Eleven high-profile Swiss and international filmmakers have made short films as part of the project Postcards from the Future, and their works will be screened daily in Piazza Grande. Also looking to the future is the Locarno Green Project: the first two initiatives to launch under the new green umbrella are the Pardo Verde WWF and the Green Film Fund, both aimed at raising awareness of green practices through film and its storytelling. Lastly, in collaboration with Swiss Post, the Festival is launching Swiss Crypto Stamp 2.0, a special series of crypto stamps linked to short film sequences made by some of Switzerland’s most intriguing emerging directors.
Screenings at Locarno75 will all be physical events, held in Piazza Grande and in the city’s thirteen theaters, joined this year by the Cinema Otello in Ascona. Meetings and panel discussions with guests featured in the official selection will be held at the Forum @Spazio Cinema.
The line-up for the juries of the 75th edition of the Locarno Film Festival has also been announced. Attending in Locarno for the Concorso internazionale will be: producer and consultant Michel Merkt (President of the Jury), director Laura Samani, producer William Horberg, filmmaker Prano Bailey-Bond and director Alain Guiraudie. For the Concorso Cineasti del presente, the jury will be made up of producer Annick Mahnert, director Gitanjali Rao and producer and senior consultant on international co-productions Katriel Schory. The First Feature jury will include director Boo Junfeng, filmmaker and screenwriter Shahram Mokri and producer Madeline Robert. The short films in the Pardi di domani section will be judged by editor and filmmaker Walter Fasano, director Azra Deniz Okyay and producer Ada Solomon. Starting this year, there will be the jury of WWF Pardo Verde, composed of the Professor for Land-Climate Dynamics at ETH Zurich Sonia I. Seneviratne, the director Alessandro Rak and the Responsible for the Sustainability Study Group at Eurimages Thierry Hugot, which will decide the work in competition at the Festival that best reflects an ecological topic.
Lastly, the names of several recipients of awards who will be attending the Festival have already been announced: Kelly Reichardt, for the Pardo d’onore Manor; Laurie Anderson, for the Vision Award Ticinomoda; Gitanjali Rao, for the Locarno Kids Award la Mobiliare; Jason Blum, for the Best Independent Producer Award (Premio Raimondo Rezzonico); Costa-Gavras, for the Pardo alla carriera Ascona-Locarno; and Matt Dillon, for the Lifetime Achievement Award.
Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director: "The Festival is presenting a broad, diversified and inclusive program, with a competition featuring long-established names in world cinema, alongside noted newcomers and some completely new names. As it marks its 75th anniversary, and true to its vocation of freedom, the Festival offers a place to discover and debate film in all its forms. With a gaze always looking firmly to the future.”
