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Locarno :
A Treat for Movie-Goers
It is said that a leopard cannot change its spots ... Locarno Film
Festival, the purveyor of the Golden Leopard, remains a top spot
for movie buffs around the world.
Founded a few months before Cannes in 1946, the festival is the
second oldest in the world after Venice and is considered one of
the Top 4 European festivals and among the Top 12 worldwide.
 Locarno
has several unique qualities that make it a gem on the festival
circuit. Located on the shores of the Lake Maggiore, at the foot
of the Swiss Alps, it has an unmatched picturesque setting. The
exciting night screenings on the cobbled Piazza Grande at the heart
of the city make for one of the biggest makeshift open air cinemas,
where more than 10 000 cinephiles crowd not only the Piazza but
also the surrounding porticoes and restaurant balconies.
For director Atom Egoyan (Felicia's Journey), the
Piazza screenings of his films remain the most exciting evenings
of his life. "To see a community square full of thousands of people
watching a film under a mountain night sky was a dream almost too
good to be true. I cherish the opportunities I have had to screen
my films at Locarno, and look forward to returning to this unique
event."
Last but not least, the festival offers a very eclectic range of
films, from spectacular blockbusters to fresh independents, that
duly caters to an ever growing audience, (105,000 spectators in
1990, 181,000 in 1999).
The Films: Between Tradition and Modernity
Director Marco Muller and the festival's correspondents watched
more than 1200 features and 400 video films from 61 countries.
 The
International Competition section revolves around a combination
of "young cinema" and "new cinema" with a total of 19 films (including
1 surprise entry) from 16 countries, of which 3 are first films:
Baise-moi (France), Bronx Barbes (France)
and The Low Down (Great Britain). Confirmed directors
include 1998 Camera d'Or winner Naomi Kawase with
Hotaru (Japan) and "master-of-all-trades" (and former cultural attaché
at the Portuguese Embassy in Tokyo) Paulo Rocha, with A Raiz
do Coraçao.
The Filmmakers of the Present section will again feature a Sony-sponsored
video competition that welcomes famed Italian Devil in the
Flesh director Marco Bellocchio's Nina. Academy
Award nominee Mike Figgis (Leaving Las Vegas) returns to Locarno
via this section with the experimental Timecode, 4
interrelated stories told on a four-frame screen, with a great cast:
Saffron Burrows (Mike Figgis's Miss Julie), Salma
Hayek, Holly Hunter, Kyle Maclachlan... Expectations will also be
high for Roji-e: Nakagami Kenji no Nokoshita Film
(Japan), the latest film by Cannes Fipresci Prize winner Shinji
Aoyama ; Pierre ou les Ambiguïtés, a
three part short television series by cult french director Leos
Carax.
The Video Competition also welcomes several attractive portraits,
such as Delphine Seyrig Portrait d'une Comète by Jacqueline
Veuve (France), about one of the most engaging actresses of European
cinema, who starred in such films as Luis Bunuel's The Discreet
Charm of the Bourgeoisie and Harry Kümel's Daughters
of Darkness (as the unforgettable Countess Bathory). A peculiar
biographical films will be Om Namah Shivay, which
German rock star Nina Hagen dedicated to her spiritual guide (Nina
Hagen is no stranger to video and cinema through her numerous music
videos and appearances in such films as Cha Cha, Almodovar's
Pepi Luci Bom, and most recently the German horror
movie The Bloodcountess with Udo Kier !)
 After
Small Soldiers in 1998 and the restored version of
The Birds (in presence of Tippi Hedren) in 1999, the
great night screenings of the Piazza Grande this year are sure to
be Bryan Singer's X-Men, the highly anticipated adaptation
of the Marvel comics starring acting great Patrick Stewart and Ian
McKellen, and the international premiere of Hollow Man,
Paul Verhoeven's update of H.G. Well's "Invisible Man"
story follows a deranged (and invisible) Kevin Bacon aim for absolute
power. The talented Dutch director will be in Locarno to receive
the 12th Leopard of Honour of the festival, which last year went
to Daniel Schmid. The Piazza Grande will also feature several world
premieres such as The House of Mirth, Terence Davies's
adaptation of Edith Wharton's turn-of-the-century novel, with a
great cast : Gillian Anderson (The X-Files), Eric
Stoltz (The Fly II), Dan Aykroyd (Ghostbusters)
and Laura Linney (The Truman Show).
The great retrospective of the festival will explore an uncharted
territory, Soviet cinema between 1926 and 1968. It will feature
musicals, war melodramas and ambivalent studio productions in which
directors strived to maintain their space of freedom.
A brand new section of the festival is Kings of the B's, which will
give special focus to the directors and producers insisting on a
very personal vision within the framework of genre pictures. The
section will kick off with the world premiere of Ko-rei,
the first kaidan eiga (horror film) by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Japan's
hottest director on the festival circuit.
The Leopards of Tomorrow will celebrate its tenth anniversary with
a tribute to Spain, combining an overview of recent short films
and a retrospective of features. Once again, Leopards of Tomorrow
will present the "New Swiss Talents" competition, open to the best
short films produced in Switzerland in 1999 and 2000.
The Critics' Week section will take its annual look at documentary
cinema, beginning with Sabine Gisiger and Marcel Zwingli's Do
It, about the "Annebäbi" revolutionary group which, in the
70s, was influential enough to attract the attention of the CIA.
With less than a week to go, Locarno is poised for yet another whirlwind
festival.
FilmFestivals.com
reporter
Robin Gatto
Locarno
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