Pardo 12.08

OFFICIAL LOCARNO FILM FESTIVAL GUIDE 2024 DAY 6 12.8.2024 ●

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LUCA MARINELLI “Love and Passion Are the Things that Keep Us Alive”

Meet the Juror: Luca Marinelli A Tribute to Marco Tullio Giordana Love at 6,000 Meters: SHAMBHALA in Piazza Grande Restoring Brazilian Gem MULHER DE VERDADE

Uniti dall'amore per i film.

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

ESTABLISHING SHOTS Giona A. Nazzaro

LUN/MON 12

HIGHLIGHTS PIAZZA GRANDE 21:30 SHAMBHALA by Min Bahadur Bham 150’ | o.v. Tibetan, Nepali | s.t. English, French

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

C’era una volta la critica cinematografica. La si dà sovente per morta, nel migliore dei casi come irrilevante. I padri e i fratelli maggiori rievocano le battaglie culturali e ideologiche del loro tempo, le generazioni più vicine a noi la soddisfazione di avere sdoganato John Carpenter e David Lynch. Ovviamente le cose cambiano. Si riduce (tantissimo) lo spazio dedicato alla critica sui quotidiani, l’informazione cambia pelle e si trasformano gli stessi strumenti di comunicazione di massa (davvero: quanto ci manca oggi un Marshall McLuhan…). Il sottotesto, però, per quel che riguarda la critica cinematografica non cambia: non serve più o, semmai fosse servita, ha fatto il suo tempo. Se ci

WHAT’S ON TODAY

permettete, non siamo d’accordo. Il giornale che avete fra le mani vanta alcune delle firme più importanti della critica cinematografica giovane e contemporanea. Firme dal valore internazionale, attraverso il cui sguardo vi presentiamo il programma del Locarno Film Festival. Immergetevi nella lettura di queste pagine, fra un film e l’altro, e ritroverete le ragioni profonde di un pensiero e di una molteplicità di sguardi in grado non solo di riaffermare ma di ripensare la centralità e la necessità della critica cinematografica.

Buon cinema, ci si vede in Piazza Grande!

CONCORSO INTERNAZIONALE 14:00 Palexpo (FEVI) CENT MILLE MILLIARDS by Virgil Vernier 77’ | o.v. French | s.t. English, Italian 16:45

Palexpo (FEVI) TRANSAMAZONIA by Pia Marais 112’| o.v. English, Portuguese | s.t. English, French, Italian

CONCORSO CINEASTI DEL PRESENTE 11:30 PalaCinema 1 REAL by Adele Tulli 83’ | o.v. Korean, English, German, Italian | s.t. English, French 18:00

PalaCinema 1 KADA JE ZAZVONIO TELEFON

by Iva Radivojević 73’ | o.v. Serbo-Croatian, English | s.t. English, French

RETROSPETTIVA 17:00 GranRex WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND

by James Cruze 79’ | o.v. English 19:30

GranRex THE UNDERCOVER MAN

by Joseph H. Lewis 85’ | o.v. English

21:45

GranRex ALL THE KING’S MEN by Robert Rossen 110’ | o.v. English

FUORI CONCORSO 15:00 PalaCinema 1 LA VITA ACCANTO by Marco Tullio Giordana 110’ | o.v. Italian | s.t. English 10:30

Forum @Spazio Cinema THE LADY WITH THE TORCH: THE CENTENARY OF COLUMBIA PICTURES RETROSPECTIVE ROUND TABLE

10:30

GranRex CHILDREN OF MEN by Alfonso Cuarón 109’ | o.v. English, German, Italian, Romanian, Spanish, Arabic, Georgian, Russian, Serbian | s.t. German, French HISTOIRE(S) DU CINÉMA LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD ALFONSO CUARÓN

14:30

La Sala PUNTER by Jason Adam Maselle 13’ | o.v. English, Xhosa, Afrikaans | s.t. French, Italian PARDI DI DOMANI – CONCORSO INTERNAZIONALE

18:00

Cinema Rialto 1 SAMBA TRAORÉ by Idrissa Ouédraogo 85’ | o.v. Mooré | s.t. English HISTOIRE(S) DU CINÉMA – HERITAGE ONLINE

PROGRAM (EN)

From above: a packed Piazza Grande celebrates Shah Rukh Khan.

King Khan holding his Locarno77 Pardo alla Carriera Ascona-Locarno Tourism .

All images: Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press

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: Eddie Bertozzi, Filipe Furtado, Stefan Ivančić, Mathilde Henrot, Leonard Krähmer, Lucia Leoni, Daniela Persico, Enrico Vannucci TRANSLATORS: Tessa Cattaneo, Anna Rusconi

The cover photos were done in collaboration with BaseCamp

BRAND, EDITORIAL & MEDIA: Oliver Osborne DESIGN: Joshua Althaus, Nadine Curanz, Alex Furgiuele PHOTOGRAPHERS: Elia Bianchi, Julie Mucchiut, Ti-Press, PHOTO INTERN: Indra Crittin COVER PHOTO: Davide Padovan PARTNERSHIPS: Marco Cantergiani, Laura Heggemann, Nicolò Martire, Fabienne Merlet CROSSWORD DESIGNER: Nicholas Henriquez

PROGRAMMA (IT)

LOCARNO MORNING

AFTERNOON

EVENING

28°

33°

30°

Forecast accurate as of previous evening

LUCA MARINELLI

“L’AMORE E LA PASSIONE SONO LE UNICHE COSE CHE CI TENGONO IN VITA” Luca Marinelli, membro della giuria Concorso Internazionale di Locarno77, ci parla del suo percorso artistico, dalla nascita della sua passione per il mestiere di attore fino al suo recente debutto come regista teatrale.

di Maria Giovanna Vagenas

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LOCARNO77

Maria Giovanna Vagenas: Nella tua attualità di attore ci sono due lavori importanti di prossima uscita: la serie televisiva M. Il figlio del secolo di Joe Wright e The Old Guard II, di Victoria Mahoney. In attesa di poterli vedere, vorrei iniziare abbordando un lato forse meno noto ma altrettanto essenziale del tuo lavoro: il tuo esordio come regista teatrale nel 2023 con Una relazione per un’accademia di Kafka per il Festival dei Due Mondi di Spoleto.

Com’è nato questo progetto sul quale hai collaborato con l’attore tedesco Fabian Jung?

Luca Marinelli: La prima idea di questo progetto risale a dieci anni fa quando ho visto Fabian al suo saggio di fine studi all’Accademia di Arte drammatica Ernst Busch di Berlino. L’avevo trovato straordinario, e in quell’occasione gli avevo già detto: “Secondo me tu dovresti recitare questo testo!” Poi c’è stato uno stacco di dieci anni. Verso la fine della pandemia, gli ho proposto di metterci a lavorare insieme su Una relazione per un’accademia. All’inizio dovevamo essere un po’ tutti e due in scena, in seguito ho capito che sarebbe stato più sensato montare questo pezzo con solo un attore e gli ho chiesto se avesse voglia di essere diretto da me.

MGV: Qual è stato il tuo approccio come regista?

LM: All’inizio di questo progetto ero più una specie di acting coach – Fabian recita in italiano, pur non parlandolo – poi ho cominciato a capire cosa volesse dire essere regista, assumersi la responsabilità di tutto quello che il pubblico verrà a vedere, prendere molte decisioni ed occuparsi di un’intera squadra. In questo contesto lo scambio di idee con Fabiana Piccioli, che si occupa del light design dello spettacolo, è stato essenziale: la pièce teatrale è infatti una specie di dialogo dell’attore con la luce, lo spazio e il pubblico. Essere regista di teatro è anche una questione di fiducia. Al cinema il regista è molto presente fino alla fine del processo di produzione, ma in teatro si arriva fino ad un certo punto e poi basta, perché il vero lavoro, sera dopo sera, spetta agli attori e ai tecnici, cioè a chi è in scena e intorno ad essa. Il regista non fa più parte della rappresentazione, è quasi lui il primo spettatore del suo stesso lavoro. È stata un’esperienza molto bella per me, perché essere “fuori”, cioè non essere sulla scena ma difronte ad essa, è veramente tutt’altro! A febbraio-marzo del 2025, porteremo questo spettacolo in tournée in giro per l’Italia.

MGV: Pensi di continuare su questa via in futuro? È un’esperienza che ti ha aperto nuove prospettive?

LM: È una strada che mi piacerebbe esplorare, quella del teatro.

Vorrei tornare in scena come attore-regista, un po’ da capocomico diciamo. Sento che il teatro è molto più accessibile per me, mentre conosco poco tutto quello che è il lato tecnico del cinema e per cui nutro un grande rispetto, quindi per ora non me la sento.

MGV: Vieni da una famiglia vicina al mondo dello spettacolo.

Pare che da ragazzino vedessi molti film con tua nonna.

Sarei curiosa di sapere com’è nato, in questo contesto, il tuo desiderio di diventare attore.

LM: Mio padre è prima di tutto un attore che si è dedicato anche al doppiaggio e mia nonna, come tu dicevi – una grande cinefila. Devo molto ad ogni membro della mia famiglia, che lavori nel campo dell’arte o meno. Non so però dirti da che cosa nasca questo desiderio, ognuno di noi ha una spinta dentro di sé, e viene attirato da qualcosa. Effettivamente, sono cresciuto vedendo tanti film e mi è capitato, grazie a mio padre, di conoscere questo lavoro sotto varie forme. Però quando si è molto giovani è difficile dire: io voglio fare questo! Mi sono sentito molto attirato dal mondo del teatro e del cinema, dall’idea di esprimermi in una maniera che andava oltre le parole, che si avvicinava alle immagini, ai suoni, al corpo. Non ne ero pienamente cosciente fin dall’inizio, però ora sento che è proprio questo: adoro osservare il corpo di un interprete, ascoltare la sua voce. Adoro vedere un gruppo che lavora assieme e adoro il lavoro di squadra. Il mestiere d’attore racchiudeva in sé un po’ tutto ciò che nutriva la mia curiosità. Questo desiderio è andato crescendo sempre più. La mia famiglia è stata sempre di grande supporto e non mi ha mai ostacolato in nulla. Ero piuttosto io ad ostacolare me stesso, fino a che, ad un certo momento, mi sono dato il permesso di avvicinarmi a questo mestiere e sono entrato all’Accademia nazionale d’arte drammatica Silvio D’Amico. Sono stati tre anni meravigliosi durante i quali ho dato via libera a tutta la mia curiosità e voglia d’espressione. Il rapporto con la mia classe è stato fondamentale e magico. Da lì, piano piano, sono andato avanti. Quasi subito, è arrivato il cinema con Saverio Costanzo che mi ha ingaggiato per La solitudine dei numeri primi insieme ad Alba Rohrwacher. Ho fatto il provino mentre ero ancora in Accademia e stavo recitando nel saggio di fine studi Sogno di una notte d’estate con la regia di Carlo Cecchi. Ho finito l’Accademia e immediatamente sono andato sul set per la prima volta.

MGV: Hai ritrovato Carlo Cecchi come attore sul set di Martin Eden (2019) di Pietro Marcello molti anni dopo.

LM: Certo, ed è stato meraviglioso ritrovarci! Considero Carlo il mio maestro, è il primo che mi ha fatto veramente capire l’importanza e anche l’urgenza di questo mestiere. Il 2012 è stata l’ultima volta che sono stato sulle tavole di un palcoscenico ed è stato con lui. Carlo Cecchi si era molto affezionato a noi tutti e con questo saggio di diploma è riuscito a portarci in giro in tournée. Sostanzialmente abbiamo fatto due stagioni teatrali dal 2010 fino a febbraio del 2012.

MGV: Ci sono altri registi, fra tutti quelli con cui hai collaborato, che consideri essere i tuoi maestri?

LM: Ho incontrato dei grandi registi durante il mio cammino, ognuno aveva una sua visione dell’arte, quindi è come se io avessi avuto molti maestri diversi lungo un unico tragitto professionale. Praticamente li nominerei tutti, ma nominerei anche gli attori che ho semplicemente osservato nei film.

MGV: Fra gli attori che ti hanno ispirato e influenzato chi citeresti?

LM: Per par condicio, cito solo gli attori del passato. Ce ne sono moltissimi che mi hanno colpito ma io evoco sempre Anna Magnani, Silvana Mangano, Marlon Brando e Massimo Troisi. Questi sono i primi grandissimi nomi che mi vengono in mente. Quando li ho ‘incontrati’ sullo schermo mi sono subito reso conto di stare di fronte a qualcosa di unico e di grande. Mi piace citare questi quattro nomi anche perché appartengono ad un momento della mia vita in cui ancora non sapevo cosa avrei fatto, però ero calamitato verso di loro.

MGV: Non essere cattivo (2015) è stato l’ultimo, struggente e meraviglioso film di Claudio Caligari, uscito postumo.

Quali sono i tuoi ricordi di lui?

LM: Claudio Caligari è stato un incontro gigantesco per me, da lui ho imparato quanto l’espressione e la comunicazione, la condivisione e, il rispetto siano importanti. Ho capito quanto questo mestiere sia vita e quanta vita si possa mettere al suo interno. Sono stato testimone di un enorme coraggio e di una grandissima conoscenza del fare cinema. Ho imparato anche la dedizione e il rispetto immenso che si deve avere per il pubblico, per quello che si propone, per come s’interagisce con chi viene a vedere un film, senza mai mettersi su un piedistallo ma stando tutti assieme. Caligari mi ha insegnato a non giudicare mai né me stesso, né gli altri, né le storie che si raccontano né i personaggi che s’interpretano ma che bisogna stare con loro, abitarli. Queste sono le poche cose, per me fondamentali, che mi vengono in mente. Al di là di questo ogni singolo ricordo è per me fonte d’ispirazione e guida.

E poi la certezza che l’amore e la passione sono le uniche cose che davvero ci tengono qui ed ora, in vita.

MGV: Nel 2019 hai interpretato il personaggio complesso di Martin Eden nell’omonimo film diretto da Pietro Marcello, e hai vinto la Coppa Volpi alla Mostra del Cinema di Venezia. Cosa ha significato questo ruolo per te? E com’è stato lavorare con Pietro Marcello?

LM: La collaborazione con Pietro è sorta da una preghiera laica che negli anni è stata esaudita. Ero un grande osservatore della sua opera e della sua arte e poter lavorare finalmente insieme è stato un grande regalo, un vero scambio basato sulla fiducia. Ci siamo ritrovati tutti in un momento di grazia, in uno stato che ci ha permesso di lavorare con grande concentrazione e dedizione assieme. Per quanto riguarda il ruolo, penso che quello di Martin Eden sia uno dei personaggi maschili più belli del secolo scorso, in uno dei romanzi più potenti mai scritti. Devo moltissimo a questo personaggio, non solo un premio molto prestigioso, ma anche una crescita artistica e personale importante.

MGV: Hai interpretato una gamma estremamente ampia di ruoli, spaziando da un genere cinematografico all’altro.

Al di là del tuo talento prorompente e dell’estrema versatilità delle tue performance, quello che colpisce nella tua recitazione è la generosità con cui abbracci ogni personaggio, offrendo tutto te stesso. Come prepari i tuoi ruoli?

LM: È come una specie di colpo di fulmine; m’innamoro della storia, del personaggio e da quel momento in poi comincio un po’ a vedere tutto in quella direzione. È un comportamento quasi di routine che non ho mai schematizzato. Se qualcuno mi dovesse chiedere: “Come ti approcci ad un personaggio?” risponderei che non ne ho idea, però ogni volta lo faccio più o meno nella stessa maniera. Sicuramente c’è una certa affinità con il o con la regista e un coinvolgimento per la sceneggiatura e il personaggio. Pian piano comincio a cibarmi di tutte le informazioni che posso trovare. Spesso mi vengono proposti dei film da guardare, e poi ne discuto con il regista.

Amo lavorare di fantasia e pensare ad ogni elemento del personaggio. Mi piace stare con il o la costumista, lavorare sul costume e poi creare l’aspetto del mio personaggio con il trucco e i capelli. Sono molto felice quando posso dire anche la mia. Come dicevo prima, m’innamoro del personaggio e comincio un po’ a vedere tutto sotto quella luce. Mia moglie mi dice sempre: “Hai già cominciato!” io non me ne accorgo ma lei si! “Hai già cominciato!” vuol dire che tutto ha cominciato a prendere quel colore, ma non lo faccio apposta, credo che dentro di me ci sia una parte più intelligente, inconscia che mi organizza il lavoro. È un po’ questo!

to quest’incontro magnifico con Alessandro durante Non essere cattivo, un film che porta in sé qualcosa di sacro per come è stato affrontato, e per la forza del grande Claudio Caligari che lo ha creato. Noi due ci siamo ritrovati attori in quest’opera straordinaria che ci ha unito tantissimo, creando fra di noi un legame profondo che in quel momento serviva, diciamo, per il film ma che poi il film ci ha donato per la vita. Da allora quest’amicizia continua e va avanti, senza interruzione. Dopo Non essere cattivo per sei anni non siamo più riusciti a lavorare assieme, poi all’improvviso è arrivato un altro film meraviglioso, pieno d’amore: Le otto montagne e grazie a due registi fantastici, Felix e Charlotte, siamo riusciti a far ri-coincidere questa amicizia anche sullo schermo.

Alessandro ed io stiamo bene assieme. Sul lavoro, per dirlo con una metafora calcistica, per me è come sapere sempre dove è l’altro quindi posso fare un cross quasi ad occhi chiusi perché so che lui prende il pallone, lo stoppa e lo tira in porta! Abbiamo una grande sintonia e sul set, non ci facciamo tanti pensieri. Spero che si possa lavorare presto insieme di nuovo. Mi è capitato di rivedere un’intervista dove dicevamo che ci siamo promessi di non aspettare altri sette anni per farlo, però adesso ne sono già passati quasi tre quindi dobbiamo sbrigarci!

MGV: Da qualche anno a questa parte hai iniziato anche un’importante carriera internazionale partecipando a delle produzioni importanti come The Old Guard di Gina Prince-Bythewood con Charlize Theron che è stato un enorme successo su Netflix, la serie Trust (2018) di Danny Boyle, scritta da Simon Beaufoy e interpretata, tra gli altri, da Donald Sutherland, e una produzione per la televisione tedesca: Die Pfeiler der Macht (A Dangerous Fortune, 2016), di Christian Schwochow. Come hai vissuto il confronto con tutte queste nuove realtà produttive?

LM: In ogni latitudine c’è un tipo di approccio leggermente diverso però essenzialmente il lavoro è sempre lo stesso.

La cosa che mi emoziona sempre è che, in fin dei conti, ci si ritrova tutti nel linguaggio comune della recitazione, dell’arte. Ho avuto la fortuna di lavorare con dei cast internazionali meravigliosi, non solo ogni singolo attore ma anche i reparti tecnici e i registi erano delle persone stupende. In fin dei conti cambia geograficamente il posto, ma il lavoro rimane uguale.

MGV: In quanto membro della Giuria del Concorso Internazionale quali saranno i tuoi criteri di valutazione?

LM: Stavo appunto guardando la lista dei film in concorso e a giudicare dalle immagini che li accompagnano a me già piacciono tutti, quindi forse parto male! [ride] In realtà non ho dei parametri specifici. Non mi metterò certamente a giudicare solo gli interpreti, ma guarderò il film nel suo complesso. Tuttavia per me è essenziale partire dal presupposto di un grande rispetto per il film stesso, perché ogni film è un’opera che richiede grandi sforzi a tante persone e per questo deve essere valutata con considerazione. Detto ciò, mi piacerebbe avere un bel dialogo con il film, un dialogo intelligente a livello intellettivo ed emozionale. Mi auguro insomma che un film mi lasci un pensiero, una sensazione, un’emozione.

MGV: Alcuni anni fa Paolo Virzì, che ti ha diretto in Tutti i santi giorni, disse di te: “Luca è un fenomeno, è intelligente, spiritoso, ma allo stesso tempo è pazzo, diventa quello che sta facendo. Tutti i grandi attori hanno una specie di mancanza, di difetto. Non sanno chi sono e quindi sono entusiasti di diventare colui che si propone loro!”

Cosa ne pensi?

LM: Sono d’accordo con lui, tutto questo è detto con un profondo amore e quindi accetto tutto quello che lui dice di me.

Voglio tanto bene a Paolo e penso che lui mi abbia capito più di quanto io ho capito me stesso. Di fatto penso che nessuno di noi abbia veramente a fuoco chi è e che cosa può essere. Certo questa è un’intervista di qualche anno fa, forse adesso so leggermente di più – ma solo leggermente [ride] – chi sono perché sto chiudendo, per così dire, il primo atto della mia vita, visto che quest’anno compio 40 anni!

MGV: Quello dell’attore è un mestiere collettivo. Nel corso della tua carriera si è venuto a creare un legame molto significativo fra te e Alessandro Borghi con il quale hai collaborato per la prima volta in Non essere cattivo e che hai incontrato di nuovo sul set di Le otto montagne di Felix Van Groeningen e Charlotte Vandermeersch, Premio della Giuria a Cannes. Potresti parlarmi del vostro rapporto di lavoro e della vostra amicizia?

LM: Parto dall’inizio di quello che hai detto; per me questo non è un lavoro che facciamo da soli. Non esiste quest’arte senza l’altra, l’altro. Anche un monologo non lo si fa da soli ma con il pubblico. Recitare è sempre un modo di esprimersi e di comunicare. Io adoro, come dicevo prima, il lavoro di squadra, negli anni mi è capitato di lavorare con tantissimi colleghi e colleghe meravigliosi che sono diventati amici o amiche importanti e poi c’è sta-

PARDO

5

When Alberto Cavalcanti Returned to Brazil The Restoration of A deep dive into the Brazilian auteur’s underseen 1954 gem, and the efforts to bring it back to life

by Filipe Furtado

W

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LOCARNO77

Stills from Mulher de Verdade ©Cinemateca Brasileira. Special thanks to Cinematográfica Maristela and Marco Audrá

hen Alberto Cavalcanti returned to Brazil in 1950, it was supposed to be a great hero’s return. He had worked regularly in Europe during the 1920s and 1940s, first in France, on films linked to the silent experimental scene such as Nothing But Time (Rien que les heures, 1926) and En rade (1927), and then in England, where he worked within John Grierson’s GPO Film Unit directing documentary shorts such as Coal Face (1935) and then, from the Second World War onwards, at Ealing Studios, most notably as one of the directors of the classic horror anthology Dead of Night (1945). He was brought back to Brazil by industrialist Francisco Matarazzo whose new venture was the Companhia Cinematográfica Vera Cruz, an enterprise that had the ambition of being the first “professional” Brazilian film studio, promising “quality entertainment” with high production standards. Cavalcanti would evidently become the head of production, the only Brazilian qualified for this role.

This enabled a financial contribution of 50,000 Swiss francs for restoration work carried out by Cinegrell, a restoration laboratory in Zurich and Berlin. The work was carried out on a duplicate from the mid-1990s, when the 35 mm negatives were already in poor condition. So although the material itself is not in the worst condition, it carried with it many scratches, instability, inaccuracies, and bad flickering as well as the visible presence of repairs and jumps. As Nicole T. Alleman of Cinegrell explained to me: “In addition to the defects of the original, the sixth roll was replaced in 1986 by a duplicate of a workprint, which was the source for the edition.

Because of this, this roll has a general lack of definition, sharpness, shows all kinds of marks (letters scratched into the image for up to 10 frames), and so on.” This restoration was evidently a difficult job in which the laboratory and the Cinemateca made choices to repair the original material, stabilize the image, and try to remove the accumulated defects as well as embark on a restoration of the badly damaged soundtrack. As well as returning the film to circulation, the process should ensure that it is preserved in better condition than at present.

The restoration of Mulher de Verdade is not a simple process, but it is an important step towards bringing Alberto Cavalcanti’s Brazilian work back into circulation. We still have a lot to learn from it – about Brazil in the 1950s, about the relationship between Latin American and European cinema, and about the unique artist that Cavalcanti was.

◼ The restoration of Alberto Cavalcanti’s Mulher de

Verdade screens today, 12.8 at 16:00 at Cinema Rialto 1

All images Locarno Film Festival ©Justine Knuchel

The new studio was a disaster and, sunk in debt, was taken over by banks in 1954; Cavalcanti was only involved for about a year, during which he developed its first three films. His image in Brazil, however, would remain linked to Vera Cruz and as the history of Brazilian cinema was seen from the point of view of auteur cinema and, above all, Cinema Novo, the São Paulo studio became a kind of specter that needed to be exorcised – and with it Cavalcanti. In his influential Critical Review of Brazilian Cinema (Revisão crítica do cinema brasileiro), Glauber Rocha includes a chapter titled “Cavalcanti and Vera Cruz”. In it, he accused Cavalcanti of “not understanding Brazilian cinema” and while he welcomed his efforts to bring in European technicians who raised the technical standards of local productions, Rocha despised the presence of English and Italian directors and screenwriters who had little understanding of the country and the possibilities of local drama.

When I began to take an interest in Brazilian cinema in the mid-1990s, this was the caricatured image of Alberto Cavalcanti, the Brazilian filmmaker who had been a friend of Jean Renoir, who had started out in the French avant-garde and ended up in an alliance with the awestruck elite of São Paulo with their old-fashioned notions of art. Of the three films Cavalcanti directed during the period, Simon the OneEyed (Simão, o Caolho, 1952), Song of the Sea (O Canto do Mar, 1953), and Mulher de Verdade (A Real Woman, 1954), there were at most a few references to Song of the Sea, and not always positive. Cavalcanti’s position in film history is a curious one. Like Max Ophüls, he is a nomadic filmmaker whose work belongs to the world more than any national cinema, but those most naturally interested in his work, Brazilians, often reject the films he made in the country. Yet Cavalcanti’s three Brazilian films are far more interesting than the myth of a great misadventure that has formed around his unhappy return to the country would have us believe.

Cavalcanti’s political positions certainly didn’t fit in with the social analysis found, for example, in Nelson Pereira dos Santos’s early films, but they offer a precious insight into the society of the period and are often acidic and enriched by his proximity to some of its most conservative elements in terms of class and gender relations. There is a considerable distrust of the elites being satirized in all their pettiness. The Vera Cruz experience is strongly felt in Simon the One-Eyed, which is almost Buñuelesque in its portrayal, even while the films never hide a condescension towards the popular types they present, such as the immigrant community in Song of the Sea or the main couple in Mulher de Verdade. Song of the Sea intentionally refers back to En rade, but the poetic mystification of the French film is replaced here by a social one.

Seventy years later, it’s easy to understand why the results looked suspicious to critics of the time, especially those of a Marxist bent, but Cavalcanti’s difficulties in getting close to his characters add an extra fascination to his refined images.

The starting point for Mulher de Verdade was a hugely popular samba by Ataulfo Alves, “Oh, How I Miss Amelia!” (“Ai! Que Saudade Da Amélia”), a masculine fantasy in which the narrator nostalgically compares his current wife to a former lover called Amelia, submissive and uncomplaining.

Cavalcanti develops the film out from the central character, who is given more agency while remaining ensnared in the same social structures. What defines this Amelia is how she has managed to reform a petty criminal and her willingness to try to do the best for him, as well as a difficulty in dissimilating herself from the various male desires all around her.

This is a comedy about a woman who becomes a bigamist because she isn’t allowed to say no, and from the opening credits the movie makes it clear that social stratification is to be the film’s backdrop.

The satire works precisely because Cavalcanti makes the film about how these various characters are prey to illusions, whether projected onto them or springing from themselves: the bandit turned good man, the woman who sacrifices herself, the rich playboy, the society lady – they are all archetypes from which there is no escape. Cavalcanti’s staging has a certain artifice that reinforces this condition; he draws a lot from the contrast between the home Amelia has made with her poor husband and the environments she frequents with the rich one. And Cavalcanti’s eye for casting is wonderful – Inezita Barroso was a popular singer with no film experience but her contributions help the film wrest free of the potential pitfalls of the plot, and Colé Santana, one of the best comedians of the period, was rarely given such good roles. The scenes with the couple are intimate and contrast well with the stratified artifice of their surroundings; the scenes with the wealthy family are less successful – somewhat obvious, the characters don’t stand out, Amelia is more neutralized – but the satire is occasionally inspired.

Cavalcanti eventually returned to Europe, his time working in his homeland a mixture of frustrations that seem to exist more in a symbolic field, either as a metaphor for the constant failure of Brazilian cinema or as a model not to be emulated. Even so, the films live on and what they reveal goes beyond this symbolic dimension. They are rarely shown, especially Mulher de Verdade. The film materials were deposited at the Cinemateca Brasileira in São Paulo. The current president of its board of directors, critic and professor Carlos Alberto Calil, is coordinating the project “Cavalcanti – The Man and the Cinema” (“Cavalcanti – O Homem e o Cinema”), which hopes to publicize the filmmaker’s Brazilian work with a traveling retrospective, as well as serving as an essential opportunity to restore those films he made in the country.

As everyone knows, the Cinemateca Brasileira went through many difficulties under Jair Bolsonaro’s administration. An ambitious project like the one dedicated to Cavalcanti’s work is a symbol of the institution’s return to activity.

According to its preservation department, “The materials relating to these three titles are in a critical state, in advanced decomposition, and require immediate restoration.” Last year, the Cinemateca selected from among its many titles in need of restoration this one to compete in the Locarno Film Festival’s “Heritage Online restoration contest”, in which it was selected as the winner.

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7

Marco Tullio Giordana

“Se non ci fosse la musica, per me non ci sarebbe più alcuna ragione di vivere.”

Marco Tullio Giordana ci ha parlato della genesi di La vita accanto, scritto a partire da una sceneggiatura originale di Marco Bellocchio – produttore del film – e Gloria Malatesta, dei rapporti complessi fra i personaggi, del suo lavoro con gli attori e le attrici-musiciste, nonché del suo amore per la musica, elemento centrale del film e della sua stessa vita.

Di Maria Giovanna Vagenas

Stills from La vita accanto © Angelo Turetta

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l Locarno Film Festival onora quest’anno Marco Tullio Giordana con un Pardo Speciale in riconoscimento alla carriera. Non potrebbe essere altrimenti se si pensa che il maestro iniziò, nel 1980, la sua importante carriera cinematografica proprio a Locarno vincendo il Pardo d’Oro per Maledetti vi Amerò (1980), il suo primo lungometraggio. Da allora, Marco Tullio Giordana – regista di teatro, oltre che di cinema, sceneggiatore e scrittore – ha saputo indagare, come pochi altri, la storia recente dell’Italia con uno sguardo critico intriso di umanità. Caratterizzati da un forte impegno politico e sociale, i suoi film affrontano temi come il terrorismo, la mafia o l’ingiustizia sociale. I cento passi (2000), dedicato alla vita dell’attivista siciliano Peppino Impastato, ucciso dalla mafia e Romanzo di una strage (2012), ricostruzione dell’attentato avvenuto a Milano in Piazza Fontana il 12 dicembre del 1969, ne sono due esempi eminenti. Pensato come una miniserie televisiva, La meglio gioventù (2003), in cui il regista racconta la storia d’Italia, dalla metà degli anni Sessanta fino ai primi anni Duemila, attraverso le vicende di una famiglia della piccola borghesia romana, gli valse un’immensa popolarità e fu ricompensato con premio Un Certain Regard a Cannes. In un gioco di corrispondenze meravigliose, ritroveremo la splendida Sonia Bergamasco – che aveva interpretato il personaggio di Giulia Monfalco il La meglio gioventù – in uno dei ruoli principali, quello di Erminia, pianista famosa, nell’ultimo film del maestro, La vita accanto, che verrà presentato in prima mondiale al Festival.

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Maria Giovanna Vagenas: Lei dedica La vita accanto a Chantal Akerman, vorrei chiederle perché.

Marco Tullio Giordana: Questa domanda mi fa molto piacere perché Chantal Akerman ed io abbiamo la stessa età.

Dico ‘abbiamo’ perché per me lei continua a vivere. Gli artisti vivono per sempre, anche al di là della loro scomparsa. Chantal Akerman ha debuttato nel 1975, quando io ancora dovevo fare il mio primo film, e mi è sembrata subito una cineasta eccezionale, così giovane e così matura. Affrontava dei temi che oggi sono comuni, ma allora erano una novità assoluta anche molto conturbante e lo faceva con una maestria eccezionale. Quindi l’ho ammirata immensamente fin dal suo primo film. Poi a un festival, non mi ricordo più neanche quale, mi è capitato di conoscerla. A quel punto io avevo già fatto il mio primo film, Maledetti vi amerò e durante il nostro breve incontro lei mi ha manifestato un’ammirazione che io pensavo di non meritare. Per me è come se fosse stata una sorella.

La sua morte mi ha molto colpito, sia perché lei è stata una precorritrice dei tempi, sia perché il tema del rapporto simbiotico con la madre e col dolore ha avuto un peso enorme nella sua vita e nella sua morte terribile.

Quindi, quando ho finito il film, ho pensato che se c’era una persona a cui volevo dedicarlo era proprio lei.

MGV: La sceneggiatura di La vita accanto è un adattamento del romanzo omonimo di Maria Pia Veladiano. Vorrei chiederle cosa l’ha sedotto in questa storia.

MTG: Questo film era all’origine un progetto di Marco Bellocchio che avrebbe voluto realizzare lui. Bellocchio aveva scritto una prima versione della sceneggiatura con Gloria Malatesta. Poiché in seguito altri progetti hanno preso il sopravvento – in una stagione fertilissima per Marco Bellocchio, cineasta straordinario che ho sempre ammirato – ad un certo momento lui mi ha proposto questo film. Mi ha detto: “Vuoi farlo tu? Io sono impegnato in altre cose, leggilo!” Ho letto prima la sceneggiatura e poi, in seguito, il romanzo, che non avevo mai letto prima, e subito mi è parso un film assolutamente nelle mie corde. Ho pensato che avrei potuto realizzarlo mettendomi completamente a disposizione di questa storia che mi riguardava molto profondamente, anche se non c’è nulla di autobiografico in cui io possa riconoscere la mia vita personale, però tutti i temi che sfiora sono cose che ho sempre sentito con molta forza, quindi ho abbracciato questo progetto. Il film è diventato assolutamente mio, come se l’avessi inventato io.

MGV: Lei ha rielaborato la sceneggiatura originale di Marco Bellocchio e Gloria Malatesta?

MTG: Sì, in effetti ho rimesso mano alla sceneggiatura perché era stata scritta una decina d’anni prima e ho sentito che volevo apportare delle modifiche, la principale delle quali riguarda la cronologia. L’azione del romanzo è collocata in modo indefinito nel ventennio che va dagli anni Settanta ai Novanta, io l’ho spostata dieci anni dopo, cioè dagli anni Ottanta ai Duemila. L’ho fatto principalmente perché io ho trattato spesso gli anni Settanta in altri miei film, e mi sembrava di ritornare su qualcosa che avevo già svolto e che sarebbe diventata un’abitudine per me. L’ho fatto anche perché questo spostamento di dieci anni mi avrebbe liberato dal dover dar conto della storia convulsa che sta dietro quei decenni così tumultuosi, terribili e segnati, per l’Italia, dal fenomeno del terrorismo e dall’emergenza della crisi politica, e quindi mi avrebbe permesso di non doverli affrontare per l’ennesima volta.

MGV: Parlando della sceneggiatura, lei ha detto che i temi che sfiora questa storia la toccano in maniera particolare e profonda. Potrebbe definirli?

MTG: In primo luogo mi tocca la complessità dei rapporti familiari, in cui tutti i personaggi intrecciano un amore che non riescono ad esprimere, un amore e anche un senso d’inadeguatezza, d’impreparazione, di dubbio. La seconda cosa è la musica che è sempre stata centrale nella mia vita. Io purtroppo non sono un musicista, mi sarebbe piaciuto esserlo, ma so che cosa vuol dire l’impegno, la devozione, l’ossessione per riuscire a interpretare qualcosa nel modo migliore. Nella musica la disciplina è fondamentale; questo imporsi un’autodisciplina, questo poter dare una forma alle proprie ossessioni che si esprimono nella musica è secondo me il grande privilegio dei musicisti, anche se poi generalmente non sono mai soddisfatti di quello che fanno.

MGV: Il film inizia con una sequenza onirica, creando una grande aspettativa…

MTG: Questa sequenza notturna in cui si vede Maria, madre di una bambina che poi vedremo crescere, non spiega cosa sta succedendo ma allude a qualcosa di misterioso, notturno, nascosto. Mi piaceva iniziare così, come un appuntamento. Quest’ immagine ritorna in seguito, solo che ogni volta che torna scopriamo qualche cosa in più, si aggiunge un elemento nuovo che alla fine ci spiega il senso di quella prima immagine.

MGV: La vicenda prende il via con una scena in cui una ragazza molto giovane, Maria, la protagonista, corre entusiasta su per una scala con un pezzo in carta in mano per mostrarlo ad un uomo e una donna che stanno suonando il pianoforte a quattro mani. Non si capisce se questi due personaggi siano marito e moglie, se questa ragazza sia la loro figlia o meno. L’ambiguità di quest’inizio è molto interessante, volevo chiederle se fosse intenzionale.

MTG: Devo dire che mi piacciono quei film dove gli elementi che vengono distribuiti, anziché essere dichiarati e pronunciati fin dal primo momento, si scoprono per strada. La ragazza che sale le scale di questo meraviglioso palazzo è Maria, che finalmente è rimasta incinta e quello che lei agita in mano è il referto medico. Va su, entra in questo stranissimo sottotetto arredato in modo molto moderno, al contrario del resto del palazzo che conserva le vestigia antiche, e ci sono i due fratelli gemelli, ma lo scopriremo dopo che sono gemelli, che suonano una sonata di Schubert a quattro mani. La condivisione di questa noti-

zia meravigliosa, scatena la loro gioia. Ne capiremo il perché nella scena seguente in cui vediamo Maria che si aggira incinta, tocca la culla, i piccoli vestitini che accoglieranno questa bambina e ne è spaventata. Capiamo subito che questa bambina l’aspettava da molto tempo, ma questa situazione la disorienta, perché la maternità e anche la paternità sono così; la gioia di mettere al mondo una nuova vita significa allo stesso tempo non sentirsi capaci e preparati ad accoglierla, a fare quello che è meglio per questa nuova creatura.

MGV: Vicenza occupa un posto centrale nel film. Lei ci invita a scoprirla filmandone degli scorci particolarmente suggestivi. Perché ha scelto di ambientare il film in questa città?

MTG: Vicenza è circondata da tre fiumi e l’acqua è un elemento molto importante nel film. All’inizio ho preso in considerazione anche altre città del Veneto, perché quasi tutte sono toccate da un fiume; lo è Verona, Padova e lo è addirittura anche Venezia, ma quando sono arrivato a Vicenza, che conoscevo superficialmente, e l’ho un po’ studiata, mi sono reso conto che questa città ha una caratteristica diversa da tutte le altre. Nel Quattrocento infatti era una città molto ricca, perché questi fiumi permettevano, fra l’altro, l’arrivo della seta dall’oriente che veniva lavorata sul posto e poi venduta in tutto il mondo.

Questa ricchezza ha permesso alle grandi famiglie vicentine di costruire dei palazzi meravigliosi, molti dei quali sono stati progettati dal Palladio. Il centro storico di Vicenza poi è molto ristretto perché questi tre fiumi che lo traversano rendono quasi impossibile la circolazione delle automobili, quindi è come se fosse rimasto in un tempo sospeso, remoto, antico. Per tutte queste ragioni ho deciso di ambientare il film a Vicenza, senza contare il fatto che potevo filmare il concerto del personaggio di Erminia (Sonia Bergamasco) nel teatro più bello del mondo: il Teatro Olimpico! [ride] MGV: Lei ci mostra anche il volto notturno della città (come nella bella scorribanda di Erminia e Rebecca bambina), fonte di magia e di meraviglie…

MTG: Rebecca nasce con una macchia rossa sul viso, che è la ragione dello sconforto della madre e anche del rigetto, non solo della bambina, ma proprio della maternità in sé.

Questa bambina ci si vergogna a falla uscire di giorno, quindi la zia se la prende e se la porta in giro per la città di notte, quando nessuno può vederla. Durante una di queste scorribande quando la zia le racconta alcune leggende su una villa meravigliosa che sta sulle colline vicentine, la villa Valmarana ai Nani, Rebecca addirittura immagina, come solo i bambini sanno fare, che le sculture si animino ma non come una minaccia, perché addirittura le sorridono. I bambini hanno un rapporto con l’immaginazione, con la fantasia che poi noi perdiamo, ma per loro le cose immaginate sono reali. Io questo me lo ricordo molto bene, perché ne ho avute tante di queste visioni. E, a dire il vero, continuo ad averle! [ride] MGV: Potrebbe parlarci dei personaggi principali del film e delle loro dinamiche? Come le descriverebbe?

MTG: Abbiamo parlato di Maria, la madre, e del rifiuto che ha per questa bambina che le sembra segnata da qualche cosa che comprometterà per sempre i suoi rapporti col mondo, perché penserà che il mondo la guardi come un piccolo mostro. La piccola Rebecca, in realtà, non ha questo problema, che le arriva di riflesso dall’atteggiamento preoccupato, angosciato degli altri. Lei non si vede così, questa macchia non se la sente. Rebecca è una bambina già con un carattere molto determinato per di più, appena scopre di avere un talento musicale, subito coltivato dalla zia, famosa concertista, va per la sua strada. Erminia, la gemella del papà della bambina, quindi del marito di Maria, è una famosa concertista che va in giro per il mondo impegnata nella sua luminosissima carriera però torna sempre in questa casa per il rapporto molto forte che la lega col gemello e perché vuole prendersi cura di questa bambina, di cui più tardi sarà anche l’insegnante. Poi c’è il personaggio di Osvaldo, il marito di Maria, gemello di Erminia, che è un uomo innamorato della moglie, un ginecologo famoso, quindi qualcuno che dovrebbe saper maneggiare anche tutti i drammi legati all’attesa di un figlio, le paure o le malattie e che però si sente sprovveduto, inadeguato e insufficiente a rassicurare la moglie e la bambina. La bambina poi cresce, diventa un’adolescente volitiva, tormentata, difficile, come sono tutti gli adolescenti, e poi, finalmente, una ragazza che padroneggia perfettamente l’arte di suonare il pianoforte ma con molti rimproveri da fare alla propria famiglia. Il cuore del film è l’intreccio di tutte queste relazioni molto forti, di amore, che però spesso non riescono a esprimersi o che vengono espresse in modo sbagliato. È quest’affettività contorta che poi autorizza le fantasie più intricate, più strane, anche più perverse, se così posso dire.

MGV: Nel corso della vicenda si viene ad instaurare un parallelo significativo fra due famiglie, solo a prima vista, molto diverse: quella benestante di Rebecca e quella proletaria della sua migliore amica, Lucilla. Potrebbe parlarcene?

MTG: Quello di Lucilla, amica del cuore e compagna di banco di Rebecca, è un personaggio fondamentale nel film. S’incontrano subito il primo giorno di scuola. Lucilla al contrario di Rebecca che è riservata, preoccupata e silenziosa, è esuberante, esagerata, sopra le righe. Per lei la macchia di questa sua compagna di banco non è uno scandalo, non è qualcosa di orrendo, ma qualcosa di molto divertente, al punto che lei se ne dipinge una col pennarello, come per dire: io voglio essere come te!

Questo voler essere ognuna come l’altra e ognuna preferire la famiglia dell’altra, io mi ricordo che è tipico dell’infanzia, perché anch’io, quando andavo dai compagni di scuola, avrei voluto essere adottato dalle loro famiglie e loro, viceversa, avrebbero voluto essere adottati dalla mia. Non ci sono nei bambini i sentimenti di classe, il mondo sembra quello che è e basta, questa separazione delle classi sociali arriva dopo ed è indotta

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dall’esterno. Mi sembrava una cosa bella da raccontare.

MGV: Tutto ruota introno alla musica in La vita accanto. Oltre ai brani di musica classica che punteggiano la pellicola, la colonna sonora originale di Dario Marianelli completa magistralmente l’universo musicale del film. Come ha lavorato su questo aspetto del film?

MTG: Nel film in effetti c’è molta musica, fra l’altro eseguita dal vivo, perché tutte le interpreti, comprese le bambine, sono delle vere pianiste. Io non posso sopportare la truffa di filmare la faccia di un attore che finge di suonare, associandola alle mani di un vero pianista, quindi mi sono avvalso di Sonia Bergamasco che aveva già suonato per me ne La meglio gioventù. Sonia Bergamasco, è una pianista diplomata al Conservatorio di Milano col massimo dei voti, avrebbe potuto fare la concertista, ha scelto poi di fare l’attrice e ha fatto bene perché è una delle migliori attrici che abbiamo in Italia, però io la spingo sempre a suonare. Beatrice Barison, che intrepreta Rebecca da ragazza, non è un’attrice ma una vera pianista.

L’ho cercata in tutti i conservatori del Veneto finché non l’ho incontrata e fin dal primo provino ho capito che era molto brava. Anche Viola Basso – Rebecca a cinque anni – e Sara Ciocca – Rebecca a undici – sanno suonare entrambe. Nel film le pianiste suonano Beethoven, Scarlatti, Schönberg e Bach, il mio compositore preferito. Oltre a questi brani c’era però bisogno anche di un commento musicale. Ho chiesto a Dario Marianelli di lavorarci su, oltre a essere uno straordinario musicista è anche un amico carissimo, sempre impegnato in grosse produzioni hollywoodiane. Non bisogna dimenticare che ha vinto un Oscar ed è stato nominato più volte. Marianelli ha composto la colona sonora evitando, con molta intelligenza, di usare il pianoforte, creando delle musiche d’atmosfera molto suggestive, rielaborando dei temi musicali che ci sono nel film, ma dando loro una dimensione più inquietante e anche molto suggestiva. Marianelli ha dunque lavorato a partire dalla mia scelta dei brani musicali che vengono suonati nel film, mi sembra che la fusione fra questi due elementi sia molto chiara e anche bella, riuscita.

MGV: La musica è nel film portatrice di salvezza, come lo è anche nella nostra vita...

MTG: Guardi io le dico questo: potrei anche fare a meno del cinema, potrei fare a meno del teatro, ma non potrei fare a meno della musica. Se non ci fosse la musica, per me non ci sarebbe veramente più alcuna ragione di vivere!

MGV: Nella pellicola vediamo il diario segreto di Maria; un quaderno pieno di disegni e commenti scritti a mano.

Pare che questo quaderno sia quello che Marco Bellocchio utilizzò per schizzare varie scene durante la scrittura della sceneggiatura, è così?

MTG: Marco Bellocchio, che ha anche un grande talento per la pittura, ogni volta che scrive un film, in margine, sui fogli delle sceneggiature e sugli appunti fa questi disegni. Ad un certo momento mi è venuto in mente di utilizzarli. Gli ho detto: “Marco me li dai? Perché voglio creare il diario di Maria e voglio utilizzare i tuoi disegni.” A questo diario poi io ho aggiunto a mano i pensieri di Maria e anche tutta una storia pregressa che non si vede nel film, ma che è stata molto utile a Valentina Bellei, che interpreta Maria, per entrare nel personaggio.

MGV: Al Locarno Film Festival quest’anno riceverà un Pardo Speciale in riconoscimento alla carriera. Cosa significa per lei questo premio?

MTG: Questo premio per me significa tornare in un luogo che amo infinitamente! Con il mio primo film Maledetti vi amerò vinsi il Pardo d’Oro a Locarno nel 1980. Mi fa una certa impressione, dopo 44 anni, essere di nuovo qui per ricevere un premio alla carriera. È un premio, per dire anche: “Marco Tullio è ora di finirla!” [ride] Quando penso alla mia prima visita nel 1980, ricordo innanzitutto che c’era un’atmosfera così familiare e amichevole. Da allora sono tornato spesso per presentare altri film e per rivedere tutti gli amici di allora. A Locarno mi sembra di essere in famiglia perché è un festival dove si parla di cinema, non si fanno sfilate di moda, gli sponsor non sono preponderanti e la nomenclatura sta discosta. Per me un festival come Locarno che parla di cinema è una grande consolazione e anche un divertimento, perché bisogna fare le due cose: ammirare, andare in estasi, ma anche divertirsi. Il cinema è bello per questo, quindi torno molto volentieri a Locarno!

◼ La vita accanto screens today, 12.8 at 15:00 at PalaCinema 1

9

la cultura

in prima fila

Emozioni uniche al Locarno Film Festival con la Posta.

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CRITICS ACADEMY x RETROSPETTIVA

WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND

By Leonard Krähmer

“Dedicated to those public servants in Washington who, despite the hidden malignant force which operates to defeat the principles of representative democracy, are serving their country sincerely and well.” This alarming on-screen dedication sets the eponymous “Washington merry-go-round” in motion. In preparation for the ride, the opening credits roll, accompanied by music whose sole purpose is to accompany rolling credits. Yet, at the same time, the melody contains flashes of “The Star-Spangled Banner”– which was adopted as the official national anthem in 1931, just a year prior to the film’s release – but inserted here in a slightly syncopated fashion, as if to suggest that whatever is at stake in the ensuing 79 minutes (American democracy – that is, democracy itself), is already out of tune. Borrowing its title from the controversial 1931 book by Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen, James Cruze’s Washington Merry-Go-Round promises a revealing glimpse into the abyss of backroom deals negotiated by a corrupt political class. The newly – and dubiously – elected Congressman Button Gwinett Brown (Lee Tracy), armed with as much inexperience as conviction, not to mention his allegedly star-spangled underwear, has come to Washington “to destroy all the scribes and Pharisees”, seeking a “nice, healthy little civil war” to restore a government of the people, by the people, for the people.

While such insinuations – electoral fraud, malignant forces operating the deep state, a decadent elite profiting from the crooked political machine – may sound eerily familiar to (post-)modern ears, one shouldn’t jump to

easy conclusions, let alone draw simplistic parallels between Trump- and Depression-era populism. Lest thou forget: “You exist in the context of all in which you live and what came before you,” as a potential future president once put it. In other words: historicize. In the case of Washington Merry-Go-Round, the historical context is rather peculiar. Production began mid-1932, shortly after the capital had been flooded with unemployed WWI veterans known as “The Bonus Army” who demanded payment of their war bonuses, which had been postponed due to the ongoing economic crisis. The encampments they set up on the Anacostia Flats, an area in the south-east of Washington D.C., feature prominently in the film, providing the first political arena for the congressional novice: “So this is Washington, huh?” Even though Brown’s speech initially alienates the veterans – he gives them a cynical version of the speech JFK would famously deliver in three decades time, asking the unremunerated veterans what they could do for their crisis-ridden country – their collective effort is ultimately rewarded as they take on a pivotal role in exposing the “hidden malignant force”.

Apart from tackling head-on the recent tumultuous events, the myth of the great American project in and of itself is a welcome guest on the Washington merry-go-round, sitting comfortably between publicly exhibited signatures on the nation’s founding documents, and the more hidden but equally basic virtues of the founding fathers, such as the genocidal expulsion of the Native Americans. Amongst the many insignificant bureaucratic documents and letters, there

are two important ones written by dead men: one is of merely strategic value, as evidence, the other is worth $50,000 and capable of sparking both romance and a patriotic speech at the Library of Congress.

By repurposing common screwball mechanics for the realm of politics, Cruze fuses love, comedy, and open political discourse. It’s all a matter of form, of rhetoric and pathos, of twisting and turning the words, of saying nothing but saying it with the utmost conviction, even if it means that every speaker must perform in an iterative mimicry of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. After Brown’s scandalous impromptu speech to Congress, he delivers another polished verbal attack, this time directed at his love interest, Alice (Constance Cummings) – and, of course, at the audience, who by this point have been yearning for a melodramatic monologue long enough. When Norton, Brown’s political and romantic rival (Alan Rinehart), proposes to Alice, we see only the aftermath. That is: Alice’s amusement at the way he makes his request appear less like an invitation to romance and more like a job offer, a mere practicality. Alice’s declining to respond has a political edge; it is the ultimate non-verbal declaration of independence.

Norton may be eloquent in his praise of Mussolini and Stalin, revealing his fascist fantasies of a purifying messianic figure, but by no means is he fluent in the lover’s discourse.

“Put your arm around me,” Alice requests of Congressman Brown just after Norton has “stepped out gracefully” and justice has been somewhat restored. He grants her wish, breaking the unwritten Washington

law that “one should never take orders, one should gather by indirection that a certain cause would be preferable.” Looks like Button Gwinett Brown is still searching for his love language, too. And it seems unlikely that he’ll find it while riding this particular merrygo-round.

LEONARD KRÄHMER 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.

See the full program here:

◼ Washington Merry-Go-Round screens today, 12.8 at 17:00 at the GranRex

All images: Washington Merry-Go-Round © Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved

PARDO

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SHAMBHALA Filming on the Roof of the World

In this conversation with Pardo about his latest feature, Nepalese director Min Bahadur Bham speaks about the challenges of filming at high altitude, working with nonprofessional actors, and finding oneself in the process.

by Laurine Chiarini

E

ight years after his participation in Locarno’s Open Doors Hub, in 2018, Min Bahadur Bham is back on the Ticino Riviera to present his latest feature at the Piazza Grande. The sumptuous Shambhala is set in a village perched high in the Himalayas where polyandry – wherein a woman takes multiple husbands – is the norm. When Tashi (Tenzing Dalha), husband to Pema (Thinley Lhamo), disappears on a trip to Lhasa, Pema sets out to find him. Though she is not alone – she’s accompanied by the monk Karma (Sonam Topden), Tashi’s brother and another of Pema’s husbands, her journey becomes one of self-discovery.

In what became a two-hour conversation, Bham delved into how making a film can be a process of intense introspection, detailed the treacherous shooting conditions at 6,000 meters, expounded on why polyandry can be a practical necessity rather than a choice, and even shared a beginners’ guide to knitting a jumper.

Laurine Chiarini: You hold a Master’s degree in Buddhist Philosophy and Political Science, and are currently pursuing a PhD in Anthropology. What brought you to making movies?

Min Bahadur Bham: Studying these different disciplines all came out of curiosity. But there’s also a correlation with filming. The story of The Black Hen [Kalo Pothi, his first feature film, released in 2015] was related to politics, which led me to study political science. Post-production was finished while I was writing Shambhala. As for my PhD, anthropology was on my bucket list: it was a subject I always wanted to study. I wanted stories that would give me something to write about in my own country, to have a better understanding of sociocultural aspects and cultural meanings. It really helped me a lot, especially when it came to making films. Timewise, of course, it is quite difficult to manage, but so far, so good – I’ve been lucky until now.

LC: How does your background as a scholar inform your work as a director? And vice versa – does your artistic career nourish your academic one in any way?

MBB: The artistic side does help with my academic career. Most of the professors at my university have seen my previous film The Black Hen, so they would excuse me if I didn’t

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attend class every day. And as a screenwriter, my studies have definitely been beneficial, too. I look at a lot of visuals in the writing process, read numerous books, and do translation, all of which contribute to both of my careers. I also have to do a lot of research when writing scripts, which is much like the process of putting together an academic paper. Conducting my own research for Shambhala and knowing the local language made my PhD journey much easier compared to that of my classmates. I was familiar with the landscape and the community, and I already knew the people and the terrain well.

LC: Your debut feature, The Black Hen was Nepal’s official entry for the Oscars; Shambhala is the first Nepalese film to be selected for the Berlinale Competition. Do you feel like a pioneer?

MBB: I feel like it’s a big responsibility, and it was so from the very beginning of my career. The Black Hen was also the first Nepalese film to be screened at the Venice Film Festival. From then on, I felt like I had to do more. I also started producing more than directing, even though I wanted to be a writer, not a producer. I started producing my friends’ films because I wanted to support and guide them. But I couldn’t go far on my own and needed help – wanting to improve the industry requires a group

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effort. So, while it is a big responsibility, all these experiences give me confidence, motivation, and encouragement for the future.

LC: What was the driving force behind Shambhala?

MBB: The very first idea came to my mind when I was about 12 or 13. At the time, I was at school. That’s also when I started studying meditation with my father. I was always imagining my previous life, something that was coming from my dreams, my imagination. Maybe I was a monk in a past life: I would visualize the monastery where I used to live, my friends, the landscape… it was almost scary, the way it wouldn’t go out of my mind. Since then, I have always dreamed I would visit this place one day. I never had the opportunity, though, because it was far away from my village. Then I came to the city, trying to be a writer and a filmmaker. While filming The Black Hen, I was also writing a story about Shambhala [a spiritual kingdom in Tibetan Buddhist Tradition], though I had no intention of turning it into a film initially. After The Black Hen was released, I had a bit of money from it. It was the time to go there, to the Upper Dolpo region. Hundreds of questions were racing through my mind as I wanted to confirm whether my dreams were true or not. What I found there was exactly the same

monastery, the same landscape that I had visualized! It was amazing and made me so happy, but also a bit afraid, because such feelings are not easy to handle. I immediately started writing the script for Shambhala, thinking this would be my next film – it had haunted me for so long. If I couldn’t make a film, it could still be part of my academic research and be useful anyway. Every time I visited the village, I would feel more connected emotionally with my past life, with the people there.

LC: Seeing a polyandrous village might seem exotic to a Western audience. In societies with scarce environmental resources, however, polyandry becomes more of a practical necessity than a mere choice, no? It can limit human population growth, help to decrease mortality rates, prevent the division of family assets, and ensure continuous support with at least one husband always present on the land.

MBB: I don’t have much experience with Western audiences nor particular expectations around them, as I hardly met the viewers in Berlin [where Shambhala premiered]. It might seem exotic to them, but it is similar for Nepalese from Kathmandu, too. I didn’t want to romanticize this tradition; I simply wanted to build upon this unique culture that is still alive in the 21st century. These people have many valid reasons for maintaining such practices, primarily to avoid dividing property, which has numerous practical benefits. They never aim for a large population, because in the mountains, farming and agriculture are the only ways to sustain life, and the land for growing food is very limited. They also lack sufficient space to build additional houses, which at the same time helps preserve the natural environment. Life in the mountains is very hard, and families couldn’t survive without men, making it unimaginable for women to be widows, although there are also religious reasons behind this tradition too. From their perspective, it makes complete sense to follow this unique custom. Nowadays, people have many choices: they can become porter guides, move to the city, or even emigrate. From a gender equality perspective, it might be uncomfortable, but as an author, I try to stay neutral. I wanted to use this custom as the setting for my story, not the main focus of the film. My goal was to be anthropologically accurate, especially given my academic background, rather than politically correct.

LC: The film was shot in the Himalayas between Nepal and Tibet, at altitudes between 4,000 and 6,200 meters – in one of the highest human settlements on the planet. How was it to film in such harsh conditions?

MBB: We had several incidents. The first village where we stayed for three months during preproduction is actually the highest settlement on the planet, though a newer one exists now in Peru. Day-to-day life was manageable for me and most of my crew, who had experience through my previous films or were familiar with such environments. For those from Kathmandu, it was a different story: it was a one-hour flight from the capital, followed by two days and nights in a Jeep, and then four days of walking. There was no internet and only a bad phone connection – we needed to use satellite phones. The weather was pretty bad too. Altitude sickness was a major issue for the international crew, who mostly live at sea level. Every day, someone needed oxygen, and there were many helicopter rescues. Everyone felt dizzy and sick. We slept 20 people in a 5-square-meter room to stay warm. It was very hard, but many good friendships were born. We were morally aligned, isolated without our families, which brought us closer. Going to the mountains with other people increases the chances of forming strong bonds. In the mountains, it’s survival of the fittest. You don’t think about the future, your career, or your family. People become more friendly and generous.

That kind of energy is healing. You feel insignificant and grounded, almost like your own doctor. That’s why we survived. Going through this process, many of the crew experienced an epiphany. Some quit alcohol, started self-reflecting, and stopped chasing after money. For me and those closest to me, it was a profound life lesson.

LC: The actors are mostly non-professionals from the region.

Older members of native groups in rural communities often refuse to have their picture taken, for fear that their “soul will be stolen”. How was the casting process, and how do they feel about seeing themselves on film?

MBB: Many people I wanted to work with were very shy and didn’t want to communicate in Nepalese, so I tried to learn some Tibetan. The older ones couldn’t communicate in Nepalese at all. During the casting process, an elder mentioned that filming was against the meditative movement – although not directly against Buddhism.

They felt it was distracting and greedy to seek popularity and fame. It’s better to be grounded, hidden in a cave.

That’s why people used to meditate in houses or caves, away from the outside world and communication. The casting took five or six years to finalize. Most actors were from the region and acting for the first time, while many of the actresses were also singers. The main actress, Thinley Lhamo, is actually an opera singer. The actor who plays Rinpoche, Loten Namling, also a singer, actually lives in Zurich – he travelled to Nepal for the film.

Casting the female lead was particularly challenging.

One option was a woman from China, but passport issues and then COVID-19 prevented her from travelling.

I went to several countries to visit Tibetan communities abroad. But the problem is that younger generations living in the West struggle to maintain the Tibetan language. I wanted the actors to speak the local dialect, so non-locals had to learn the different pronunciations. To play Pema, Thinley, who grew up in Kathmandu, had to learn both the local dialect and how to knit, so we teamed her up with a crew member who knew how to knit. In our community, men used to knit their own clothes, and I had learned a bit from my father. We taught her to knit a sweater, which took two or three months.

LC: In the film, doors and windows are frequently used as framing elements. The camera is mostly at eye level. For the outdoor scenes, the sumptuous snow-covered landscapes seem to stretch endlessly. How did you manage to fit them on the screen?

MBB: As the film is not a love story, my primary goal was to deconstruct beauty. I didn’t want to romanticize the mountains. For locals, living there is tough and dangerous, while outsiders just see them as beautiful. My goal was to make the mountains a main character in the story, avoiding a documentary or National Geographic approach. For scenes shot in the village, from the beginning, the idea was to use tiny frames or windows because most mountain houses have very small windows for fresh air and views. Due to the cold, these houses often have only one window or none at all. People use them as a lens to the outside world and to observe others. We used these small openings as a link to transition between reality and the sepia-toned dream sequences. As surprising as it might sound, we incorporated many drone shots. We flew them strictly at eye level, making them unnoticeable. We wanted to make the viewers feel like they’re witnessing the story firsthand, using frontal, eye-level camera angles. As a filmmaker, I also wanted to balance technical aspects with local traditions, placing the audience in the middle of the experience.

LC: Can we talk about the jumper Pema can be seen knitting for Tashi throughout the movie? Also, the local characters mostly wear handcrafted clothing, while Ram Sir [Karma Shakya], the teacher from Kathmandu who tutors Tashi’s teenage brother Dawa, wears manufactured clothes. How did you choose and source the costumes?

MBB: We didn’t have a costume designer on set. With a cast and crew of 22 people, everyone had to multitask, and I handled the costumes myself. To highlight the contrast between the villagers and Ram Sir, who is an outsider, I asked the actor to bring his own clothes. He comes from a wealthy family, and his outfits reflected his background. I opted for used clothes to fit his character, who has been living in the mountains for a few years. He sent me a lot of clothes, plain and not, which we selected with the production designer. For a fire-lit scene, the original costume didn’t work, so the green jacket Ram Sir is wearing is actually my cinematographer’s!

MBB: I can speak from my own experience. In daily life, even during meditation and retreats, when we are surrounded by people, we often look outward. We need to close our doors and windows to look inward and recognize our inner qualities. I believe every human being has good and bad sides. Anyone can find compassion and meditate, but we rarely look inside ourselves. The only way to do this is to be alone. It can be anywhere in nature, not necessarily in the mountains. Your doors to an inner journey will automatically open. You’ll start to see your inner strengths: how far you can go, how wise you can be.

For Pema, it’s not just about discovering her own sensibility. My main motivation for having a female protagonist was to explore my own feminine energy. Journalists have often asked if it was hard to make this film as a male director, but it was my choice. For example, if a woman acts boldly, people might call her a tomboy, but that strength was always within her. Men can be kind and compassionate, which are qualities of the feminine energy. I also wanted to discover myself as a human being, like a scientist running tests in a lab. It was fascinating.

I want to have my own internal experience, beyond making a film.

LC: How is the promotion of your film going, and what academic and cinematic adventures are you planning to pursue next?

MBB: I’ve already enjoyed the process and done the work; what happens next is out of my hands. When I was in Berlin for the Berlinale, I chose not to attend parties or meetings. Even though I got requests to meet producers and investors, I went the opposite direction. Instead, I meditate, trek, and read books for days on end. In that sense, I am lucky not to feel too much pressure regarding failure or success. Not everything needs a result; sometimes, it’s better to have fewer expectations. I am already happy and found what I was looking for in this film: my internal growth.

◼ Shambhala screens tonight, 12.8 at 21:30 at the Piazza Grande

LC: The idea of mutual support and cooperation makes it easy to idealize life in smaller communities. However, it’s Pema’s own community members who spread the rumor about her, which is part of what sets her off on her perilous journey. Even on the other side of the world, human behavior doesn’t change.

MBB: Exactly. It can feel so good to be in small communities like the remote ones in the mountains. People help each other, but at the same time, it can be toxic – everybody knows each other’s dirty secrets. In the city, no one asks how you are or takes care of you. Everyone is busy, and everything is crowded, but your life remains private.

There are good and bad things to both sides.

LC: There’s also the crucial question of education. Pema’s brother misses her wedding due to his studies, and Dawa [Karma Wangyal Gurung], the youngest of the three husband-brothers, is laughed at for wanting to be a pilot instead of a farmer. The scandal involving Dawa’s private tutor highlights the challenges of getting an education in these conditions. Does this reflect the current situation in mountain villages?

MBB: It is a true reflection of my childhood. I wanted to be a filmmaker from age six, but my second dream was to be a pilot, like Dawa. The idea fascinated me as a child because of the helicopters that came when the king was visiting. All the mountain children admired the pilots. I wanted to know what was beyond the peaks, dreamed of crossing them and exploring the world, but I felt trapped.

I was like Dawa, then Tashi – I even ran away from home.

Now, at this point in my life, I see myself in Pema, trying to find myself and be more compassionate. But getting a good education in the mountains is still challenging.

While most kids go to school, the lack of good English teachers is a big problem. Many of my classmates dropped out of school because they couldn’t pass English. Learning the language is daunting for mountain students. Parents often pool resources to hire an English teacher from the city, but things are improving now.

My father was a government official who wore many hats: for one, he ran a movie theater. He brought me there when I was five or six. He was also a photographer and took me along when he had to move for work. I was bullied because I changed schools every six months.

As a result, my friends all come from my village, not school. When I was shooting The Black Hen, I asked my nephew to be a production assistant. He later went to Berlin and won an award in 2018 with his own short film [Songs of Love and Hate], despite having no previous experience. A set runner from my village who worked with me is now the most prominent production designer in the country; many of my relatives have become directors, cinematographers, production designers… My whole village has turned to film! Many young people aspire to make films. When they have good ideas, I feel compelled to guide and produce their films.

LC: Pema’s adventure is also an inner quest and an initiatory journey. It’s a path towards simplicity, which may be the most challenging thing to achieve. Onceshe’s alone, she realizes she already has all the resources she needs within herself. Could this perspective help us slow down our hectic lives?

| Got the chair? Go to vote!

Prix du Public UBS »

PARDO

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HIGHLIGHTS FROM TODAY’S PROGRAM

REAL

Cent mille milliards

di Daniela Persico SELECTION COMMITTEE

by Mathilde Henrot

Se il discorso sull’AI è all’ordine del giorno, ancora di più lo sono le implicazioni che il mondo virtuale ha avuto nell’esperire la nostra quotidianità. Cosa possiamo definire oggi come “reale”? E quali limiti incontra chi ha affidato la sua vita alla sfera immateriale della rete?

Sono solo alcune delle domande che si pone REAL di Adele Tulli (autrice di Normal, presentato alla Berlinale nel 2019), più un film-saggio che un documentario nella sua costruzione coerente e precisa, capace di sistematizzare varie ricorrenze del viaggio nel web, ma al contempo attenta ad allargare la riflessione senza mai ridurla a semplici paradossi e situazioni farsesche come talvolta accade quando si guarda con troppo distacco a un futuro che è già presente.

Il mondo di REAL è popolato da enormi edifici in cui viene raccolta la memoria ma anche il “farsi presente” di tutti noi: all’immaterialità dell’etere si contrappongono questi templi sacri illuminati da luci fosforescenti. Una visione fantascientifica, di nuove roccaforti, attorno alle quali nasceranno quartieri come l’Eco Delta Smart City di Busan, case smart in cui la presenza umana è assistita in tutto dall’intelligenza artificiale. Senza più bisogno di desiderare un aiuto per nulla, l’uomo potrà realmente raggiungere la felicità?

Nelle contraddizioni di un’economia che si sta basando sullo sfruttamento completo delle vite dei lavoratori, come il giovane youtuber/rider di Seoul che si riprende nelle sue forsennate corse per consegnare pasti a domicilio, ci sono ancora spazi utopici d’incontro, mondi virtuali che si offrono come casa per minoranze di tutto il mondo, in cui fanno capolino sentimenti “reali”. Così il web appare improvvisamente lontano e vicino da quel blob di immagini, che hanno perduto ogni valore indicale, da cui l’artista Gianluca Abbate anima una sequenza ammaliante quanto disturbante: balletti e salti impossibili, trasformazioni e dilatazioni, ragazzi con la testa di serpente e mutazioni continue in un flusso inarrestabile, in cui l’occhio di chi guarda smette di vedere.

Stills from Transamazonia

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Transamazonia

A hundred, two hundred, three hundred, five hundred, a thousand, ten thousand, nine hundred thousand, a million... a hundred thousand billion, or rather, as Afine (played by Zakaria Bouti), the protagonist, says: a hundred thousand billion billions. Of what? Of glittering objects, of poems, of possibilities?

Virgil Vernier’s new film touches on the dreams of characters who long for a future they’re not sure they want, or don’t dare will into being.

Brought together in their sweet solitude at Christmas – emotional islands far from their families – they meet along the Côte d’Azur in winter, where old monied ladies, illuminated by lights of all kinds – garlands, candles, neons, embers, and diamonds – cross paths. “Children grow old fast here,” says one of them.

In a rhythm of moments, eclipses, tenderness, and detachment, the filmmaker accompanies Afine and his new young friend Julia (Victoire Kong) through a shared closeness that they all understand is fleeting. It lasts only in dreams. “I’m waiting for your message,” Afine thinks while holding Julia in his mind, filled with words that will never be spoken. It’s one possible island refuge for Julia, whose parents are building an island or extension to Monaco, echoing a real project currently planned by architect Renzo Piano.

Virgil Vernier continues his work exploring the solitudes of the Côte d’Azur, initiated with his film Sophia Antipolis, which was presented in 2018 at the Locarno Film Festival. Like Cent mille milliards, this film is about the transformation of the body. Each of the remodeled body parts is an erogenous zone. In Sophia Antipolis, it was the breasts; in Cent mille milliards, the lips. The body bends and is sold on the Côte d’Azur. It’s the Côte d’Azur, but it’s also Dubai or an island from a future world, a new territory.

And it’s with a sublime final shot of an undefined territory that this beautiful film concludes, revolving around this imaginary land, a jungle at the heart of which stands a solitary building.

Read Maria Giovanna Vagenas’s interview with Virgil Vernier on p. 21

di Eddie Bertozzi

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Nel profondo della foresta amazzonica, una scena surreale.

Fra la fitta vegetazione, il brusio della natura, la luce che a fatica filtra dall’alto attraverso le chiome di piante secolari, scorgiamo i rottami di un rovinoso schianto aereo. Ma subito si grida al miracolo: una bambina è l’unica sopravvissuta.

Diventata ragazza, Rebecca è rimasta a vivere nella foresta e la fama di quell’evento straordinario non la abbandona. Anzi, tutti sono convinti che possieda un potere divino, che sappia curare miracolosamente i feriti e gli ammalati.

Con lei vive il padre missionario, impegnato in un’opera di evangelizzazione della popolazione indigena locale. Ma quando la foresta viene messa in pericolo dall’arrivo di un gruppo illegale di disboscatori, il cuore del conflitto si ingigantisce ed esplode, passando dagli affari della terra alle dinamiche delle relazioni umane.

Religione e razionalità, magia e realismo, la grande natura contro l’avidità umana, una figlia speciale e un padre con troppi segreti. Sono questi i molti epicentri di Transamazonia, opera affascinante e complessa, un mosaico di tasselli che prendono forma in una narrazione coinvolgente che si nutre di sfide e conflitti, una continua gara fra il credere e il non credere tanto ai fenomeni del divino quanto alle parole e alle intenzioni dell’uomo.

Dallo specifico del contesto amazzonico, la sua popolazione indigena e le tensioni evangelizzanti che lo percorrono, Transamazonia è però, prima di tutto, un film universale sul rapporto fra un padre e una figlia, un’indagine sulla possibilità dell’amore incondizionato. Porta la firma di Pia Marais, regista preziosa e dotata di una voce genuinamente transnazionale che torna al grande schermo dopo oltre dieci anni.

Di origini sudafricane e svedesi, Marais ci regala il suo film più ambizioso, in cui riavvolge idealmente sotto il suo sguardo autoriale molti dei fili che hanno caratterizzato il suo cinema fino a questo momento: lo smarrimento di una ragazza di fronte agli intrighi del mondo adulto come nel suo debutto The Unpolished (Die Unerzogenen, 2007); l’alienazione e la ricerca inesausta di un posto a cui appartenere come in At Ellen’s Age (Im Alter von Ellen, presentato in Concorso a Locarno nel 2010); il senso del mistero e l’ambiguità del non-detto come in Layla Fourie (2013).

Marais orchestra un cast solido e ispirato, fra cui Sabine Timoteo nel ruolo di un’infermiera e Jeremy Xido in quello del padre. Ma è la protagonista, Helena Zengel, che dona al film una presenza e un’intensità speciali. Indimenticabile in Systemsprenger (2019) e al fianco di Tom Hanks in Notizie dal mondo (News of the World, 2020), nel ruolo di Rebecca, Zengel si conferma una delle più grandi attrici dell’ultimissima generazione.

LOCARNO77

Still from Cent mille milliards

Stills from REAL

SELECTION COMMITTEE

Still form The Cavalry

Still form Punter © Jason Adam Maselle

REAL Live from Locarno77: at 11:30premieres at PalaCinema 1 Mohammad Rasoulof on Transamazonia The Seed premieres at 16:45 at of the Palexpo (FEVI) Sacred Fig Katarina Docalovich was at the press conference on Sunday, 11.8 for Mohammad Rasoulof’s latest film

Still form Chou He Zhuang © Hao Zhou microFILM

Mohammad Rasoulof was inspired to make a film about the Iranian women’s revolt, which was sparked in 2022 by the wrongful death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody, while the director himself was in prison for criticizing the Iranian government. “The initial idea came from an encounter I had while I was in prison,” Rasoulof told the press. “A political prisoner was on a hunger strike, and when I went to comfort him one day, a very high-up government inspector came to check on him. I was at first distrustful, but then the energy changed when the guard told me he would sometimes look at the prison doors and fixtures, wondering which one he would hang himself from.” Thus, The Seed of the Sacred Fig was born. Shot entirely without permission, the film encompasses the story of a family in flux, archival footage of the women’s protests, and the Iranian tradition of metaphor to create something truly courageous. For this crime, Rasoulof was given the choice between prison and exile; he chose exile in order to continue working. “I was lucky to have an exceptional editor,” Rasoulof said of Andrew Bird, who finished The Seed of the Sacred Fig while the director underwent the difficult process of leaving the country. “I told him whatever happens, you must complete the film.”

Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press

PARDI DI DOMANI

We Are Family

by Enrico Vannucci

Cent mille milliards

premieres at 14:00 at Palexpo (FEVI)

The fifth Pardi di Domani program

screens at 14:30 at La Sala

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Today, Pardi di Domani addresses some important issues concerning family and society through five diverse and exceptional pieces of short cinema.

Boris Hadžija and Hoda Taheri return return to the Competizione Internazionale for the third year in a row to present the final instalment of their short film trilogy about mothers. Mother is a Natural Sinner, co-directed by Taheri and Hadžija, is a witty and provocative short that adopts a kind of keyhole perspective to address unspoken issues about sexuality, desire, and masculinity.

Today’s only entry in the Competizione Nazionale is the Swiss documentary Maman danse (Mom Dances) by Mégane Brügger, a production of ÉCAL, Lausanne’s University of Art and Design. With great sensitivity and humanity, the short narrates the personal story of the director’s mother: the strength and dignity she mustered to overcome the trauma caused by years of domestic violence, and her efforts to reconnect with her daughter, thanks in part to her greatest passion, country dancing.

Executive produced by Spike Lee, Punter, by South African director Jason Adam Maselle, has high odds of being an audience favorite in the Competizione Internazionale this year. Set in the hidden gambling world of Johannesburg, the film is a gripping, entertaining, and fast-paced father-and-son tale that captivates almost as much as a horse race.

Horses are the protagonists of another Competizione Internazionale title: the Canadian-USA-Israeli co-production The Cavalry, by Alina Orlov. This hybrid documentary, which combines filmed images with manipulated archival footage, explores the harsh and desensitizing training these animals go through as police mounts, turning it into a metaphor to interpret the current state of Israeli society.

Closing today’s program, and competing for the Corti d’Autore award, is another compelling film: Hao Zhou’s Chou He Zhuang (Like What Would Sorrow Look). By dismantling the visual grammar of classical cinema piece by piece, the short portrays a queer melodrama that exposes the hidden ripples of modern Chinese society, obscured by the omnipresent Maoist state propaganda and songs. Enjoy the program!

SCOPRI LA PARDOWAY

Fai un tour della Città Vecchia e scopri l’offerta enogastronomica e d’intrattenimento della PardoWay. Dal 7 al 17 agosto ristoranti e bar offrono sconti ai possessori di biglietti o abbonamenti del Festival.

RISTORANTE FIORENTINA @ ristorantefiorentina, ristorantefiorentina.ch Caffè/digestivo offerto dopo consumazione

PARDO

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A Portrait of Locarno as Remembered by its Guests In the weeks leading up to the Festival, we reached out to some of Locarno’s most illustrious former guests and asked them to share their first memories of the fest – whether that meant impressions from their world premieres or casual walks around the lake. The result, Beginnings, is a treasure trove of anecdotes and recollections; a polyphonic mosaic of the Festival assembled by those who’ve shaped its history.

Annemarie Jacir, 2017 I wasn’t physically in Locarno, but in 2003, my short film Like Twenty Impossibles was. I can’t remember why I didn’t attend – maybe they weren’t inviting short film directors? I don’t know – but I was very happy to be part of the festival, especially at that time, when there were so few Palestinian voices out there and I felt proud to be able to share one of our stories. But one of my fondest Locarno memories is of course the premiere of my feature film, Wajib in 2017. It was just incredible to be able to be there with my producer, Ossama Bawardi, my cast, Mohammad Bakri and Saleh Bakri, and my own parents. It was the first time they’d followed me to a festival, which made it a particularly poignant and meaningful moment. And it was such a huge premiere! I forget the name of the venue, but to be in front of thousands and thousands of people to unveil the film was extremely moving and important for me…

I have a funny memory from that time: some days after the premiere, I was standing in line for a film, and I heard a woman behind me talk about Wajib to someone else. She was going on and on about the film, saying all kinds of nice things about it, and encouraging this person to catch the next screening. And I was standing right in front of her, listening, listening, listening… until I finally turned around. She recognized me and let out a yelp – which was very nice!

Wajib won three prizes at Locarno that year; it was so special to share the film with my family in town and to feel such a warm reception from the audience. I remember one of the prizes in particular – it was from this group that came to the hotel I was staying at to present me with a plaque. The man who gave me the award also offered me a beautiful photograph of Jean Genet at a demonstration in ’60s Paris. He’d written about Wajib and presented me with his piece as well as the prize. It’s probably the sweetest award I’ve ever received, both in terms of how it was presented and how personal it was.

Finally, I must confess that I hate to be in front of the camera, and hate to be photographed, but there was this French photographer who took pictures of us – Ossama, Mohammad, Saleh, and I – for an article in Télérama, if I’m not mistaken. The one he took of me was by the river; it’s the only picture of myself I like. I don’t know how to reach him, but I’d love to have that photograph!

HOW THE LEOPARD GOT ITS SPOTS

Go East, Go Big

By Lucia Leoni

For this year’s edition of Pardo, we invited historians Cyril Cordoba and Lucia Leoni to take us daily on a tour through the Locarno Film Festival’s history, chapter by chapter.

In the ’90s, Locarno foregrounded Chinese cinema. This was in part a continuation of the work of David Streiff, the Festival’s artistic director from 1983 – 1991, but it was really the doing of his successor, Marco Müller. A trained Sinologist, Müller had curated the landmark 1982 retrospective Ombre elettriche in Turin, one of the first in Europe entirely dedicated to Chinese cinema – the title, “Electric Shadows” in English, being a reference to the literal translation of the Chinese word for “cinema”. At Locarno, Müller’s particular expertise helped make the Festival a hub of exciting new cinema from the People’s Republic.

Nearly as many Chinese films played at Locarno during his tenure as had in the entire period beforehand, from the first edition in 1946 up until 1991. In 1998, Yue Lü’s directorial debut Mr. Zhao (Zhao xiansheng) received the Pardo d’Oro – the first Chinese film to do so; in 1999, Zhang Yuan’s Crazy English (Fengkuang yingyu) was the first from the nation to be screened on the Piazza Grande – with this auspicious premiere bringing international recognition to Zhang, and establishing him as one of the nation’s most promising filmmakers. If Chinese cinema maintains an important place at Locarno today, it should be considered part of Müller’s legacy.

In 1992, a few years after the creation of the Hubert Bals Fund in Rotterdam – an initiative dedicated to supporting filmmakers from non-western countries – Müller created Montecinemaverità, a foundation with a similar mission. It helped to mount around 100 film productions in developing nations over the course of 12 years. Meanwhile, in 1994, a new section designed in line with the Festival’s long-held mission to promote emerging directors was inaugurated: Cineasti del presente (“Filmmakers of the Present”), which continues to be a vital strand of the Locarno program.

And yet, the Müller years represented a programming paradox: alongside emerging cinema, Hollywood blockbusters were also making their way onto the Piazza Grande. Two 1994 selections in particular have gone down in cinematic history for their particularly spirited reception: Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Jan de Bont’s Speed. A few years later, even comedies like There’s Something about Mary (1998) and Disney’s Mulan (1998) were being invited to Locarno. This “happy schizophrenia”, as Müller put it, might have been criticized by cinephiles, but it guaranteed bigger crowds: festival attendance exceeded 100,000 for the first time in the 1990s. Disconcerting as it may have been for the purists, this too was a means by which Locarno was pushing the boundaries of festival programming.

Festival attendees queuing for a screening © Foto ERRE

BEGINNINGS

Dominga Sotomayor, 2018

The Piazza Grande screen being assembled , 1994

Things I remember from Locarno 2018: I floated on the lake with an eclectic group of critics and filmmakers. We walked with Demian, the star of my film, Too Late to Die Young (Tarde Para Morir Joven), taking photos of us washed ashore in the sand. That film was his last as a woman and now he was nervously getting ready to present it as a man, post-transition. Blurry images and the bright photograph of a person floating in the water. The huge room full of people at the premiere. The feeling that the film has a thousand parts left over. A small bar packed with people after the screening. A new friend with whom I toured the city for the first time.

A classic watch I saw and liked in a store and jokingly promised to give myself if I won a prize. The night we wandered into a bar and an Argentinean filmmaker told me that they were calling the winners. My phone had been out of battery for hours and a bartender charged it for me. I was crossing the Piazza Grande moments later when Carlo Chatrian called me to tell me I had won “something”.

That night, from the stage, about to receive the award, I saw Hong Sangsoo sitting in the first row and got nervous. I will never forget the date: August 11, my grandfather’s birthday – he had passed away eight years prior without seeing any of my feature films.

I returned to Chile with the watch I bought at that little store, a Swiss Army knife as a gift, and the crumpled dress from that night – that’s now hanging in my closet and which I’ve never worn again.

Do you have any memories or anecdotes from Locarno you’d like to share?

Join PIAZZA NOSTRA, a new initiative launched to collect people’s experiences of the Festival ahead of its 80th edition in 2026!

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“A True Account of a Fallible Memory”: Iva Radivojević on Kada je zazvonio telefon The Belgrade-born director talks about bringing the past of Former Yugoslavia to her new film.

Interview by Stefan Ivančić SELECTION COMMITTEE

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va Radivojević habitually says she comes from a country that no longer exists – Yugoslavia – and that gives you a hint about how the Aleph (2021) director feels about memory. In her new film, Kada je zazvonio telefon (When the Phone Rang), premiering today as part of Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente, she returns to her own childhood, and the friends and family that populated that forever-lost era.

Prompted by Pardo’s questions, Radivojević revisits different vessels of memory and discusses their cinematic equivalents. ◼ Savina Petkova

also to make the “period” set design manageable, given the budget constraints. Every corner of that apartment was utilized, and I ended up designing the spaces myself, with the help of the entire crew. We asked the children to bring some of their own clothes, too – for example, Dunja loved ’90s rock bands, and so she’s wearing her own t-shirt in the film. In some scenes Natalija wears my personal clothes, but for most of the costumes we rummaged through second-hand stores and I chose outfits according to the desired color palette. The most challenging part was filming outside and having to frame shots excluding modern cars. It was lucky that parts of Novi Sad are somewhat “stuck in time”. Each member of our small, eight-person production crew was alert to anything that didn’t look or feel like it came from the early ’90s. We relied on each other’s input and collaboration.

Stefan Ivančić: How would you describe your childhood in former Yugoslavia?

Iva Radivojević: Communal. We lived in a block of buildings called Pariske komune, or “the Paris Communes”. The eight or so buildings formed a “U” shape and in the middle was a big grassy yard with trees and benches. No matter which building you lived in, you could see the yard and the other buildings from your window. The yard was a unifying space, the meeting place for all the inhabitants. Most people knew each other. The summers were spent in Croatia with the other half of my family, which was similarly rooted in kinship.

SI: How much is Kada je zazvonio telefon [When the Phone Rang] inspired by your own experiences?

IR: The film is almost entirely based on my childhood. The characters are essentially friends and family who were in my life at that time. The film also features some of the actual people who lived in the Pariske komune – my next-door neighbor Zlata and her daughter Sneža are the two women who appear in the elevator. Slavica Bajčeta, the narrator, was a close friend who lived two floors above me. She became an actress and she narrates the story so beautifully. The film is, essentially, a set of memories that stayed with me during all these years since leaving.

SI: I had just finished rewatching the film and was writing these questions, when I heard a phone ringing in the distance… Where did the idea of the telephone call as a Proustian device come from?

IR: That first phone call is, in fact, the most vivid memory I have from before leaving Yugoslavia. It’s permanently imprinted. And if we think of memories as ghosts, returning and looping, they end up haunting the present. The idea of the repetition of the call – as well as that recurring sentence, “When the phone rang, it was a Friday, 10:36 in the morning…” – was born during a poetry workshop. I was a big fan of the late [American poet] Lewis Warsh. A few years ago, it came to my attention that he was giving a week-long workshop at Naropa University, and I immediately signed up. He provided various writing exercises, each with a different constraint or prompt. One of these constraints was leaning on repetition. Something instantly clicked for me, and in a few hours, I wrote the first four stories of the film. Something about the repetition, the echo of the call, is rooted in trauma – it’s a wound that wants to close.

SI: The film has been financed in Serbia as a documentary – yet I would not describe it as such. Where would you place it in the context of the fiction/non-fiction discourse?

IR: I don’t really subscribe to that binary distinction – for this film as well as my other films. I could easily argue for or against either label. In fact, for me, one doesn’t exist without the other. This film is rooted in memory. Memories are simultaneously real and fictitious. They change and morph over time, and they vary depending on who you ask. The film is a true account of a fallible memory.

What is factual is the emotion – the heartbreak of dislocation. The film is a documentation of that heartbreak.

SI: How do you see today’s Serbia in contrast to the period of Kada je zazvonio telefon? Has there been any movement, or would you say it’s a country suspended in space and time?

IR: That’s a good way of putting it. Politically, it certainly feels that way – in the sense that there hasn’t been any real reckoning in terms of what happened in those years, no ownership of historical responsibility. That is tragic, and in the worst-case scenario, dangerous.

SI: How challenging was it to recreate the Yugoslavia of the early 1990s, a country that no longer exists, in terms of atmosphere, set design, costumes?

IR: There were some very specific items that were necessary: old phones, vintage TVs, a cassette player, etc. We were working with a tiny budget. There was no money for a bigger crew that would include a set designer, wardrobe, or other positions, but we had a great props person who found most of the things we needed. We found a big old-fashioned apartment that could serve as multiple locations, which meant there was a lot of rearranging the furniture to suit different scenes. Most of the film was shot in that one location. I always knew the film would be composed of very tight frames, both for subjectivity and

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SI: Are you working on a new project?

IR: For the moment I’m preoccupied with writing a thesis on “Dislocated Cinema”, as part of my PhD. Otherwise, I’m slowly cooking up a new film that’s set on the Greek island where I live, Lesbos – it spans 20 million years.

LOCARNO77

All images from Kada je zazvonio telefon ©Ivaasks Films

SI: What were you looking for during the casting process? Natalija Ilinčić’s presence is so magnetic…

IR: During casting, we visited a number of informal acting schools in Novi Sad. That’s where we found all the kids. I saw Natalija at a school called Mišolovka (The Mousetrap). She had a specific, assured quietness. In a class of about 20 kids, she would sit alone quietly, without drawing attention to herself, but when she went on stage she exuded a forceful confidence. Something about that quietness, that was both detached and present, immediately drew me in. Because each character in the film is based on people I knew (or in Natalija’s case, on myself), I was looking for remnants of those personas. I picked Natalija on a strong hunch – as there were no casting rehearsals – and she ended up being a real force. She had plenty of directing ideas as well!

All images: Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press

Eros Media World is a premiere production and distribution company for Indian cinema, responsible for some of the greatest Indian films in cinema history. Eros Media produced the beloved modern classic Devdas (2002), starring Shah Rukh Khan in one of his most iconic roles. While Locarno is screening it in its original version in 35mm, Immerso AI are also releasing an AI-dubbed English and French version of the film for select audiences around the world.

To find more about their full catalog, scan the QR code below.

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PARDO

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COME TOGETHER at Rotonda by la Mobiliare

Lose yourself in the core of Locarno Film Festival’s pulsating atmosphere at Rotonda by la Mobiliare.

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

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12.06.24 11:21

“A POISONOUS FASCINATION”

VIRGIL VERNIER ON

CENT MILLE MILLIARDS The French director speaks to Pardo about the genesis of his latest film, how he crafted its magical world, and the way he worked with non-professional actors

by Maria Giovanna Vagenas

MGV: Could you please elaborate on the movie’s plot?

VV: I wanted to make a fairy tale like the ones I adore, such as The Thousand and One Nights or Grimm’s Fairy Tales, but in the modern era, a film with a main protagonist and a linear plot. I also felt that the Christmas season, when the narrative takes place, was the ideal time to give Monaco an even more fairy tale feel, albeit a capitalist one.

Afine is only 18, but his life has already been plunged into the violence of reality, as he and his roommates work as sex workers to make ends meet. On Christmas Eve, he is invited to a dinner party by Vesna, an old Serbian friend and colleague, where he meets Julia, a 12-year-old super-rich Chinese girl who Vesna babysits.

Because the three of them are a little out of touch and have no family, they plan to spend the Christmas holidays together. During the festivities, they will create a sort of ephemeral family.

MGV: The film portrays a series of lonely, fragile, lost young people who no longer know what to dream about, but who won’t stop dreaming all the same.

VV: I wanted to tell the story of the psychological violence that occurs when we are given a taste of a dream or a seemingly idyllic world, only to have it taken away from us.

That is something I’ve experienced more than once.

There are times when you are completely ecstatic about life, doing extraordinary things, and then everything stops. The downturn is violent.

MGV: You’ve always enjoyed filming the fringes, the unseen behind our world’s facades. What drew you in this direction?

VV: Despite the highly rational, scientific, and technological world we live in, we’re all fascinated, to some extent, by what is still inexplicable. I believe the power of cinema lies precisely in its ability to keep on looking for what is puzzling and mysterious.

MGV: Afine and Julia’s unexpected, magical encounter takes place against an apocalyptic backdrop. There’s a veiled threat lurking on the horizon...

VV: I’m not sure if there’s something apocalyptic on the way, but I do know that the ultra-rich have put in place a system to protect themselves from a potential apocalypse, including luxury bunkers, anti-nuclear housing, and hyper-secure gated communities. The hyper-rich guard their property like a fortress, which is what I wanted to show in this film.

MGV: Cent mille milliards also portrays Monaco, a city that is as elusive as it is captivating and hypnotizing.

VV: To depict Monaco, you can simply film it like you would film a documentary; there is nothing to invent or to add. I didn’t need to create on purpose the backdrop for a pseudo-magical fairy tale; all I had to do was shoot Monaco on 16 mm at night during Christmas to elicit a poisonous

fascination. Monaco is very appealing, like Ali Baba’s cave with all those jewels and treasures hidden behind a glass case that you’ll never get to, but as soon as you try to break the spell, death strikes quickly.

MGV: The score adds to the film’s distinct atmosphere. How did you approach this aural aspect?

VV: I needed music to convey both a magical, fairy tale spirit and a sense of unease. I worked together with James Ferraro, a musician from New York who had previously written music for Andorre (2013), Mercuriales (2014), and Sophia Antipolis. The score for Cent mille milliards is based on pre-existing music, inspired by the tunes of low-end American culture, such as shopping mall muzak, and ads for cults, fortune tellers, and horoscopes, all of which Ferraro reworked to create something grander.

MGV: How did you cast and work with non-professional actors for the film?

VV: My starting point is the energy of the people I choose; their bodies, the way they move and speak. Then I suggest a story that may be very different from their actual lives. I ask them to live the character’s life as if it were a role-playing game, in a playful way. I tell the actors: “I want you to stay who you are, but we’re going to play as if you were this or that.” For example, Mina Gajovic, who plays Vesna, I met in a traditional casting session, leads a completely different life, but she had a physique and stance that appealed to me. On the other hand, I met Zakaria Bouti who plays the film’s protagonist, Afine, in Marseille at 4 a.m. in a gay disco. He was surrounded by a large group of queer friends who were all happy, and self-confident. He was the only one dressed in black who looked gloomy and ill in his skin. I was keen to talk to him because he reminded me of the character I was writing.

I told him about the film, he really liked it, and agreed to play. Victoire Kong, who plays Julia, was cast through social media casting ads. She’s a very mysterious little girl.

We met several times to discuss the character, and she told me some very surprising things that made Julia seem even more enigmatic than I had imagined.

MGV: In Cent mille milliards you create a more classic, linear narrative than in your previous films, but you keep the voice-over element that distinguishes them, why was that?

VV: At times I try to write some scenes, but they’re not particularly interesting to me, whereas if they’re narrated, they’re much more powerful. Often, a point is simply more straightforward and compelling when spoken than when shown, which is why I prefer to convey it through voice-over.

MGV: What was the most difficult challenge you faced throughout the filmmaking process?

VV: The financing was difficult. First, I was unable to raise the necessary funds, so the filming was postponed for one year. Finally, when we received the entire budget – a small one – we only had three weeks to shoot, which was extremely short given that I wrote the script over five years. I wish I could have included more scenes, but I had to work within my budget.

MGV: And yet you still shot on celluloid?

VV: A lot of scenes in the film could have been easily shot on digital, like most films nowadays, but I feel that a certain magic is missing. The enchanting atmosphere of Christmas in Monaco required this chemical support that creates the alchemy of reality, transforming ordinary things into something mythical and legendary.

◼ Cent mille milliards premieres today, 12.8 at 14:00 at Palexpo (FEVI)

Read Mathilde Henrot’s review of the film on p. 14

PARDO

All images from Cent mille milliards

Maria Giovanna Vagenas: From one film to the next, your work traces a map of today’s capitalist world. This exploration continues with Cent mille milliards (100.000.000.

000.000). How did this film come about?

Virgil Vernier: After filming Sophia Antipolis (2018) in southern France, which examined how the modern world has seized these beautiful, virgin territories of the Mediterranean, Monaco was another location I wanted to investigate because it evokes even more powerfully the brutal transformation of a place into a mere commercial and merchandised destination. So, I went to Monaco on a location scouting trip to discover a place I only knew by name. Because I couldn’t finalize the funding for Cent mille milliards, I shot Imperial Princess (2024) there in the meantime, a short film in the form of a diary, with only one character and mostly voice-over, depicting the day-to-day life of the daughter of an oligarch who remained alone in Monaco after the Russian invasion in Ukraine.

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Lifetime Achievement Awardee Alfonso Cuarón greets fans at Locarno77 All images: Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press

A mountain biker’s world Discover our trails

Corona dei Pinci, Ronco sopra Ascona © Tom Malecha

G AM E S & QU I ZZ E S 1

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1. Island nation in the Mediterranean 6. French cosmetics company that briefly owned the rights to Blue Velvet 7. Bergman magnum opus starring Bibi Andersson and Liv Ullman 8. Ti ___ (Italian for “I love you”) 9. Counterpart of “thx” 10. Release from bondage, like Tarantino’s Django 12. Swiss home of a major film festival 13. Tristan’s beloved, in myth and opera

1. Diertrich–von Sternberg film set in the country for which it’s named 2. ___ gratia artis (MGM motto) 3. Mascot of 12-Across 4. Souvenir from a beach vacation 5. Regretful rejection 6. Greek island on which Hephaestus was exiled, according to the Iliad 7. St. ___ (region of Hamburg) 11. ___ 9000 (Kubrick computer)

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•Crossword by Nicholas Henriquez

TIPS: LOS ANGELES, RYAN GOSLING, STUNTMAN, VENGEANCE

FILL IN THE GAPS AND GUESS THE MOVIE TITLE Using the clues fill out the five-letter title of a classic movie.

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I PARDO Come to the Swisscom booth in Largo Zorzi for a chance to win prizes!

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Shambhala

by Min Bahadur Bham

August 12th, 21:30, Piazza Grande

Shambala — Illustration of the film by Giacomo Nanni

Vote for the Prix du Public UBS

◼ The voice of the audience is key for a film’s success. That’s why since 2000, the Festival’s most trusted jury – the audience – decides which film wins the Prix du Public UBS award. ◼ Vote for your favorite film at the Piazza Grande with the QR code or the link on your e-ticket. ◼ All participants have a chance to win Festival Passes for Locarno78 (6-16 August 2025) and enter the final prize draw for an exciting holiday in Switzerland!

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