The festival and its competition certainly represent a test for the selected directors, but also – we don't think about it too much – for the directors of the projects in this selection. The 72nd edition of the Locarno Festival in Switzerland was the first programmed by Frenchwoman Lily Heinstein. She succeeds Italian Carlo Chatrian, who now runs another major European event, the Berlinale.
The Locarno Festival remains the same
Now that the curtain has come down on the event on Saturday, August 17, observers have agreed to praise the quality of the choices of the new president and her team. Locarno's spirit of rigor and curiosity has been respected, while ensuring that cinephile audiences, especially younger generations, are more closely associated with the celebration of the seventh art. Especially during the famous “midnight shows” in Piazza Grande.
Best film, best actress
It was unanimously announced, as announced by the President of the Jury, Catherine Breillat, that Pedro Costa received the Golden Leopard Award for his film. Vitalina Varela, While her translator – who gave her name to the film – won the Best Actress award.
She plays a fifty-year-old Cape Verdean woman who arrives in Lisbon to bury her husband. 25 years ago, the last one left the country to look for work in Europe. Driven by anger toward a husband who did not expect anything more than grief for her, she becomes aware, beyond her story, of the daily lives of marginalized people and, in particular, African immigrants in Lisbon.
It was hailed as much for its subject matter as it was for its form, with pictorial images bathed in light and illumination. Vitalina Varela He confirms the festival's attachment to its director: Pedro Costa previously won the Director's Award in 2014 for his film Cavallo Dinero.
Pessimistic tone…
The Special Jury Prize was awarded to Ba-joBy Korean director Park Jong-bum. A dark, if not obscure, detective story set in a desolate landscape: an island far from it all where wild boars run amok and men hardly less… Hunters actually force a young girl into prostitution. The jury rewarded the eerie originality of the work that was the strongest of the genre.
Jair Bolsonaro, “the worst enemy of indigenous peoples”
– Changing the continent to the Cheetah for Best Actor, won by the Indian Regis Myrupo. in FebruaryIt is the first feature film by Brazilian director Maya da Rain, and it follows Justino, a man who leaves the jungle to try to find a place for himself in modern Brazil. But far from the land of his ancestors, he burns with a mysterious fever and encounters racism.
France is on the list
French director Boris Lujkin received the Audience Award for his film CamilleA film in tribute to photographer Camille Lepage, who was murdered in the Central African Republic in 2014 when she was only 26 years old.
Through the lens of Camille Lepage
Let us remember the last months of this too short life,Boris Luzhkin chose to mix professional French actors (Nina Meurisse, Bruno Todeschini, Grégoire Colin, etc.) with beginners from Central Africa. His documentary, very realistic, is also a question of the way we experience current events – objectively? By getting involved? – And the way former colonialists view the countries whose history they partly helped shape.
Any other climate with Isadora's childrenDirected by Damien Manivel, who won the Best Director award. In this poetic film, the young director revives a tragic episode in the life of the American dancer and choreographer Isadora Duncan (1877-1927).
“Le Parc”, Damien Manivel's Extraordinary Ordinary
The artist created this work out of mourning for her two children who died accidentally the mom. Damien Manivel imagines that, a century later, the choreographer in turn performs this solo dance. ” I try to have air and space to create on set. It's a somewhat unique method, where directors are asked to decide everything before filming begins. », The director announced via France Culture’s microphone that he will present this fourth feature film.
