News

Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson’s ’Mother Vera’ and Sarah Lewis’ ’No Ifs Or Buts’ honoured in festival’s works-in-progress section.

Documentary filmmakers scooped the prizes in Locarno Pro’s First Look work-in-progress section, which is dedicated to UK films this year.

Mother Vera, co-directed by Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson, won the new Creativity Media First Look Award covering services towards the completion of films in post-production up to the value of € 50,000.

Mother Vera follows a young Orthodox nun making her way from the thick snow of the Belarusian forest to the heat of the reeds in the French Camargue.

Belarusian-set pic Mother Vera has picked up Locarno’s Creativity Media First Look Award, the biggest prize handed out by the festival’s industry section.

The award comes with a €50,000 cash prize that covers services towards the completion of films in post-production. Filmmakers Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson co-directed the pic with producer Laura Shacham.

Discussing their choice, the Locarno Pro jury — comprised of Ava Cahen, Gaia Furrer, and Eugene Hernandez — said: “From the opening moments of this film, we were immediately drawn to the strikingly photographed stark portrait of a fascinating nun in Belarus who makes a journey to France. We congratulate filmmakers Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson and wish them the best with this new film, Mother Vera.”

Embleton is a London-based filmmaker who has predominantly worked in docs. Her debut film,...

It was a good day for female filmmakers – and documentaries – at Locarno Pro, with “Mother Vera” by Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson winning the Creativity Media First Look Award on Sunday at Locarno’s pix-in-post competition, dedicated this year to the U.K.

Dedicated to a young Orthodox nun, “Mother Vera” shows her turbulent past and fragile future as she faces inner conflict after 20 years as a monastic.

“From the opening moments of this film, we were immediately drawn to the strikingly photographed stark portrait of a fascinating nun in Belarus who makes a journey to France,” said jurors Ava Cahen, Gaia Furrer and Eugene Hernandez.

The award covers post production services up to the value of €50,000. Laura Shacham produces “Mother Vera” for She Makes Productions.

“About six years ago, they were working together on Alice’s photographic project documenting Christian pilgrimage sites in Eastern Europe. They saw this striking woman,...

Alliance 4 Development – a co-development initiative for film projects from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland hosted by Locarno Pro – is ready to embrace a “variety of genres, themes and visions,” says project manager Francesca Palleschi.

Among 11 titles selected for its 8th edition, emerging filmmakers will be featured alongside their more established colleagues.

“We are proud to support these projects along the path of their development, including several debuts and more than half helmed by female directors,” she adds.

That said, Alliance 4 Development, part of Locarno Pro, headed by Markus Duffner (pictured) features most of the bigger projects being brought to market at Locarno, some bigger-budgeted by European standards.

Ann Oren will bring her unique point of view to “Objet a,” about a couple that, she states, “falls out of sync,” and starts following a mysterious woman with “unusually wild armpit hair.”

“They enter a surreal dialogue with nature, which turns...

“Prince Aden,” a new drama by Italian directing duo Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio, known internationally for their immigration-themed “Seven Acts of Mercy,” is among projects selected by Locarno’s Alliance for Development initiative.

The platform, now in its 8th year, is geared towards fostering co-productions between France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

Inspired by the book “Partigiani d’Oltremare,” by Italian historian Matteo Petracci, the De Serio twins’ new colonial-era film follows the vicissitudes of a 16-year-old Somali named Aden Sicré who in 1935 becomes a soldier in the Italian army that invaded Ethiopia on Mussolini’s orders. In an unexpected turn, he becomes hailed as a war hero by the Fascist regime. Then a few years later Aden and other African fighters play a pivotal role in the partisan struggle against fascism in Europe.

The Aug. 4-6 Alliance 4 Development goes beyond being a mere co-production platform since it allows for...

Includes projects by Lorenz Merz, Ann Oren and Sara Fattahi.

New projects by directors Lorenz Merz, Ann Oren and Sara Fattahi are among those selected for Locarno Pro’s Alliance 4 Development initiative which runs from August 4-6.

The initiative is an integral part of Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro industry strand and is aimed at encouraging co-productions between Switzerland and France, Germany and Italy.

Scroll down for full list of projects

11 projects were chosen out of 74 submissions. During the three Alliance 4 Development programme, participants will meet with potential partners and attend panels and networking events.

Lorenz Merz will attend with Who/Man,...

11 projects selected for Locarno Film Festival’s industry strand.

New projects by directors Lorenz Merz, Ann Oren and Sara Fattahi are among those selected for Locarno Pro’s Alliance 4 Development initiative which runs from August 4-6.

The initiative is an integral part of Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro industry strand and is aimed at encouraging co-productions between Switzerland and France, Germany and Italy.

Scroll down for full list of projects

11 projects were chosen out of 74 submissions. During the three Alliance 4 Development programme, participants will meet with potential partners and attend panels and networking events.

Lorenz Merz will attend with Who/Man,...

Berlin-based sales agency Picture Tree Intl. has added to its European Film Market slate “Love Thing,” starring top German actor Elyas M’Barek, whose credits include “The Collini Case.” Also on the slate is “Soul of a Beast,” which debuts its trailer below.

Despite the virtual nature of the EFM, the company has taken additional office space at the Marriott Hotel in Berlin’s Potsdamer Platz.

“Love Thing,” which also stars Lucie Heinze, Peri Baumeister and Alexandra Maria Lara, is directed and written by Anika Decker, whose last feature “High Society” sold widely. Decker scripted box office successes like “Rabbit Without Ears,” which grossed $85 million.

“Love Thing” is produced by German production-distribution powerhouse Constantin Film, which has set its release for July 7. The producers are Rüdiger Böss and Philipp Reuter; the co-producers are Anika Decker and Jan Decker; and the executive producer is Martin Moszkowicz. Picture Tree will present a first teaser trailer to select buyers.

Swiss productions and co-productions are on the rise, driven in part by federal and regional funders that offer attractive opportunities for domestic and international filmmakers.

Quickly recovering from the impact of the pandemic, the local film industry has gotten off to another strong year with local films and international co-productions.

Elie Grappe’s Swiss-Ukrainian-French title “Olga” premiered at this year’s Directors’ Fortnight in Cannes, while unspooling in Locarno were Lorenz Merz’s “Soul of a Beast” and Swiss-international co-productions like Stefan Jäger’s “Monte Verita” and Laurent Geslin’s nature documentary “Lynx.” Venice saw such Swiss co-productions as “Ariaferma,” by Italian helmer Leonardo Di Costanzo, and Bolivian director Kiro Russo’s “El Gran Movimiento.” And opening this year’s Zurich Film Festival (Zff) was Michael Steiner’s Swiss-German Taliban thriller “And Tomorrow We Will Be Dead.”

The upswing in Swiss cinema is due in no small part to Zurich as a film location,...

Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay CashINTERNATIONAL Competition(Jury: Eliza Hittman, Kevin Jerome Everson, Philippe Lacôte, Leonor Silveira, Isabelle Ferrari)Golden Leopard: Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash (Edwin) | Read our reviewSpecial Jury Prize: A New Old Play (Jiongjiong Qiu) | Read our reviewBest Direction: Abel Ferrara (Zeros and Ones) | Read our reviewBest Actress: Anastasiya Krasovskaya (Gerda)Best Actor: Mohamed Mellali and Valero Escolar (The Odd-Job Men)Special Mention: Soul of a Beast (Lorenz Merz) and The Sacred Spirit (Chema García Ibarra) | Read our reviewFILMMAKERS Of The Present( Jury: Agathe Bonitzer, Mattie Do, Vanja Kaludjercic)Golden Leopard: Brotherhood (Francesco Montagner)Special Jury Prize: L'Été l'éternité (Émilie Aussel)Prize for Best Emerging Director: Hleb Papou (The Legionnaire) Best Actress: Saskia Rosendahl (No One's with the Calves) | Read our reviewBest Actor: Gia Agumava (Wet Sand)First Feature(Jury: Amjad Abu Alala, Karina Ressler, Katharina Wyss)Best First Feature: She Will (Charlotte Colbert...

Golden Leopard goes to filmmaker from Indonesia for first time.

Indonesia’s Edwin has received Locarno Film Festival’s top honour, the Golden Leopard, for his latest feature Vengeance Is Mine, All Others Pay Cash, which had its world premiere in the Swiss festival’s International Competition.

The Indonesia-Singapore-Germany co-production – adapted and based on a literary work by Eka Kurniawan – is being handled internationally by The Match Factory.

It is also the first time in Locarno’s 74-year history that the Golden Leopard has gone to a filmmaker from Indonesia.

Accepting the award on behalf of Edwin, who had already...

Given that, after its shuttered 2020 edition, the 74th Locarno Film Festival’s ident features a prowling, growling, resurgent leopard and the distinctly tumescent tagline “Cinema is Back” it’s somewhat ironic that the festival’s top prize should go to a film about erectile dysfunction.

In other ways, however, Indonesian director Edwin’s fabulously if nonsensically titled “Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash” is perhaps the ideal Golden Leopard winner, in what is a strange year for the world, and a strange year for the Swiss festival, which is finding its footing under the new artistic direction of Giona A. Nazzaro.

As an admixture of several distinctly populist genres that still, as Variety critic Jay Weissberg noted, uses impotence as a metaphor “to make a broader critique of a toxic culture that puts so much emphasis on virility,” the film is among the best exemplars of Nazzaro’s avowed...

There's no doubting the ambition of the latest film from Swiss director Lorenz Merz, which in an early sequence involving a mescaline trip and and a trip to the zoo allows a crack in the sky to appear between the real world and fantasy as it explores the positive and negative emotions and pressures experienced by teenage dad Gabriel (Pablo Caprez). The beasts include an escaped giraffe and a pair of big cats but, as you might expect, it's Gabriel's inner psyche that is really on the prowl - as the film puts it, "everything a lonely child has is imagination".

In truth, Gabriel is still closer to childhood than to the adulthood that is sitting loosely about him, even though he's looking after his young son Jamie (Art Blacca), merely cloaking the sort of risk-taking attitude that is the kingdom of the young. While Gabriel's paternal instinct is evident - in stark.

Lorenz Merz doesn’t want viewers to dissect his new film “Soul of a Beast.”

“It’s really not an intellectual film,” he says. “I don’t think it’s a film that you can experience intellectually, it’s really a physical movie that goes into your stomach, or doesn’t.”

World premiering Friday at the Locarno Film Festival, “Soul of a Beast” follows teenage father Gabriel (newcomer Pablo Caprez) who falls in love with Corey (Ella Rumpf), his best friend’s girlfriend, during a delirious summer rush. Wrenched by the decision to stay and take care of his son or follow Corey to Guatemala, Gabriel is catapulted into the unforgiving wilderness of his heart, where imagination is more real than reality.

The film is a pulsating affair set in a crumbling urban world brought to life using special effects, and incorporating a trippy mix of animal symbolism and Japanese fairytale influences.

Year after year a site par excellence for the most innovative premieres—in that respect an antithesis to the ensuing fall circuit—the Locarno Film Festival returns triumphant next month. Their 2021 lineup, per usual, mixes iconic names with complete unknowns and, admittedly, a head-scratcher or two. Abel Ferrara’s much-anticipated Zeros and Ones, sure. Gaspar Noé’s Vortex—makes sense. A new film from The Wild Boys director Bertrand Mandico? Great! But Shawn Levy and a Jennifer Hudson Aretha Franklin biopic?

However, new festival head Giona A. Nazzaro sees it as part of a steady influx, telling Variety “A festival can be quite highbrow and also entertaining at the same time. That is why for this year’s lineup we have selected several comedies and also some genre movies, as well as straightforward auteur films.” By that metric it’s more inclusive than almost any other major competition on the European circuit.

After Blue (Paradis sale)The lineup for the 2021 festival has been revealed, including new films by Bertrand Mandico, Axelle Ropert, Abel Ferrara and others, alongside retrospectives and tributes, and much more.Piazza GRANDEBeckett (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino)Free Guy (Shawn Levy)Heat (Michael Mann)Hinterland (Stefan Ruzowitzky)Ida Red (John Swab)Monte Verità (Stefan Jäger)National Lampoon's Animal House (John Landis)Respect (Liesl Tommy)Rose (Aurélie Saada)Sinkhole (Kim Ji-hoon)The Alleys (Bassel Ghandour)The Terminator (James Cameron)Vortex (Gaspar Noé)Yaya e Lennie — The Walking Liberty (Alessandro Rak)Tomorrow My Love (Gitanjali Rao)Lynx (Laurent Geslin)Zeros and OnesCONCORSO INTERNAZIONALEAfter Blue (Paradis sale) (Bertrand Mandico)Al Naher (The River) (Ghassan Salhab)Espíritu sagrado (The Sacred Spirit) (Chema García Ibarra)Gerda (Natalya Kudryashova)I giganti (The Giants) (Bonifacio Angius)Jiao ma teng hui (A New Old Play) (Jiongjiong Qiu)Juju StoriesLa Place d'une autre (Secret Name) (Aurélia Georges)Leynilögga (Cop Secret...

With Cannes right around the corner, two more prominent European film festivals announced their official lineups for 2021 this week. The 2021 Locarno Film Festival (the 74th edition of the event) is taking place August 4-14 and will feature the world premiere of Abel Ferrara’s “Zeroes and Ones,” plus the Melissa Leo-Frank Grillo starring thriller “Ida Red” from director John Swab. Perhaps the most prominent U.S. title in the Locarno lineup is “Respect,” the Jennifer Hudson-starring Aretha Franklin biopic that has already caught the eye of Oscar pundits here in the states. The film will screen out of competition, as will Ryan Reynolds’ long-delayed Disney-Fox tentpole “Free Guy.”

“A festival can be quite highbrow and also entertaining at the same time,” Nazzaro told Variety in a statement. “That is why for this year’s lineup we have selected several comedies and also some genre movies, as well as straightforward auteur films.

Abel Ferrara’s contemporary thriller ’Zeros And Ones’ stars Ethan Hawke.

Abel Ferrara’s contemporary thriller Zeros And Ones and Srdjan Dragojević’s dark comedy Heavens Above are among 17 films from 12 countries having their world premiere in the international competition at the 74th Locarno Film Festival (August 4-14) under the new artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro.

Scroll down for full line-up

In his first collaboration with Ferrara, Zeros And Ones sees Ethan Hawke plays an American soldier stationed in Rome who pursues an unknown enemy threatening the entire world after the Vatican gets blown up.

Ahead of shooting in Italy...

Beast, a coming-of-age film from Swiss director Lorenz Merz, won the fourth annual Filmmaker Award at the 2018 Zurich International Film Festival.

British actor Dev Patel (Lion, Slumdog Millionaire) presented Merz and producer Simon Hesse with the honor, which is awarded to an outstanding, but still uncompleted, Swiss feature film.

The prize, backed by Swiss luxury watchmaker Iwc Schaffhausen, comes with $100,000 in prize money earmarked for completion of the project.

Shot in Zurich, in the Swiss German dialect, Beast follows the story of a teenager, Gabriel (Pablo Caprez), who is raising his 2-year-old son as a single dad. One summer's ...

Beast, a coming-of-age film from Swiss director Lorenz Merz, won the fourth annual Filmmaker Award at the 2018 Zurich International Film Festival.

British actor Dev Patel (Lion, Slumdog Millionaire) presented Merz and producer Simon Hesse with the honor, which is awarded to an outstanding, but still uncompleted, Swiss feature film.

The prize, backed by Swiss luxury watchmaker Iwc Schaffhausen, comes with $100,000 in prize money earmarked for completion of the project.

Shot in Zurich, in the Swiss German dialect, Beast follows the story of a teenager, Gabriel (Pablo Caprez), who is raising his 2-year-old son as a single dad. One summer's ...

The following essay was produced as part of the 2017 Locarno Critics Academy, a workshop for aspiring film critics that took place during the 70th edition of the Locarno Film Festival.

Swiss cinema isn’t exactly stuck in a rut. Its artistically-challenging documentaries are thriving: Markus Imhoofs meditation on bees in the climate-change era “More Than Honey” from 2012 was released in 29 countries around the globe, and last year, the animated “My Life as Zucchini” was nominated for an Oscar. Historically, however, Switzerland has given rise to an outstanding list of worldly auteurs such as Claude Goretta, Alain Tanner and Jean-Luc Godard. Why haven’t we heard much about young Swiss talent making the leap out of the small alpine state?

There is one major exception here: Ursula Meier is a Geneva-based cinematographer and filmmaker who has found a string of international successes. With “Sister” in 2012, she received the Silver Bear at the Berlinale.

Locarno: Film Republic has secured world rights to Paraguayan-Swiss co-production El Tiempo Nublado by Arami Ullon.

One of the first acquisitions to be confirmed from this year’s Locarno Film Festival line-up, feature doc El Tiempo Nublado first launched at Visions du Reel where it received the Section Regard Neuf award.

The deal was negotiated between Film Republic’s Xavier Henry-Rashid and producer-distributor Pascal Traeschlin at Karlovy Vary where it received its international premiere last month.

Film Republic previously picked up Fuori Concorso selection Cherry Pie by Lorenz Merz in Locarno in 2013 where they also signed Rosie by Marcel Gisler, with veteran production house Cobra Film helmed by Susann Ruedlinger.

“Locarno is already a major, but also increasingly important stepping stone in the festival calendar,” said Xavier.

“Its repertoire of art-house and mid-level buyers, as well as extremely supportive selection of, maybe sometimes less obvious development or post stage titles [this year’s Open Doors focuses on the African continent, with the Carte Blanche on Brazilian cinema] offers a good balance between a business...

Young Swiss filmmakers are calling for greater diversity in Swiss fiction production and the introduction of a new funding instrument to support up-and-coming directors.

Gathered together as the Swiss Fiction Movement (Sfm), the film-makers are holding their first public debate to air their grievances and proposals on the second day (Aug 7) of this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

In a paper described in advance as the Locarno Manifesto, the Sfm’s founders argue that the Swiss national funding system is currently concentrated on the support of large productions and that small productions “can only be made outside of the official funding landscape and with the aid of alternative financing”.

The examples of the UK’s Microwave scheme or Germany’s Das kleine Fernsehspiel are cited as successful initiatives in other countries which have been supporting and producing low-budget productions for many years.

At the same time, the filmmakers point to the ironic situation where the main prizes...

International Film Festival Rotterdam 2014

Bright Future

World Premieres

Above: The Pinkie

About Sarah (Elisa Miller, Mexico, United Kingdom)

Bella Vista (Vera Brunner-Sung, USA)

Creator of the Jungle (Jordi Morató (Spain)

La distancia (Sergio Caballero, Spain)

Dzma/Brother (Téona Mghvdeladze & Thierry Grenade, France, Georgia)

L’éclat furtif de l'ombre (Alain-Pascal Housiaux & Patrick Dechesne, Belgium, Germany)

Edén (Elise DuRant, USA, Mexico)

Helium (Eché Janga, Netherlands)

History of Eternity (Camilo Cavalcante, Brazil)

Hotel Nueva Isla (Irene Gutiérrez & Javier Labrador, Cuba, Spain)

The Iranian Film (Yassine el Idrissi, Morocco, Netherlands, Egypt)

Jacky au royaume des filles (Riad Sattouf, France)

L for Leisure (Lev Kalman & Whitney Horn, USA, Mexico, France, Iceland)

Little Crushes (Aleksandra Gowin & Ireneusz Grzyb, Poland)

Masked Monkey - The Evolution of Darwin’s Theory (Ismail Fahmi Lubish, Indonesia)

Oilfields Mines Hurricanes (Fabian Altenried, Germany, Iceland)

The Pinkie (Lisa Takeba, Japan)

The Quiet Roar (Henrik Hellström, Sweden, Norway)

Sitzfleisch (Lisa Weber, Austria)

The Songs of Rice (Uruphong Raksasad,...

Picks include the latest documentary from Ai Weiwei [pictured].

The International Film Festival Rotterdam has unveiled the selections for its Bright Future and Spectrum programmes (list of premiere titles below).

Across both sections there are 37 world premieres.

Bright Future is comprised of 63 films, all first and second features. Bright Future includes five films supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, including Carlos Armella’s Las voces.

Five films from Bright Future will compete in the Big Screen Award Competition, including telepathic dwarf thriller La distancia by Sergio Caballero; and Riad Sattouf’s Jacky au royaume des filles starring Charlotte Gainsbourg.

Other notable seelctions include Burrowing director Henrik Helstrom’s second feature The Quiet Roar, about a dying woman who reconnects with her past through an acid trip.

Spectrum, focusing on artistic and experimental cinema, includes 69 films, including three supported by the Hubert Bals Fund. Five Spectrum Films, including Jos de Putter’s See No Evil and Oxana Bychkova’s Another...