Photo: Sina Ataeian Dena - Film Producer of Mantagheye bohrani (Critical Zone) by Ali Ahmadzadeh
With its program of eagerly awaited premieres and film discoveries from around the globe, Locarno76 took festivalgoers on a boundless journey along the most exciting pathways of contemporary cinema. With sold out screenings and a remarkable number of young people and children watching the big screen, this was an edition hallmarked by inclusivity and accessibility, with a program that gave fresh impetus to the pivotal role of independent and auteur filmmaking.
Topping the list of prize-winners at this edition was Mantagheye bohrani (Critical Zone) by Ali Ahmadzadeh, a film secretly shot on the streets of Teheran, without permission from the Iranian authorities. This year’s newly introduced gender-neutral acting awards went to four female actors and one male actor, whose performances lit up the Concorso internazionale and Concorso Cineasti del presente.
Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival: “This has been a thrilling edition, reasserting the centrality of the Locarno Film Festival and its ability to explore contemporary cinema in every shape and size, capturing the hearts and minds of our generous, curious and passionate public, who crowded into the Piazza Grande and theaters in great numbers. This was an excellent edition, with audiences up by 10% and a selection hailed enthusiastically by the media, cinephiles, and festivalgoers!”
The Festival in 2023
Piazza Grande framed the Festival in its traditional setting, characterized by a film offering that was varied and popular: from the laughter that greeted the opening title, L'Étoile Filante, to the moving return of Ken Loach with The Old Oak and Luc Jacquet’s deep dive into nature, to the awards presented to key figures in international moviemaking such as Pietro Scalia, Tsai Ming-liang and Marianne Slot. Tonight, will see the Piazza Grande program brought to a close with the film Shayda, presented by director Noora Niasari and actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi: the struggle for civil rights in Iran returns to the fore in this mother-and-daughter drama that was a winner at Sundance this year.
With 214 films in the program and 466 screenings, Festival theaters were crowded, thanks not only to an international competition that gave space to every film genre and offered illuminating insights into our world, but also the bold selections of the Cineasti del presente competition and the Pardi di domani short films section, the challenging and informative exchanges of the Conversations open to the audience, and lastly thanks to the Retrospective, which gave a rich and varied sample of the many colors of popular Mexican cinema.
The palmarès
The full prize list is available as a PDF file here.
