Nazzaro: in Locarno, cinema is not reserved for a few

Less than three weeks before the opening of the 79th edition, Giona Nazzaro reflects again on the role of the Locarno Film Festival. He rejects the image of a festival intended for a small group of specialists. «Il luogo comune che mi fa alzare gli occhi al cielo è il pregiudizio secondo cui i film di Locarno non vanno oltre Chiasso. Era falso, è sempre stato falso» (The cliché that makes me roll my eyes is the prejudice that Locarno films do not go beyond Chiasso. It was false, and it has always been false), the artistic director told Keystone-ATS.

Nazzaro spoke about this in Lausanne. The fifth Open air Locarno Film Festival was taking place there until the day after the interview. The event is showing some of the films presented at the Ticino festival on a screen set up in the Plateforme 10 district.

According to the artistic director, many works discovered in Locarno continue their journey after the festival. He cites Blue Heron, the first feature film by Canadian director Sophy Romvary, as one example. The film was acquired by US distributor Janus Films. He also mentions Gioia mia by Margherita Spampinato. The Sicilian film was made on a small budget and became one of the season’s most critically acclaimed titles.

For Nazzaro, the difficulty does not concern the festival’s strength among film enthusiasts. The real limitation is the distribution sector’s interest in some works. He adds that the programme does not result from a search for films capable of causing a stir. It comes from comparing the characteristics of the selected works.

A broad idea of cinema

The director also rejects the separation between popular cinema and auteur cinema. Referring to a sentence by Jean-Marie Straub, he argues that «il cinema, per sua natura, è sempre popolare» (cinema, by its nature, is always popular). The expression “elite film” would instead be linked mainly to the market and to financial resources.

His idea of the audience includes viewers willing to move between very different works. Nazzaro also urges people not to view young people as a simple continuation of previous generations. The starting point should be discovering the films that interest them.

The same approach applies to artificial intelligence. Locarno has already presented works that use its possibilities, including Dracula by Radu Jude and Cartas Telepáticas by Edgar Pêra. Nazzaro does not consider it either positive or negative in itself. «La vera questione è politica» (The real issue is political), he says, identifying the technology’s effect on the relationship with knowledge as the central issue.

Speaking about the history of cinema, Nazzaro names Roberto Rossellini and Ingrid Bergman as ideal companions for a screening in Piazza Grande. He would like to present Viaggio in Italia, made by the couple in 1954, before presenting an award to Isabella Rossellini, who is being honoured in Locarno this year. «Rossellini è sempre il regista che mi viene in mente. Per me è l’alfa e l’omega del cinema» (Rossellini is always the director who comes to mind. For me, he is the alpha and omega of cinema), he says.