Eight thousand in Piazza Grande for the opening night

The 79th Locarno Film Festival opened on 5 August with the world premiere of "The Green Eyes" by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh. The screening in Piazza Grande took place before eight thousand spectators.

On the same evening Isabella Rossellini received the Excellence Award. The other honorees of this edition are Darren Aronofsky, Virginie Efira, James Gray, Asia Argento, Rick Baker, Zoe Saldaña and the producer Sigurjón "Joni" Sighvatsson.

Artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro explained the weight of that first choice, comparing the opening film to the opening beat of a concert.

Cinema against prediction

The theme Nazzaro placed at the centre concerns the relationship between viewer and automated recommendation. His argument is that cinema should free the viewer from algorithmic prediction, and that at Locarno each person's algorithm stops working.

From that follows his refusal to separate accessible cinema from experimental cinema. The two forms, in the artistic director's view, must coexist with the same rights and the same dignity in the same public space.

This year's programme reflects that stance. Alongside auteur titles there are films with wide commercial circulation, such as Olivia Wilde's "The Invite", which took 40 million dollars.

Monica Bellucci appears in "Ketticè", produced by Luca Guadagnino, while Claes Bang features in "I Is Another".

Piazza Grande is also showing three restored classics: David Lynch's "Wild at Heart", Kevin Costner's "Dances With Wolves" and Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver".

The choice of restorations is not neutral in relation to the argument about algorithms. These are films the audience could already watch alone on a streaming service, and the festival brings them back to a screen shared by thousands of people at the same moment.