63 Degrees Festival del Film Locarno
August 19th 2010 03:48
63 Degrees Festival del Film Locarno
The role of festivals is to support and comment on films, not just to show them. Although the major festivals have skillfully played a role as luxury showcases for world cinema for a long time, this is no longer enough.
This year, there is one characteristic that is common to all the various Festival sections: the youthfulness of the filmmakers, whether they belong to the new generation of international cinema auteurs or are making their directorial début, proof of the vitality of creative production, and the Festival's curiosity about all genres and forms of independent production.
This ebullience is manifest in about twenty first films, across all the sections, from the crime film to experimental cinema, via documentary, animation, fantasy and science fiction, comedy and melodrama. There are about fifty world premières, of extremely diverse geographic provenance, that offer a cinematic world tour, with a strong showing for Romania, the Balkans, Scandinavia, the two Americas and Asia.
A cinephile festival should make a real and effective intervention, expediting and encouraging recognition for filmmakers, or the emergence of a particular country on the world cinema map.
Locarno was one of the first festivals to lay claim, justifiably, to a role as test bed, realizing that what appears experimental today might herald the cinematic language of the future, igniting aesthetic revolutions both small and large. Locarno's size gives it the means to show a highly diverse range of cinema, in all its many forms, to compare current cinema with its history through retrospectives and tributes, whilst retaining a human dimension that provides a cohesive atmosphere, encourages a good reception for the films, conviviality and encounters with creative talent. Because the selection of films at Locarno is the outcome of critical choices, it cannot fall prey to the illusion that quantity can replace quality.
The role of festivals is to support and comment on films, not just to show them. Although the major festivals have skillfully played a role as luxury showcases for world cinema for a long time, this is no longer enough.
This year, there is one characteristic that is common to all the various Festival sections: the youthfulness of the filmmakers, whether they belong to the new generation of international cinema auteurs or are making their directorial début, proof of the vitality of creative production, and the Festival's curiosity about all genres and forms of independent production.
This ebullience is manifest in about twenty first films, across all the sections, from the crime film to experimental cinema, via documentary, animation, fantasy and science fiction, comedy and melodrama. There are about fifty world premières, of extremely diverse geographic provenance, that offer a cinematic world tour, with a strong showing for Romania, the Balkans, Scandinavia, the two Americas and Asia.
A cinephile festival should make a real and effective intervention, expediting and encouraging recognition for filmmakers, or the emergence of a particular country on the world cinema map.
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