just in Spain but internationally. What came first, Rita’s story or your wish to direct it?

Paz Vega: The first thing was the desire to write and direct. I remember that one day I sat down and started to draft two stories. A drama with a boy as the main character, and then Rita. For a couple of months I kept on working on both at the same time, but at some point, Rita started to take shape and grow more fluidly. So, eventually, it was this film that felt like it was coming to life in a spontaneous way – this was about seven or eight years ago. I finished the screenplay and reached out to Marta [Velasco] and Gonzalo [Bendala], who had a production company in Seville called Áralan. When I met them, I had the hunch that it had to be them. That’s how we started this adventure.

PB: So how did you prepare to make this jump into filmmaking?

PV: I haven’t directed any shorts or even any audiovisual work before. When I was 16, I directed [a show] at a theater school in Seville – that’s the most I’d ever done in terms of directing actors and the like. I jumped straight into making Rita just with all the experience I had accumulated over so many years in front of the camera. Because, from the first moment I started in this line of work, I’ve been extremely curious about the technical side of things. Although I was always in front of the camera, I had one eye on the other side all the time –observing, learning, asking questions. My many years as an actor have allowed me to learn about telling a story through images, beyond performance. That’s why at some point it became a pressing need that I felt inside me: “I want to tell a story through my gaze; I want to put the camera where I think it should be in order to express emotions that I want to convey. I want the lighting like this; I want this and that.” As I did my work as an actor, I would spontaneously think, “Oh, I wouldn’t place the camera there; I’d place it down here,” for example. Some directors I worked with noticed that I had an urge to direct. By standing next to the camera, observing and asking about other directors’ decisions, and wondering what decisions I myself would make… I’ve been reflecting on those technical aspects all along. It took some time, as it’s hard to get people to trust a first-time director. However, this seven-year wait has also allowed me to let the original screenplay settle, to have everything very much thought out. This time was a gift for me, to have the chance to go into details, to dive deeper into the story, in a way I would not have been able to had I shot it right after writing. Also, Rita herself had to come along! When I started to write the screenplay, Sofía [Allepuz], the girl who plays Rita, wasn’t even born yet! She turned seven two days before we started shooting. Now I see it had to be this way for “my Rita” to arrive!

PB: As if directing for the first time wasn’t enough of a challenge, you also play one of the main roles [as Rita’s mother, Mari]. Though I imagine it was important for you to be the mother, it is an added difficulty.

PV: Playing such a significant role in the film was a complicated and challenging task, I must admit. But it allowed me to be close to the children and create that natural connection you see in the film. In one sense it was difficult for me to split myself into actor and director, because even when you’re acting, you never stop directing. But that allowed me to develop such a beautiful, authentic relationship with the children that it was worth it.

PB: The children’s performances are crucial to the success of the film. How did you work with these very young actors and get them to convey these emotions with such credibility?

PV: Work was done with the children before we started shooting, over a month and a half, almost two months. The film was shot in five weeks. Plus, the law requires children to work fewer hours. So, in effect, we didn’t have much shooting time, meaning they had to arrive truly prepared. That preparation, which we called “workshops”, was always based on play, always with images that would not be harmful, all very “light”. Alejandro [Escamilla, who plays Rita’s younger brother Lolo] and Sofía had to build a relation of trust, as they didn’t know each other beforehand. All those earlier exercises through improvisation allowed them to bond in such a way that she would look after him as if he truly were her brother.

I would tell the parents that I didn’t want them to read the screenplay; I had assigned the kids short phrases, so they didn’t have to learn long lines by heart, and my intention was to tell them on set what was going on, explaining extra details depending on the scene. But the work with them was very precise, in their gazes, with the silences, in the tone of voice – because children tend to raise their pitch when they are acting. Working with them was one of the most rewarding aspects of this shoot for me, even though it was so intense, and it meant having to be on top of things and stay focused so that they didn’t get distracted – it could easily be boring for them to be on set for such long hours. If you look at the film, you can see that they’re in every shot. We had to treat them in a special way, and the truth is I enjoyed their company so much. They were just wonderful. And above all, they trusted me. They looked at me and trusted, and that was… wow! It was a gift both for me and for the film.

PB: Why did you decide to set Rita in such a particular time and place?

PV: Why the summer of 1984 specifically? The truth is that this story could be then or right now, in Madrid or anywhere in the world. But I decided to tell it from a place I know, which is Seville in 1984, when I was exactly Rita’s age. I know that city; I know those streets. My memory holds all that inside it, so I decided to

combine fiction with the reality of my childhood. That’s why I feel there’s much truth in those small details, like when they play in the attic with the trading cards, or in the girl playing with the bedsheets… those are things I used to do as a child. There’s a lot of my life experience in there. If I’d had to invent another reality, it would have been harder for me, and it wouldn’t have turned out the same. It was easier to connect with my own childhood than to make one up.

PB: The film is indeed very Spanish – but it will begin its life outside of Spain.

PV: It’s not by chance. I wanted to make a local film, in a place I knew very well. But my ambition has always been for such a local story to turn into something universal –because, regardless of where it takes place, what it talks about is universal. That is key. And that’s why I believe it will connect with people from elsewhere.

PB: Who were you thinking of as your audience when you were writing and then making the film?

PV: I don’t know exactly how to reply to this question. I haven’t thought about the film’s target audience, really. It doesn’t aim for one specific group, but rather just anyone who is sensitive and connects with this story in one way or another. If there are people of my generation – I’m 48 – that lived through those days in which male chauvinism was perhaps more obvious, and women were even more unprotected, they will empathize with the story, even if it’s simply because they lived in the ’80s, and might relate with the children playing out in the street like they did in their childhoods. The film also has a certain element of nostalgia. But ultimately I made the film that I would want to watch; that would motivate me, move me, teach me something that I didn’t know, make me reflect.

PB: You spoke about how you were learning the whole time you were working as an actor on sets, and I can imagine that you would constantly be learning as a spectator as well. Who do you feel you have learned most from?

PV: Throughout my career, I have been lucky enough to work with great filmmakers – Vicente Aranda, Pedro Almodóvar, James L. Brooks. I was able to adapt to their direction while doing my work as an actor. One thing that we actors do very well is adapt to each project, each crew, and each director. Directors also adapt, but it’s usually us who adapt to them, because each has their way of directing. Some are more eloquent, some more concrete, others more reserved and less specific, so you must figure things out yourself… That “school” [of being on set] has helped me very much to learn, for example, what and how I need to ask an actor for them to give me what I need, based on what I would need as an actor. Same thing with filmmaking. I love the great filmmakers, the classics… the Italian Neorealists, for example. Yet I don’t consider myself a cinephile – I’m someone that works in this world, who has a gaze and knows how to explain, and how to connect with a crew to realize what I have in mind. I’m also an actor and will of course continue playing different characters, but the truth is that right now what I’m most excited about is directing. It’s the role I enjoy the most. I feel 100% fulfilled when I am on set directing. The other day I read an interview with Jodie Foster, and I felt she was speaking on my behalf. She was saying she had never fallen in love with acting, and that she had always been more interested in the technical aspect of directing. I share that feeling. Indeed, this has been a lifelong obsession; this is my first film and I do not intend for it to be my last. The idea is to continue along this path, and gradually leave acting behind.

PB: What will your next step as a filmmaker be?

PV: Right now, I’m working on a documentary about a shelter for abused women close to Madrid. This place has been operating for 31 years, with a pioneer program for the recovery and reintroduction [into society] of women that have suffered abuse. Throughout the time they’ve been operating, over 700 women have been able to break free of the spiral of violence and rebuild their lives, together with their children. I feel that this vital work they are doing deserves to be known. The film is called El búnker violeta, and it will be ready right after Rita is released. After all this, I will need to take a break– though I already have a story in mind for which I’m now preparing a draft. It takes place in Latin America, and I hope to finish by next year. But let’s see if I find the time to sit down and write. Writing requires a lot of effort and concentration, and now with both Rita, which I finished so recently, and the documentary, I still haven’t had the time. But I’m on it!

PB: You have been an advocate against gender-based violence as a public figure, but now you are also acting as an advocate through your own films.

PV: I’ve collaborated for many years with several associations that work against domestic violence. It is something that worries me enormously, as a woman and as a human being. Over 20 years ago, I was in a film called Solo mía [Javier Balaguer, 2001], which was the first major Spanish film to deal with gender-based violence. It was at that time that I got in touch with the shelter that El búnker violeta is about. The stories that the women told really left an impression on me – and I have no doubt that reality always exceeds anything in fiction. As an activist in this struggle, one that shouldn’t even have to exist, I want to make films that grappled with the issue.

PB: In Rita, the children discover that the world of adults can

be terrible, and we as the viewers witness that through their gaze.

PV: My intention was to present it in a way that wasn’t aggressive. That’s why Rita has a certain fable-like quality at times. Because through the girl’s sweetness, through the children, through innocence, I wanted to glimpse at this terrible world of adults that many children must suffer in. But I always looked at it through the kind, serene, calm gaze of these wise children – because I believe that we are never as wise as when we were children.

◼ Rita premieres tonight, 16.8 at 21:30 at the Piazza Grande

Although I was always in front of the camera, I had one eye on the other side all the time –observing, learning, asking questions

Laetitia Dosch

Questo film è un canto d’amore alla mia Svizzera!

Laetitia Dosch, attrice meravigliosa, esordisce come regista nel cinema con Le Procès du chien. Suo co-protagonista è Kodi, cane-attore stupefacente, vincitore quest’anno della Palm Dog a Cannes. Con Laetitia Dosch abbiamo parlato del suo rapporto con gli animali, di cosa comporti collaborare con un attore che abbaia e del suo grande amore per la Svizzera.

by Maria Giovanna Vagenas

Attrice rinomata, sceneggiatrice e regista di spettacoli teatrali la poliedrica Laetitia Dosch, debutta quest’anno come regista cinematografica con un’opera follemente inventiva, provocatoria, divertente, piena di charme e di umanità: Le Procès du chien. Film giudiziario, satira sociale, riflessione filosofica sullo statuto degli animali e sulle questioni del medio ambiente, deliziosamente inclassificabile in termine di genere, Le Procès du chien sa divertirci, sorprenderci e farci pensare. Laetitia Dosch dimostra di avere un talento prorompente tanto nella messa in scena, che scorre fluida alternando scene pubbliche e momenti privati, quanto nella scrittura, punteggiata di battute mozzafiato. Artista originalissima e fuori dagli schemi, Laetitia Dosch che interpreta Avril, avvocatessa delle cause perse nel film, sceglie come suo co-protagonista un cane, Kodi, nel ruolo di Cosmos che, accusato di avere morso tre persone, rischia la pena di morte. In mezzo a un cast di interpreti straordinari la vera star del film è proprio lui, Kodi, cane-attore sorprendente, che ha vinto l’ambita Palm Dog a Cannes, per la migliore interpretazione canina del festival. Per tutti gli amici degli animali e del cinema, la proiezione in Piazza Grande sarà una grande festa!

MGV: Vorrei chiederle di parlarci del suo rapporto con gli animali. Pare che lei sia cresciuta in un ambiente popolato di animali, coltivando il suo amore e il suo interesse per loro fin dall’infanzia. Nel 2018 ha co-scritto, diretto ed interpretato Hate, uno spettacolo incentrato su un cavallo in cui lei affrontava già, con humour e finezza, il nostro rapporto all’altro, mettendo l’animale e l’essere umano a condizione di parità.

LD: La complessità del nostro rapporto con gli animali è una lettura della vita che mi è stata trasmessa molto presto. Sono cresciuta effettivamente in un grande appartamento con molti adulti e vari animali. C’erano degli animali domestici: un cane, un cincillà e poi c’erano anche delle gazze, perché mio nonno, che era ornitologo, raccoglieva le gazze ferite e le curava. Mio nonno possedeva anche la più grande collezione di uova d’Europa, per alimentarla andava a prendere le uova dai nidi, le svuotava e poi le metteva in scatola. L’amore che si nutriva in casa nostra per gli animali era bello e perverso allo stesso tempo, perché amarli significava anche svuotare delle uova e metterle dentro a delle scatole! L’ambiguità con cui noi esseri umani trattiamo gli animali –ƒ li amiamo ma allo stesso tempo li sfruttiamo e li usiamo come se fossero degli oggetti – mi ha interessato fin da quando ero bambina. Molto presto, ho anche intuito che esiste un parallelo fra lo statuto degli animali e la condizione femminile. Queste mie riflessioni si poi sono poi andate sviluppando col tempo. Mi piace moltissimo lavorare con gli animali, l’ho fatto in vari film prima di farlo nel mio spettacolo teatrale Hate e poi in Le Procès du chien (Dog on Trial), ma penso che non sia il caso di tutti nel mondo del cinema.

MGV: Com’è nata l’idea di Le Procès du chien?

LD: L’idea del film è tratta da una serie di fatti di cronaca. Un giorno, dopo avere visto Hate, una spettatrice è venuta a raccontarmi la storia di un processo contro un cane che aveva scatenato un’ondata di polemiche. C’erano state delle manifestazioni e delle petizioni e tutti avevano preso partito pro o contro. Seduto sul banco d’accusa ovviamente non c’era il cane ma il suo padrone. Questa vicenda mi ha aperto gli occhi su vari altri di processi che, attraverso una serie di ricorsi, sono giunti fino alla Corte europea dei diritti dell’uomo, dopo che la persona morsa aveva sporto denuncia, reclamando un risarcimento in denaro e l’eutanasia del cane. Sono rimasta colpita dalla follia che si è scatenata intorno a questi processi. Il fatto che avessero preso tali dimensioni significava che c’era qualcosa di poco chiaro rispetto allo statuto dell’animale. Come definiamo gli animali in fin dei conti? Sono esseri viventi che meritano di avere dei diritti o cose soggette al dominio dell’uomo? Ripensando a tutto ciò, mi sono detta che se un cane non fosse più considerato come una cosa, – mi pare evidente che non sia una cosa – potrebbe beneficiare di un processo ad hoc. Quest’idea mi è sembrata un ottimo soggetto per una commedia.

MGV: La Svizzera ha un ruolo molto importante ne LeProcès du chien il film è stato prodotto da una casa di produzione svizzera, Bande à part Films, è stato girato a Losanna, ed è stato concepito in base al sistema giuridico svizzero, secondo il quale un animale viene assimilato ad una cosa.

LD: Per me questo film è un canto d’amore alla mia Svizzera! Sono franco-svizzera, ma ho scoperto questo paese solo nel 2002, quando sono venuta a Losanna dove ho vissuto per cinque anni. Lo spirito svizzero mi ha conquistato subito. Per me la Svizzera è un luogo di emancipazione e di libertà. Devo molto ad una serie di personalità del mondo del teatro, come Sandrine Kuster e Patrick de Rham, che mi hanno spinto a fare i miei primi spettacoli e mi hanno sempre appoggiato. Lavorare con Bande à part Films è stato cruciale per me. Lionel Baier, il produttore del film, è un uomo veramente coraggioso, dopo avere visto Hate, mi ha subito detto: “Se puoi fare uno spettacolo del genere con un cavallo, puoi fare anche un film!” Da quel momento in poi mi ha incoraggiato, accompagnato e sostenuto fino all’ultimo. Questo film gli deve molto. Ho voluto raccontare questa storia in Svizzera in primo luogo perché il suo territorio, che non è stato oltremodo sfruttato dal cinema, ha per me un qualcosa di magico, un’estetica particolare che mi fa pensare ad una fiaba o a un racconto come quelli dei film dei fratelli Cohen. D’altra parte i personaggi del film sono tipicamente svizzeri e mi ricordano la mia gioventù a Losanna, una città di cui adoro lo spirito cosmopolita e che ho voluto filmare come una piccola New York. Tutta la pellicola è costellata di riferimenti alla Svizzera come, per esempio, il grande dipinto paesaggistico nell’aula del tribunale, ispirato a quello di Charles Giron che adorna la sala del Consiglio Nazionale svizzero.

MGV: Le Procès du Chien inizia come una favola svelandoci, per un istante, il suo processo di scrittura: «E allora, come comincio? Prima l’immagine, poi il suono…» si chiede la voce in off della protagonista. Sarei curiosa di sapere come avete lavorato con Anne-Sophie Bailly alla sceneggiatura.

LD: Io non avevo mai scritto una sceneggiatura prima. Mi sono ispirata molto ai manuali di sceneggiatura americani, perché volevo fare una commedia adatta ogni tipo di pubblico e di facile accesso. Temevo di non conoscere abbastanza i codici di questo genere e di finire facendo un film troppo ‘artistico’. Volevo raccontare una storia veramente alla portata di tutti. Non so se ce l’ho fatta, comunque ho seguito tutte le regole! (ride) Dopo un mese di scrittura ho incontrato per caso Anne-Sophie Bailly, che era venuta a casa mia per prendere il cappotto che indossavo in Montparnasse –Femminile singolare (Jeune femme, Léonor Serraille, 2017) e di cui volevo finalmente sbarazzarmi. Abbiamo iniziato a scrivere scambiandoci idee di continuo. Le sequenze in tribunale sono costruite intorno a dei dialoghi e a delle argomentazioni. Per far ridere dovevamo trovare la battuta giusta al momento giusto. Vole-

vamo inoltre che le scene del processo mostrassero delle situazioni surreali ma non ridicole, per far ciò abbiamo dovuto seguire una logica il più realista possibile. La seconda sfida per me è stata quella di evitare una narrazione troppo lineare. Nei film, ogni singola scena di solito aggiunge qualcosa di nuovo alla storia. Io invece volevo creare un parallelo tra le donne e i cani, mettendo in luce il rapporto di sfruttamento e di dominazione che subiscono entrambi. Per questo bisognava includere nella trama anche la vita di Avril. Abbiamo costruito una specie di patchwork, alternando le scene del processo con quelle della vita personale di Avril – le serate con gli amici, il suo rapporto con il ragazzino della porta accanto – un po’ come accade nelle serie anglosassoni tipo Fleabag o Louie, in cui il tono cambia di continuo.

MGV: Il vero protagonista del film è il cane Kodi – Cosmos sul grande schermo – che ha vinto un premio d’interpretazione a Cannes – La Palm Dog – e che lei, giustamente, cita come attore. Come lo ha trovato e come ha lavorato con lui?

LD: Il cane è citato nei titoli di coda del film e il suo nome è sulla locandina, perché questo cane è un vero attore. Kodi capisce. Quando gli dici basta, smette di recitare, e capisce quando ti sta facendo male. Ho scelto Kodi dopo averlo visto su una foto. In passato era stato un cane randagio a Narbonne, oggi è diventato famoso. Kodi è in grado di provare molte emozioni diverse, è un cane complesso. Non volevo un cane tipo “Beethoven” come quello nell’omonimo film di Brian Levant (1992) né un cane selvaggio, ma una via di mezzo. Cosmos è un personaggio estremamente commovente e non mi pento neanche un istante di aver lavorato con lui. Ho riscritto varie parti dello script per adattarle al cane e poi abbiamo fatto molte prove insieme sempre in presenza degli istruttori. Fra me e Kodi si è creato un legame di amicizia molto forte e ne sono felice. Sul set abbiamo rispettato le condizioni etiche previste par un cane; Kodi aveva il suo camerino e un numero ben definito di ore di riprese. Abbiamo fatto il possibile per renderlo felice, visto che non veniva pagato! Poi in sede di montaggio abbiamo cercato di trovare una buona via di mezzo fra il lato comico e quello selvaggio del cane, che può essere anche un animale incomprensibile e misterioso come Koko nel film di Barbet Schroeder Koko, il gorilla che parla (Koko, le gorille qui parle, 1978).

L’ambiguità con cui trattiamo gli animali mi interessa sin da bambina

MGV: Perché ha scelto di raccontare e commentare il film attraverso la voce fuori campo del personaggio di Avril, interpretato da lei?

LD: La voce fuori campo è stata aggiunta in fase di montaggio perché ci siamo resi conto che, durante le riprese, correndo dietro agli altri personaggi avevo perso un po’ di vista Avril. Inoltre dovevamo rimettere a fuoco alcuni aspetti della vicenda. La voce fuori campo ha dato un tono particolare alla storia, permettendoci di concentrarci nuovamente su Avril e di semplificare vari elementi narrativi.

MGV: Parlando ancora di voce, si potrebbe dire che Avril Lucciani, avvocatessa delle cause perse, è una donna alla ricerca della propria voce.

LD: Avril è una donna di oggi che ha difficoltà ad affermarsi, ad essere come realmente è. Vorrebbe sempre avere una voce profonda, una voce da uomo appunto, per farsi ascoltare e per avere dell’autorità, perché non è in grado di esprimersi liberamente. Dice sempre: “Non riesco a parlare nel modo in cui sono”, la voce non le esce mai come vorrebbe. In questo senso esiste un parallelo tra lei e il cane, perché anche il cane non riesce più a trovare la sua voce atavica da lupo. Avril e il cane cercheranno entrambi, ognuno a modo suo, di trovare la loro voce. Avril troverà la sua forza e la sua voce attraverso la difesa del cane e la sua determinazione a salvarlo.

MGV: La fotografia, optando per delle tonalità calde e dei contrasti cromatici, riflette perfettamente all’atmosfera variegata del film. Come ha elaborato questo aspetto?

LD: Ho avuto la fortuna di incontrare Alexis Kavyrchine, un direttore della fotografia con una grande esperienza e con la voglia di realizzare il film che avevo in mente. Volevamo fare una commedia che non somigliasse alle commedie francesi, spesso scialbe ed uniformi in termini d’immagine. Abbiamo dunque deciso di accentuare i contrasti, poi abbiamo pensato di saturare anche i colori per creare un universo vivace e multiforme dove, dietro una facciata apparentemente faceta, si possa percepire l’eventualità di un dramma. Con Isa Boucharlat e Anne-Carmen Vuilleumier, due fantastiche professioniste svizzere, abbiamo poi lavorato molto anche sui costumi e sulla scenografia mettendo dei tocchi di colore ovunque.

MGV: Il suono e la musica svolgono un ruolo essenziale nel creare l’universo eclettico del film dove s’incontrano l’umano e il canino, il pubblico e il privato, la commedia e il dramma. In una scena, già di culto, addirittura Cosmos si mette a cantare – a modo suo – la canzone Ma Révérence di Véronique Sanson.

LD: Per me il suono e la musica sono strettamente connessi. Vuk Vukmanovic, il mio montatore suono svizzero, ha fatto un lavoro straordinario. Non volevo un suono realistico, per cui abbiamo usato molto poco il suono in presa diretta. Cercavo piuttosto un suono simbolico, come quello dei film di Truffaut, Kubrick o di Paul Thomas Anderson, in cui il suono racconta una storia intera con pochissime piste. Nell’aula del tribunale, per esempio, abbiamo deciso di smorzare al massimo il suono ambientale lasciando che la voce occupasse tutto lo spazio. Il 90% del suono è costituito dalla voce. Si può sentire l’anima delle persone nella voce. Visto che il rumore esterno era mixato molto basso, bisognava poi trovare il suono adatto per trasmettere al momento giusto il clima del luogo. Per quanto riguarda la colonna sonora David Sztanke ha composto una melodia straordinaria sul tema di Cosmos, creando, attraverso l’uso dei flauti, un’atmosfera fiabesca che accompagna tutto il film. L’idea brillante di Vukmanovic di introdurre dei brani di musica classica – Mozart, Beethoven, Rachmaninov – ci ha poi permesso di illustrare la comicità senza appiattirla. La musica del film è un misto composto di brani già esistenti, come quello di Bertrand Belin, della composizione di David Sztanke e delle melodie proposteci da Vuk Vukmanovic.

MGV: Difficile da definire in termini di genere, Le Procès du chien è in primo luogo un dramma giudiziario. Qual è il perché di questa scelta?

MGV: Il cane è circondato da uno straordinario ensemble di attori tra i quali spiccano Anne Dorval, François Damiens, Jean Pascal Zadi, Mathieu Demy e Pierre Deladonchamps. Nel suo ruolo di attrice-regista, come ha scelto il cast della pellicola?

LD: Avevo bisogno di attori che sapessero essere comici e che fossero in grado di cimentarsi in qualcosa di un po’ inquietante e di sovversivo. François Damiens, JP Zadi e Anne Dorval amano interpretare un humor sovversivo che può sconfinare nel burlesco ma, allo stesso tempo, sanno essere anche molto sensibili e toccanti. Per me, tutti questi attori sono una vera famiglia con cui condivido un tipo di espressività particolare. Con loro mi sento a casa. È stata una grande fortuna per me che anche loro si siano riconosciuti in questo film. Poi ci sono moltissimi gli attori svizzeri; dei professionisti come Aurélien Patouillard, Tiffany Madden e Catherine Traveletti, che avevano studiato con me alla Manufacture, ma anche delle personalità della società civile come Dominique Bourg, il grande filosofo ecologista, Patrick de Rham che dirige il teatro Arsenik, e Antoine Campiche che è un grande avvocato. Anche il mio produttore, il regista ed attore Lionel Baier fa una breve apparizione. Infine, nel film compaiono anche molte persone che abbiamo semplicemente reperito per le strade di Losanna.

LD: I tribunali sono dei luoghi in cui si può riflettere, in cui si forniscono delle argomentazioni a favore e contro, in cui si esaminano le prove, si ascoltano i testimoni e si costruisce un pensiero prima che venga emessa una sentenza. I film giudiziari permettono al pubblico di prendersi il tempo necessario per crearsi un’opinione sui personaggi. Al giorno d’oggi è un lusso avere uno spazio che ci offre il tempo della riflessione. Credo che tutti i film giudiziari che sono stati realizzati recentemente siano una sorta di reazione alla velocità con cui vengono espressi dei giudizi sui social media, dove le reazioni più disparate si scatenano in un istante. In questo contesto, fare film giudiziario è un modo per opporsi e proteggersi da tutto ciò.

MGV: Vorrei citare una parte dell’arringa finale dell’avvocatessa Avril che trovo appassionante: “Uccidere quest’animale significa negare ciò che è veramente. Non è stato creato per noi. Non siamo proprietari degli altri esseri viventi, ne facciamo parte.”

LD: Questa frase è davvero il cuore del film. Le Procès du chien è un film che lotta contro lo sfruttamento e la dominazione dell’altro nel senso più ampio del termine. Il tema dell’ecologia mi sta molto a cuore, per me è importante capire che ruolo possa svolgere la cultura e il mio stesso lavoro in questo contesto. Concentrarsi sul rapporto tra gli uomini e gli animali è, a mio avviso, un buon punto di partenza, perché si tratta delle specie alla quale siamo più vicini. Oggi quando parliamo di ecologia, dobbiamo capire che bisogna pensare, cambiare e prendere in considerazione anche le esigenze delle altre specie, se vogliamo che l’insieme degli ecosistemi possa continuare a funzionare.

◼ Le Procès du chien premieres tomorrow, 17.8 at 21:00 at the Piazza Grande

LOCARNO77 VERDICT

Throughout the Festival, Pardo has had its ear tuned to the talk of the town: Who will take home the coveted Pardo d’Oro? Who should take home the Pardo d’Oro? As #Locarno77 draws to a close, we quizzed critics and friends of the publication about the standout films and most memorable moments here on the ground.

Which Locarno77 film will win the Pardo d’Oro? Which one should?

FLAVIA DIMA, Films in Frame, Romania

Suyoocheon, by Hong Sangsoo. Because it’s a return to his roots, in a way, after a period of experimenting with very distilled narratives and various structural and formal permutations – and it’s very effective and timely.

FogodoVento, by Marta Mateus. Portuguese cinema is an absolute miracle, and this is by far one of the most remarkable debuts I’ve seen this decade.

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in?

I could tell you one that I (kind of) did live in, as a child growing up in the nineties: Optilustratedinlumeaideală, by Radu Jude.

NICHOLAS HENRIQUEZ, Pardo Games & Quizzes Designer, US

Seses by Laurynas Bareiša will take home the Pardo d’Oro, beginning an unstoppable run culminating with the Academy Award for Best Picture – becoming a household name in the process and a boon to crossword constructors everywhere.

Seses. Seriously, please—look at all those S’s and E’s. (I also liked Bogancloch by Ben Rivers).

Locarno memory that felt like a movie: Wandering into the Rotonda by la Mobiliare for ten minutes at 22:30 each night to catch a snippet of Switzerland’s finest singer-songwriters, like the one and only Bastian Baker.

INNEY PRAKASH, Prismatic Ground, US

I’ve been deep diving in and enjoying the retrospective and Concorso Cineasti del Presente sections of the Festival. They’re all winners, but I submit Women’s Prison by Lewis Seiler and Hanami by Denise Fernandes for special recognition.

Best Locarno77 performance by an animal

My favorite performance by an animal at Locarno this year was the monkey in Samba Traoré by Idrissa Ouédraogo. He’s a scene stealer, though his fate seems to get lost in the film’s climax and resolution. The film was released in 1993, so this is most likely a posthumous nomination. RIP.

YUN-HUA CHEN, Film International, US

Qing chun (Ku) by Wang Bing. The trilogy as a whole, and this one in particular, is simply a masterpiece, offering an immersive and candid look beneath the glossy surface of the globalized capitalist system we live in.

DerSpatzimKaminby Ramon Zürcher. Everything that one could hope for in a cinematic experience: natural and supernatural, puzzling and dazzling, poetic and philosophical.

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in

IfYou Could OnlyCook by William Seiter. A millionaire executive takes up a job as a butler for a bootlegging gang that later kidnaps him from a wedding and marries him off to a different bride. What a world to live in.

FILMS TO LIVE IN

LOCARNO77 CRITICS

PARDO D’ORO PREDICTIONS

THÉO MÉTAIS, Cineman, Switzerland

Well, I haven’t watched that many films in Competiton, but Transamazoniafrom director Pia Marais is a strong contestant.

With the Palme d’Or going to Anora, 2024 has started under the poetic star of despicable yet touching losers. On that note, it seems to me that BangBangby Vincent Grashaw with Tim Blake Nelson should snatch the crown!

EDUARDO SIMANTOB, swissinfo, Switzerland

I think Green Line by Sylvie Ballyot is a true contender in face of the current Palestinian/Lebanese plight and how Locarno juries are usually quite sensitive to the world crisis of the moment.

Well, I haven’t seen all the films in the Concorso Internazionale, and I’m putting a lot of hope in Hong Sangsoo’s Suyoocheon. But so far, I think the strongest candidate is Qingchun(Ku) by Wang Bing– that would be my “should win” choice.

PEDRO SEGURA, La Ola Cine, Mexico

Transamazonia by Pia Marais. Just looks like a winner. FogodeVento by Marta Mateus. This delicate and rigorous film is one that deserves to be celebrated, especially in a fest like Locarno, the only A-class film festival in the world for this kind of films.

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in?

I would choose one of the Capras, the Hawks or the Ford films in the Columbia retrospective. Just because of the intensity of emotions that I feel is missing in the new films that, in one way or another, are too close to the world we are living in now…

FILMS TO SKIP ON A DATE NIGHT

STÉPHANE GOBBO, Le Temps, Switzerland

Green Line by Sylvie Ballyot, because it combines a strong storytelling and an important message about the necessity of an irreligious dialogue between all men and women.

Green Linetoo.

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in E.T.by Steven Spielberg: since I saw the movie in 1982, I’ve always wanted to be Elliott.

GUY LODGE, Variety, UK

Qingchun(Ku) by Wang Bing. Often when there’s one documentary in a competition, that’s the one that wins – it helps to be unlike the others! But less cynically, the scale and social weight of this ongoing project is imposing.

Der Spatz im Kamin by Ramon Zürcher, for its artfulness and playfulness – the film matches the themes and tonal peculiarities of the Zürchers’ previous films, but feels like a formal step up.

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in The 1955 musical version of MySisterEileen by Richard Quine, a highlight of this year’s wonderful Columbia retrospective, enraptured me with its joyous, stylized vision of midcentury New York City, complete with its sparkly dinner-dance clubs, shabby-chic basement studios, and hordes of horny sailors.

CHLOE LIZOTTE, MUBI Notebook, US

LaMortviendraby Christoph Hochhäusler. The title implies that it is fate, inevitable, a promise, a closed circle.

Boganclochby Ben Rivers. Since it’s so gentle, I feel like it would provoke the funniest arguments surrounding whether or not it’s a “deserving” winner.

A Locarno77 memory that felt like a movie

Listening to a bossa nova-inflected, muzak-adjacent cover of Radiohead’s “Creep” while completely alone on the coffee shop patio where I eat breakfast each morning.

ÖYKÜ SOFUOGLU, Letterboxd Jury, Türkiye

Fogo doVento by Marta Mateus. This film bears witness to the wounds and fractures that Portuguese society inflicted upon itself as well as on nature. Mateus’ vision lays the foundation for a solemn place of commemoration for those whose losses, memories, and experiences of resistance went unacknowledged by the civilized yet cruel eyes of the polis – humans, trees, animals and the fierce wind that endlessly sings their song.

Cent mille millards by Virgil Vernier. This film is a beautiful, melancholic exploration of our futile attempts to escape loneliness – an ode to the humans of late and sad capitalism.

Best Locarno77 performance by an animal

The ginger, chubby cat in DerSpatzimKaminby Ramon Zürcher that went out like a hero.

PIERRE JENDRYSIAK, Critics Academy, France

I might bet on Boganclochby Ben Rivers because, while formally pretty experimental, it is still, in its own strange way, the one film that is both 1. “good”, and 2. “aesthetically consensual”.

Qingchun(Ku) by Wang Bing should win the competition. So far, it is the film I saw at the Festival that felt the most complete, the most refined, the most profound.

Best Locarno77 performance by an animal

The sleeping crow that we follow in Agora by Ala Eddine Slim.

JOSEPH FAHIM, Middle East Eye, UK

Qingchun(Ku)by Wang Bing. In a competition marked by numerous startling experimentations, Wang Bing’s second part of his Youthtrilogy is a radical as its rivals but is also near-perfect in both vision and form.

Qingchun(Ku)by Wang Bing.

Best Locarno77 performance by an animal

The motionless dog and crow in Ala Eddine Slim’s Agora

TOMMASO TOCCI, Mymovies.it, Italy

Der Spatz im Kamin by Ramon Zürcher, with its simmering tension and unforgettable imagery.

Yeni șafak solarken by Gürcan Keltek, my Locarno77 revelation and one of the most atmospheric pieces of cinema I’ve seen in years. Another favorite that I’ll champion is Virgil Vernier’s sneakily apocalyptic stunner, Centmille milliards.

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in In a Competition filled with dystopias, real or fictional, I’ll take a breather by falling in love with a stranger in front of the sea from Sullaterraleggeri by Sara Fgaier.

VADIM RIZOV, Filmmaker Magazine, US

DerSpatzimKamin by Ramon Zürcher.

Centmille milliards by Virgil Vernier.

Best Locarno77 performance by an animal

While the obvious answer here is a group award for the minor bestiary of DerSpatzimKamin, the bull running around FogodoVentoby Marta Mateus, forcing everyone to perch in trees and disrupting the frame while they deliver a collective monologue, should not be forgotten.

VALENTINA D’AMICO, Movieplayer.it, Italy

Akiplėša by Saulė Bliuvaitė, a strong dramatic story about difficult adolescence.

Mond by Kurdwin Ayub, for the bravery of the subject and for the unusual female point of view even if the movie doesn’t have a proper ending.

Best Locarno77 performance by an animal Kodi the dog from LeProcèsduchienby Laetitia Dosch

PARDO D’ORO CRITICS PICKS

Still from Cent mille milliards

Still from Der Spatz im Kamin ©Zürcher Film

Still from Fogo do Vento ©Clarão Companhia

Still from Qing chun (Ku)

Still from Suyoocheon ©Jeonwonsa Film Co.

THIERRY MÉRANGER, Les Cahiers du Cinéma, France

I think that Mond by Kurdwin Ayub will win, for cinematographic and extracinematographic reasons. I would like FogodoVento by Marta Mateus to win.

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in Bogancloch by Ben Rivers.

DEVIKA GIRISH, Film Comment, US

FogodeVento by Marta Mateus. Having been on a jury in Locarno, I know the appeal of an under-70min film that rocks!

QingChun(Ku) by Wang Bing Just so they have to play all 227 mins of it in the Piazza Grande at the end.

A Locarno77 film that would kill the mood on a date night DerSpatzimKaminby Ramon Zürcher. Unless Oedipus / Electra Complex is your thing. Then it’s the perfect date night movie for you!

JOSH SLATER-WILLIAMS, IndieWire, UK DerSpatzimKamin by Ramon Zürcher. Suyoocheon by Hong Sangsoo.

Locarno memory that felt like a movie

Members of the audience at Devdas singing Kuch Kuch Hota Hai to Shah Rukh Khan and him joining in.

KATARINA DOCALOVICH, Critics Academy, US

Suyoocheon by Hong Sangsoo. Will appeal to Hong diehards and the uninitiated alike. It’s a very beautiful film that made me cry during some scenes. I feel comfortable saying this is the best film he’s made since OntheBeachatNightAlone

Cent mille milliards by Virgil Vernier. J’adore this film because of how small the scope is, how it tackles the elephant in the room of extreme wealth without being super obvious or didactic. Fresh performances from newcomers; subtle, light touches. I haven’t heard many people talking about it yet!

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in Boganclochby Ben Rivers. After this festival I desperately need to go to the woods and sing to myself in a bathtub.

EMERSON GOO, Screen Slate, US

Transamazonia by Pia Marais. It’s a genre film with a popular appeal, has a few hair-raising moments, addresses timely issues, and is quite well shot.

Centmille milliards by Virgil Vernier. A very precise and tender film, with a real gestural economy, about an unusual friendship built on secrets that lie beyond words. Vernier’s exploration of placeless, globalized liminal spaces is captivating. It’s about reaching the limits of this world, only to pull back, because escape might not yet be possible in our bordered, stratified society, but can be achieved in the mind. I teared up a few times.

A Locarno77 film you wish you could live in Der Spatz im Kamin by Ramon Zürcher. Obviously! What a lovely family.

NICOLAS PEDRERO-SETZER, Critics Academy, US

QingChun(Ku)by Wang Bing. The second installment in Wang Bing’s new series of films about textile workers, is monumental in scale, but deeply human in feel and humble in form. It is a warm film that addresses a cold and cruel reality. This is why I think it will win the Concorso Internazionale.

Suyoocheon by Hong Sangsoo. I finished watching it ten minutes ago. Words are failing me right now, but I know it is a moving film, one in direct communication with the heart. Hong Sangsoo, who continues to mine the beauties and miseries of his milieux, should win the Concorso Internazionale.

A Locarno memory that felt like a movie I saw Wang Bing smoking near a corner. He was facing the wall, his back against a garden. He smoked one cigarette and looked forward blankly. I did not want to disturb him, so I simply observed him from afar. He finished his cigarette and continued staring at the stone wall before him. The next day, I saw Pedro Costa standing by a church near the spot Wang Bing had been smoking. He stood still and looked tired; his neck curved downward. After a few seconds, he shook his head and walked away.

Piazza Grande.

Béatrice Dalle, Fabrice Du Welz, and Abel Ferrara walk the red carpet.

ATELIER OÏ X ROTONDA BY LA MOBILIARE

“Everybody talks about ‘going green’, but without water – without the blue – there is no green.”

Wise words from Aurel Aebi, one of the founders of atelier oï, a transdisciplinary architecture and design firm based in La Neuveville, in Switerland. The atelier is behind the Rotonda’s “blue” makeover, carried out during the festival in conjunction with la Mobiliare and the Locarno Film Festival team. Their inspiration: a concept that has come out of recent developments in urban planning, known as the “sponge city”.

But what exactly is a “sponge city”? We know that water and urban environments often don’t mix – we’ve just seen how heavy rain and swelling tides lead to flooding across France, Italy, and Switzerland, including here in Ticino.

“Cities are not prepared to bring this water back into the system,” explains Aebi – an issue that is only becoming more urgent as we feel the effects of climate change more and more. In order to prevent disasters as well as to save water – rather than just shunt it into the sea –urban planners and architects need to find ways to make cities more absorbent, with roads and buildings designed to actually catch, retain, and recycle rainwater.

At the Rotonda, this design concept can be felt immediately upon entering: the absorbent wood chips that line the entrance have a cooling effect, explains Stefan Rüfenacht, atelier

oï’s Chief Operating Officer, lowering the temperature in the immediate area. Go further into the space, and you will see poles emitting gentle mist: stand beneath one, and enjoy the cooling spray. You will also see the sponge city concept in action: in addition to the pre-existing trees, atelier oï has created walls of greenery, made up of more than 1,500 plants. With these spongey modifications, says Rüfenacht, the temperature in the Rotonda is noticeably cooler than without.

“When you enter this zone,” says Aebi, “you can really feel that through nature, you can change something.” Rüfenacht adds, “It’s a temporary translation of the “sponge city” concept” – their innovations in the Rotonda are experiments; they are not permanent –“but even so,” Rüfenacht continues, “you can feel the results.”

The Rotonda is a meeting place “for every person,” says Aebi – “young and old”. The “sponge city” concept is designed to go hand in hand with accessibility features and a welcoming, inclusive atmosphere. “We must take care of our surroundings,” Aebi continues, “because we humans are also a piece of nature. It’s important that we fall in love with nature again. When you fall in love with something, you take care of it.”

La Mobiliare is Main Partner of the Locarno Film Festival mobiliare.ch/locarnofestival

Uniti dall'amore per i film.

Grande cinema in Piazza Grande o a casa, con blue TV.

Pronti, insieme.

Looking for excellence?

Discover the culinary traditions

Brione sopra Minusio

© Switzerland Tourism – Giglio Pasqua

1. Leave No ___, 2018

for 9. Consumed

Active ingredient in weed gummies 11. Word in the title of 18 Beatles singles 12. Jazz drummer Blakey 14. 1989 black comedy directed by 35-Across starring Genevieve Lemon 16. Filler words 23. Lip ___ 24. Va ____ (Rivette

film directed by 35-Across based on the life of John Keats

56. “Yes,” in Tokyo 57. Street haunted by Freddy Krueger 58. Afternoons, briefly

Rita

by Paz Vega

August 16th, 21:30, Piazza Grande

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Rita — Illustration of the film by Carolina Altavilla