Locarno79 opens with McCarthyism at the GranRex and Keaton at the Fevi

The 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival opens with a day split between two venues. The GranRex hosts the retrospective devoted to McCarthyism, while the Palexpo stages the opening concert.

The retrospective programme begins at 2pm with two titles. "The Hollywood Ten", from 1950, is directed by John Berry. It is followed by "Force of Evil", from 1948, by Abraham Polonsky. Both are screened in English with Italian subtitles.

Keaton with live orchestra

At 3.30pm the Palexpo, the hall known as the Fevi, shows "The General" by Buster Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, from 1926. The screening belongs to the Histoire(s) du Cinéma strand and is accompanied live by the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana, performing Carl Davis's score.

The retrospective resumes at 4.30pm at the GranRex with "Washington's Super-Movie Drama!", from 1947, and "Caged", from 1950, directed by John Cromwell. At 7pm the same venue screens "Movie Industry Denies Charges of 'Red' Influence!", from 1947, and "Mr. Lucky", from 1943, by H. C. Potter.

The pairing of titles follows a clear logic. The newsreels of the period, which reported on the hearings into communist influence in Hollywood, are set alongside films made in the same years by the very people caught up in those events.

At the GranRex the retrospective takes up four slots across the day, from 2pm to 9.30pm. The screenings follow one another without long gaps, and anyone intending to see them all stays in the auditorium for much of the afternoon.

At 9.30pm the day divides again. The GranRex offers "Ruthless", from 1948, by Edgar G. Ulmer, in a 35mm print.

In the Piazza Grande, at the same hour, the opening ceremony takes place. The Excellence Award goes to Isabella Rossellini, and the screening is "Les Yeux Verts", from 2026, by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh, a co-production between France, Belgium and Sweden.

The day therefore programmes films spread across eighty years of cinema, from the 1926 silent to this year's work in the evening slot. The retrospective occupies the GranRex from 2pm until the evening screening and is the strand with the most titles on the programme.