Paul VerhoevenPaul Verhoeven - Interview

Back in Locarno after 35 years of absence (Verhoeven wont the Jury Prize in 1964 for his short film Het Feest), Paul Verhoeven is in town to receive the 12th Leopard of Honor, and presenting his latest film Hollow Man in the Piazza Grande out of competition. Following Joe Dante and Daniel Schmid, this master of provocation and subversion is being honored for his career achievement. Interview with a charming man. more (see also Verhoeven portrait)


Kiyoshi KurosawaKiyoshi Kurosawa - Interview

With more than 20 films and several festival retrospectives dedicated to his work (Festival d'Automne des Cahiers du Cinema, Honk Kong, Biennale du Cinema Japonais d'Orleans), the Kiyoshi Kurosawa of Japanese film - named after the great Akira - is beginning to be known by movie buffs worldwide. At this year's Locarno he was recently dubbed King of the B's, a title he certainly deserves for his ability to constantly re-shape and revive the genre.
Cure (1997) was Kiyoshi Kurosawa's masterpiece, a powerful horror film that came at a time when Japan was experiencing a resurgent interest in horror films along with most of Asia (Korea, Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong). The revival is mostly accredited to the recent success of Ring (from Far East Film). more


Werner SchroeterWerner Schroeter - Portrait

Along with Werner Herzog, Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Volker Schloendorff, Schroeter is considered one of the leading lights of the New German Cinema of the 1970s. Born in 1945, in Georgenthal, Germany, Werner Schroeter studied psychology at the University of Mannheim. In 1972, he began his career as a theater and opera director, staging Oscar Wilde's "Salomé" (1973), Victor Hugo's "Lucrecia Borgia" (1974), August Strindberg's "Mademoiselle Julie" (1977) and Richard Wagner's "Lohengrin" (1979). more



Mike Figgis - Portrait

Time CodeMark your calendars - November 1999 - Mike Figgis makes Film History. In another fifty years, film historians will point back to this date as a landmark in the evolution of film production. Why? Feature films shot on digital video have existed for 5 or 6 years. Nothing new there. Several overlapping dialogue-saturated soundtracks have more or less existed since Robert Altman started clarifying his intent by muddling his sound design in the early 1970s. Nothing new there either. But with Time Code, Figgis has come up with an original work that is a subtitler's nightmare so extreme it may well prevent distributors from bringing out the film in non-English speaking countries. more


Robert Kramer - Portrait

Born in 1939 in New York, N.Y., Robert Kramer died in November 1999 in Rouen, France of spinal meningitis.

Better known in Europe than the United States, Kramer's work exemplifies the political ideals of American counter-culture of the 60s. Kramer worked closely with a grass roots collective that made 16 mm and films about current events using donated film stock from tv news stations on the East Coast. The results were projected in church basements and community centers, often leading to what is now referred to as "empowerment." more


Jean-Daniel Pollet - Portrait

Ceux d'en faceBorn in 1936 in Lille, France, Jean-Daniel Pollet studied the technical aspects of filmmaking as part of his military service. Later, Pollet was an assistant to Julien Duvivier on the set of L'homme à l'imperméable, an experience from which Pollet learned "everything that you shouldn't do."
The youngest member of the French New Wave, Pollet contributed an episode to Paris vu par... (Six of Paris) in 1965, along with fellow New Wave luminaries Eric Rohmer, Jean-Luc Godard, Claude Chabrol, Jean Rouch and Jean Douchet. Pollet's segment, "Rue Saint-Denis," concerned the famous street of prostitution as evoked by actor Jean-Pierre Melki's visit to a prostitute. Customer and client have a very unusual dinner together. more



Alex Kirschner - Interview

Swiss winnersToday was Swiss cinema day in Locarno, with an award ceremony and a midnight swinging party held in its honour. Organised by the SSA, Suissimage and the Suisa Foundation, the award ceremony held at the Grand Hotel towering above Locarno bestowed prizes to Best Script and Best Score for a feature film. The later prize went to young composer Alex Kirschner for the film Irrlichter by Christoph Kühn, a Swiss/Austrian/German co-production. more


Robert Frank - Portrait

SanyuSwiss-born Robert Frank returns to his home country at the Locarno Film Festival! The 76-year old legendary photographer and video artist studied in Zurich, his birthplace before immigrating to the USA. In 1958, he published the legendary photography book, "The Americans", a mapping of 60s America, contributing radical innovations to the prevailing photographic conventions of the time. His films often mix his public and private life as in Conversations in Vermont (1969) and Life Dances On (1980). His half-hour 35mm film Sanyu, presented in Locarno in the Filmmakers of the Present section, is about a close friend who died 40 years ago in Paris, the Chinese painter Sanyu. more


Terence DaviesTerence Davies - Portrait

While any number of films shot in Toronto have fooled us into believing they were taking place in New York, few productions have called upon Glascow, Scotland to stand-in for New York in the early 1900s. Terence Davies' new film, an adaptation of Edith Wharton's novel, The House of Mirth, is a romantic tale set in early 20th century Glascow-on-Hudson in which a woman risks losing her chance for happiness with the only man she has ever really loved. more



Terence DaviesTerence Davies - Press conference highlights

Looking at other period pieces...
"It's always odd to be mentioned alongside a Scorcese film... But it is great for my vanity! (laughs) I do love The Age of Innocence. There is a great shot in this film... I would have died for such a shot! And I probably will... The others I am afraid I don't respond to. I can't feel anything for Jane Campion's Portrait of a Lady... Perhaps it is because I am getting old and miserable... (getting dramatic) I am getting miserable and I love it!" (laughs). more



Michael Almereyda - Press conference highlights

Michael Almereyda"Don't you think the references to Pepsi and Blockbuster are somewhat jarring?"
"The only criticism about the film that really meant anything to me was precisely this criticism, which I think is born of cynicism. It is a complete misunderstanding of my intentions. That contrast was meant exactly as a contrast to the world of Shakespeare. And we in fact were not paid by Pepsi or Blockbuster, but we had to pay them...more



Bryan Singer - Interview

X-MenB.S.: We have no specific stories in the works, but definitely this film introduces the universe of the X-Men, in the same way that the comic books introduce the super-heroes and their characters. They are always introduced with the notion of expansion and growth. That's the way I approached them.

C.P.: Some of the actors have already signed for one or two sequels. Is it the same for you?

B.S.: No. I might be interested but I'm not obligated. It depends on the circumstances. I did my deal so I wouldn't be forced to do another movie. more



Bryan Singer - Portrait

Bryan SingerLike Charles Foster Kane in Xanadu, Bryan Singer lives alone in an unfurnished mansion in Los Angeles. The 34-year-old filmmaker is not, however, a mutant recluse, especially now that he's completed his fourth feature film, X-Men. "The house has been completely empty for two years except for a bed, my television with a VCR and DVD and a fish tank. When I have friends over we have pizza on the floor," Singer recently told the New York Times.
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Paul Verhoeven - Portrait

Paul VerhoevenPaul Verhoeven is to receive the 12th Leopard of Honour and is in Locarno to promote his latest film, Hollow Man, a science fiction thriller about scientists who learn how to make people invisible. It stars Elisabeth Shue and Kevin Bacon, who will be in Locarno before heading to Deauville where they will promote the film at the festival of American Film.
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