News  ·  01 | 07 | 2021

August 5-10: Locarno Is Pro

The Locarno Film Festival’s Industry side returns with a great many original initiatives, bringing together professionals from all over the world to understand, imagine and create the cinema of tomorrow, today.

Starting anew has a double meaning for Locarno Pro. After a year like the one we’re slowly leaving behind us, the professionally oriented side of the Locarno Film Festival views Locarno74 as an essential meeting point at which to reignite the various activities that have been Locarno Pro hallmarks for years, as well as to understand how the film industry can start anew after the most difficult year in its recent history. This will happen in Locarno, face to face, via those seminal encounters that generate and nurture ideas and projects, and also online, to allow those who cannot travel to participate.  

The full agenda, which will keep professionals occupied on August 5-10, will mark the restart of all the Locarno Pro activities that have turned it into an international film industry hub. From First Look to StepIn, not to mention Alliance 4 DevelopmentU30Match Me! and the Industry Academy, Locarno Pro will confirm its status as a reference point for those who structuring the film world today, while also imagining the world of tomorrow. At Locarno74, the 2021 Pro universe will also be online, with meeting sessions on August 2-4 and content available only to professionals in the Locarno Pro Reserved Area. And with an extension from 11 days to 365, Locarno Pro is also Heritage Online, the platform devised to keep film heritage alive via new distribution strategies. Such heritage titles include the two great restorations that will screen at Locarno74: Derborence (Francis Reusser, 1985) and Destiny (Youssef Chahine, 1997).  

Markus Duffner, Head of Locarno Pro: “After a year of festivals and markets online, with much of the physical film industry stuck on hold, we are ready to get back on track in an altered landscape – one in which the various players are still reacting to the many ongoing changes that have been speeded up by the pandemic. It’s been a long wait, but now we have an ideal window for reflection across every sector of our industry before we reboot: to get off on the right foot, we need to step back and look at the big picture, identifying opportunities for change and improvement.” 

Support the festival now with a donation