To mark the milestone of 40 years together – the longest-lasting partnership ever with the Locarno Film Festival – UBS has chosen to celebrate the 73 years-history of the Locarno Film Festival by supporting the creation of 40yearsubs.locarnofestival.ch, a new website entirely dedicated to the rich archives that tell the story of the event’s 73 years. The new site will allow users to rediscover the vast wealth of stories told and collected since 1946, retracing the long journey on which the Festival and UBS have travelled side by side since that first year together back in 1981.
All in one place online, the history that was and soon the future that will be: 40yearsubs.locarnofestival.ch. In such a remarkable year – a year without the Piazza Grande or the Prix du Public UBS, the audience prize that each summer raises the temperature for the eight thousand spectators thronging to Locarno’s signature venue – the Festival and UBS came to the conclusion that there could be no better year than this one symbolically stop and to start telling a story. A story of stories, stretching over 73 years and made of many special moments, never identical to each other. And so, the new website, online from today, was created. A website that will run throughout Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films, collecting the memories of a long, still-developing history.
Right from the first images and videos that inaugurates the pathway through 40yearsubs.locarnofestival.ch, the new resource created in a joint venture with the Locarno Film Festival and UBS takes an innovative approach to its public narrative of all that has happened since 1946. The story will be told through the basic elements that characterized the summer experience of the Festival: words, films, prizes, piazza, but also rain, tears, seats, campsite and pencils. The pencils used for so many years by the Piazza Grande audience to mark their voting cards for their choice of the Prix du Public UBS; the yellow and black seats that the same audience will soon occupy once again to enjoy the magic of cinema in one of Europe’s biggest theaters; the campsite which served as a base for Bruno Ganz to follow his first ever Festival when still a child; and the tears which flowed down Adrien Brody’s cheeks on his big night in Piazza Grande in 2017. The online archive of the Locarno Film Festival will not be in chronological order but instead will follow an emotional logic – dictated by small moments as much as by grand nights, by objects and feelings, by reflections and phone calls: like the memorable thoughts expressed by enrico ghezzi receiving the Premio dell’Utopia last year, or the hilarious call put through to the whole Piazza by Roberto Benigni in 1998 for the screening of La vita è bella (Life is Beautiful).
Nestled among the archive memories, the Locarno Film Festival and UBS have hidden another gift to complete their celebrations of 40 years together. By visiting the website and entering the competition with a few clicks of the mouse, users can win an Experience Package valid for 4 persons for Locarno74, scheduled from 4 to 14 August 2021. The gift bundle includes 4 VIP Packages to experience Saturday night 7 August 2021 in Piazza Grande, with entry via the red carpet, a night for 4 at the Hotel & Lounge Lago Maggiore and an activity of the winner’s choice, again for 4 people, in the Ascona-Locarno region.
Finally, the story that starts today, during Locarno 2020 – on 40yearsubs.locarnofestival.ch – does not stop here. Step by step, memory by memory, the website will continue to collect and showcase the 73 years of history that will soon be added to each summer, growing in number before the audiences’ eyes. Today the archive shows off what happened up to summer 2019, but very soon it will be hosting the best of Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films. Because this story, like this partnership, has only just begun.
40yearsubs.locarnofestival.ch
www.locarnofestival.ch
