The 77th Locarno Film Festival, which concluded on Saturday with 225 films and more than 300 film projects, focused on the preservation of identity in authentic communities as its defining theme. The increasing globalization of the world creates an awareness of belonging and takes a multifaceted approach to forms and cultures of memory.
Under the artistic direction of Giona A. Nazzaro and for the first time under the leadership of Maja Hoffmann, the Golden Leopard in the international competition was awarded to the Lithuanian entry “Akiläpäga” (“Toxic”) by Saulė Bliuvaitė.
The film deals with the aimlessness of teenage girls in a small town who put their trust in a modeling agency. The formal austerity and cold linearity of the images contrasts with human bodies, which ultimately appear as “foreign bodies” in a toxic environment. The film also won the award for Best First Film.
The Jury’s Special Prize went to the Austrian film “Mont” by Kurtwin Ayoub, about the difficult living conditions of women in Jordan, starring choreographer Florentina Holzinger.
The Lithuanian-Latvian film won the Leopard for Best Director “Seses” (“Drowning Dry”) by Laurynas Bareiša about the connection between everyday life and tragedy in family tragedy.
The documentary “Youth (Hard Times)” by director WANG Bing (F, LUX, NL) received a special mention from the jury. In A Mosaic of Voices and Images, working conditions for youth in Chinese textile factories in the city of Jili are revealed. The anonymity shown early in the work replaces awareness of individual concerns in a collective. Another special mention goes to Mar Cole’s Spanish film “Salve Maria”.
The Portuguese entry “Foco do Vento” (“Fire of the Wind”) was inspired by the international competition. Director Marta Mateus tells the story of Portugal’s agricultural workers in a vast mosaic of characters going back to the Salazar dictatorship. Beginning with the present-day wine harvest, their voices, stories, memories, and traditions rise up as a plea for a community of agricultural workers in magical realism ever since.
History is artfully manipulated using the civil war in Lebanon between 1975 and 1990 in “The Green Line” (France, Lebanon, Qatar, 2024). Director Sylvie Balliot, born in Beirut in 1975, confronts former protagonists of this war in direct conversations with their memories in her docu-fiction about recreated miniatures. War focuses on clarifying what childhood means and the value of life. Questions that always come up with a director based on childhood experience. The film won the first MUBI Award for Best Debut Film.
In the “Contemporary Cinema Makers” category, the Golden Leopard went to “Holy Electric”. Van Tatto Kodetishvili from Georgia. The director returns to his hometown Tbilisi with its music, customs and atmosphere. Denis Fernandez’s (Switzerland, Portugal, Cape Verde) debut film “Hanami” (2024) (which opened in 2018), received a special mention for Best Film Debut.
The poetically crafted film captures the traditions, myths and landscapes of the Cape Verde Islands in captivating photography. In Cape Verde, characterized by migration, there is always a tension between the longing to leave or to stay. This manifests in the mother-daughter relationship between Nia and Nana. When her mother leaves her native island for years, Nana finds herself at home in the village, confirming her foreboding decision to stay.
A pea plant is the protagonist of the Austrian film “Revolving Rounds” by Johann Lerf and Kristina Zavornik, which received a special mention at the Green Leopard Award. Green Leopard went to “Agora” by Tunisian director Ala Eddin Slim. The film confronts the destruction of nature and the poisoning of water in a meditative way.
Italian director Marco Tullio Giordana (“I cento passi, 2000; “La meglio gioventù”, 2003) received a special leopard for his life’s work. At a press conference on August 13. The director emphasized that he did not want to create unusual films, but it was important to be buried in the tradition of cinema.
Lasting impressions were left in the piazza for up to 8,000 spectators: with Min Bahadur Bam’s Nepali film “Shambala” (2024), “open-air cinema” was transformed into the high mountain landscape of the Himalayan regions. A search for her missing husband turns into a journey for pregnant Rema, intimately tied to the traditions of the hill villages, the film was shot at an altitude of 4,400 to 6,400 m.
“Gaucho Gaucho” (USA, Argentina, 2024), a documentary by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw, allows all generations of migratory, semi-nomadic agricultural workers to have their say. Their special concern is to pass on their way of life which is closely connected with the animal world. A heroine’s encounter with the people, songs and traditions of legendary gauchos takes place using a fictional narrative thread as she defends her code of honor.
By Michael Eichmeier
