The international film festival that takes place every year in August in Locarno, Switzerland, attracts thousands of actors filmmakers, journalists and movie fans.

very August since 1946, the small resort town of Locarno,

A panoramic view of Locarno, a small resort in Ticino, an Italian-speaking canton.

Switzerland, has hosted a movie festival. Now a ten-day event that precedes the more well-known affair in Cannes, the Locarno International Film Festival attracts filmmakers, actors, cinema professionals, more than a thousand journalists (including TV crews), and movie fans from all over the world. The population (15,000) of this provincial, Italian-speaking town literally swells some tenfold during the festivities.
        The local people and businesses generally revel in the experience. Piazza Grande, the town's magnificent central square, becomes a giant outdoor cinema.

A Small Distraction

The Locarno International Film Festival was first held on August 22, 1946, at the Grand Hotel. It was the brainchild of the local tourist office, in an effort to revive tourism. The festival was intended to be only a small attraction, scheduled ten days ahead of the much larger (and eventually better-known) Cannes Film Festival, which was also making its debut the same year.         The Swiss idea was not new. Venice had launched a star-studded event at its Excelsior Hotel some fourteen years earlier, creating the oldest cinema festival anywhere. Europe's other major movie gathering, the Berlin festival, began in 1951. Since the end of World War II ,around sixty film festivals have flowered in Europe. By comparison, the United States boasts only about twenty.         Locarno's first celluloid extravaganza was conceived as an open-air distraction. It was hoped people could, at least briefly, forget the destruction brought by the war that had ended only the year before and enjoy the balmy evenings the lakeside town was famed for.         On that opening night, the grounds of the Grand Hotel were surrounded by black and white posters of film stars. Crowds gathered in the hotel gardens and, when all the seats were taken, people sat on the grass facing a modest (25 by 20 foot) screen. O Sole Mio, directed by Italy's Giacomo Gentilomo, kicked off the event. In all, fifteen movies, nine from Europe and six from the United States, entertained festivalgoers. And Then There Were None, directed by Ren‚ Clair, was deemed the best movie, while a dozen or so documentaries were run as a cultural sideshow.         The experience was repeated at about the same time of year, at the same place, for the next twenty years. The festival moved indoors from 1968 to 1970; then it triumphantly conquered the Piazza Grande in 1971. It enjoys this sumptuous home under the stars to this day. In the meantime, as increasing numbers of attendees have flocked to see an ever-greater number of movies, seven indoor venues have been opened to support the Piazza Grande screenings.         The first festival in the piazza featured an American comedy, Take the Money and Run, by first-time filmmaker Woody Allen. Two years later, George Lucas' American Graffiti had its European premiere at Locarno and won third prize. In 1984, Allen's black and white Broadway Danny Rose opened the festival and definitively consolidated his popularity in Europe. But it was a much younger American, Jim Jarmusch, already with a Camera d'Or under his belt from Cannes, who got the Golden Leopard (Locarno's top prize), for his unconventional Stranger Than Paradise. Spike Lee, then unheard of, screened his first film, Joe's Bed-Stuy Barbershop: We Cut Heads, at Locarno a few years later. --M.G.

Color-coded chairs, separated into areas reserved for the privileged, journalists, and the general public, are set out facing a giant screen (85 by 46 feet), the largest of its kind in Europe. Overflowing caf‚s in the fine old buildings that line the piazza spill onto the sidewalks. Anyone sitting at one of these establishments may literally see the world on parade as exhibitors mingle, socialize, compete, and observe each other's culture as reflected in the myriad of films presented.
        "Piazza Grande has been the meeting place, marketplace, shopping and entertainment center of our town for many centuries," says Gianni Quanchi, who runs a real-estate business in Locarno. "During the festival period, coming here is like going to a feast. Watching the evening's screening is yet another feast."
        Tastes at the feast differ. "I love American action films best," Quanchi admits. "I hardly go to see any of the movies in competition. I don't care for slow, depressing, foreign movies shown in strange languages with subtitles. I want to have fun when I go to see a movie and not sit in the dark trying to work out what this or that 'intellectual' filmmaker is attempting to show."
        "Going to the piazza is a wonderful experience," comments Angela Carletti, an artist, retired art history teacher, and longtime resident of Locarno. "It brings back memories. I enjoy Italian and French films best, and I enjoy the side events like art exhibitions or meeting with writers such as Antonio Tabucchi from Italy or India's Arundhati Roy. A few years ago we had Alberto Sordi here. My ninety-year-old mother was so excited she elbowed everyone aside with amazing vigor to get close and shake Sordi's hand. The great, generous actor actually kissed her cheek; I'd never seen her so happy in all my life. Until she passed away a couple of years later, she never stopped talking about her experience."
        Preferring to remain anonymous for modesty's sake, one of the current owners of the town's Grand Hotel (where the festival originated) comments, "Like most people here I think watching a film under the stars in the piazza is what I like most. The Grand Hotel still participates in the festival activities by accommodating guests, tourists, and celebrities alike as well as organizing pre- or postscreening meetings, roundtable discussions, and other cultural initiatives. It's great to see so many people from so many different countries coming together, cohabiting in this little town in such harmony. Everybody forgets nationalities and concentrates on the quality of works before them. There is competition too, but everybody is competing on equal terms."
        Rossella Laudi, a mother of two teenage daughters, enthuses, "Just like me, my daughters are growing up in the shade of the festival. It is talked and written about in the newspapers all year round. We feel quite proud to see all these people, famous or otherwise, coming to our little town. Besides the cultural aspects, all the businesses--hotels, restaurants, caf‚s, stores, and so forth--have to hire staff to keep up with the demand for their services. In short, the atmosphere is fantastic. Everybody is a winner, whether working or watching movies."

Memorable moments

atching movies under the stars doesn't always work out. It rains. In August the Locarnese, especially the festival organizers, talk about the weather quite often. Last year, when Sydney Pollack received an honorary award under pouring rain, he couldn't help commenting: "Why do you have a festival when it rains?"
        But Locarno's festival attendees are not frightened off by a little water. Thousands stayed to watch Pollack's masterpiece, They Shoot Horses Don't They? Most people were already familiar with the movie. Pollack's eyes surely welled up, but in the rain-streaked night it was hard to tell.

Arundhati Roy, Indian screenwriter and Booker Prize winner, chats with festival attendees.

        There have been many such memorable moments. The Locarno crowd had a delightful surprise in 1999 when it celebrated the centenary of Hitchcock's birth by showing the newly restored Birds, starring Tippi Hedren. Still looking cool and beautiful thirty-six years after the film's release, Hedren appeared on the stage and recounted some anecdotes regarding her work with the master of suspense: "At one point I was instructed to go upstairs and look around; I would then be attacked by birds coming in through the windows," she said, calmly looking at the seven-thousand-strong audience. Hedren asked the great director to clarify the scene. "Why would I, a guest in someone's house, suddenly get up, go upstairs, and start snooping around?" she asked.
        Hitchcock's response was rational and to the point: "Because I told you to do so."
        Another year the famous Chinese director Zhang Yimou's cinematographer, Lu Yue, made his debut as a filmmaker at Locarno. For the first time, a movie dissected the intimate personal relationships of Chinese society. Lu Yue's sensitive, simple film won the top

Festival of Discoveries

Although originally conceived of as a tourist attraction, the Locarno festival has made a series of cinematographic discoveries worthy of note over the years. In its early years, Locarno introduced and highlighted a new trend in filmmaking called neorealism, invented in neighboring Italy by intellectual cineastes including Vittorio De Sica and Roberto Rossellini. Neorealism told tales of love, joy, and heartbreaking poverty, the vicissitudes of ordinary people surviving in ar-torn Europe were narrated without artifice or embellishment.         Judging by the above-average number of spectators drawn to these films at the festival, these were not considered taboo subjects, demonstrating that neither the festival nor cinema in general need necessarily be equated with temporary escapism. Indeed, neorealism was to have worldwide repercussions that have continued to this day. Martin Scorsese in the United States, Abbas Kiarostami in Iran, Youssuf Chahine in Egypt, Ken Loach in the United Kingdom, and countless others have espoused this genre. All have made low-budget, highly engaging movies concerning ordinary ways of life that have revealed attitudes, prejudices, and cultural insights in their parts of the world.         I met both Kiarostami and Chahine in Locarno in the mid-1990s. They were enjoying a retrospective of their entire output for the first time outside their own countries. I asked Kiarostami if he would consider making a movie in Hollywood. "Iran is all I know," he said softly. "I have so many more stories all hidden in my head. It'll take a lifetime to turn them into films."         Chahine, who studied filmmaking in Pasadena, also focuses on his own country. "You learn the tools of the trade," he told me, "then use them and your imagination to tell the stories that touch you most." Both directors went on to win the Palme D'Or at Cannes and are now internationally wellknown.         During the late 1950s and '60s a more creative, less orthodox method of film-making known as Nouvelle Vague took hold in Europe, especially in France. Its followers included Fran¨ois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard. Recipient of an award as a newcomer in 1964, Godard received an honorary prize from Locarno for his lifetime contribution in 1995. Truffaut, rather than choosing Cannes or another more famous venue, brought his masterpiece Vivement Dimanche to Locarno for its world premiere in 1983. His daughter, Eva, was a jury member during the 2002 festival. --M.G.

prize. As he stood on the stage to receive the award, he said, "This is the happiest day of my life." He and everyone in the audience could barely hold back the tears. Afterward I asked Lu what he intended to do now that he had won a major prize. Hollywood maybe? "Who knows!" he shrugged. "For now, do you know anybody who needs a cinematographer? I really need some money."
        I also recall when Egyptian filmmaker Radwan el-Kashef was on stage. I liked his film, which told the tale of a youth staying behind to look after his ailing grandmother while everyone else abandons the desert village in search of fortune elsewhere. The youth is convinced that if he can climb a legendary giant palm tree and pick elixir-containing white dates, he'll cure his grandmother. At question time, I commented, "That was wonderful. When can we expect another movie from el-Kashef?"
        To my surprise, a deafening applause erupted. Without preamble, the director simply burst out crying. When he managed to compose himself, his wavering voice intoned, "It took ten years of hard work and heartache to realize this project." His producer, standing nearby, interjected, "This won't be Kashef's last work; that's a promise." It wasn't to be. Two years later, I sadly read in Time that el-Kashef had died prematurely, at age fifty-two.
        More recently, Roberto Benigni's Oscar-winner Life Is Beautiful was scheduled to be screened. The director was expected to appear at the festival, and news did come that "Benigni's arrival has been confirmed." But come the screening, he had not arrived. Where was he? Minutes went by. Still no Benigni. Finally the presenter announced: "Benigni is here."
        Alas, not in flesh and blood. "He is held up. But he is on the phone, now."
        Benigni cracked jokes for the next fifteen minutes while we all listened in. He ended the call by commenting: "I must admit, I have never had a phone conversation with seven thousand people. This must be a record."

Maintaining an identity

rganizers have been striving to create a balanced cultural-commercial event ever since the film festival was conceived. Rather than concentrating on established filmmakers, they decided to focus on young or new cineastes from around the world and highlight what's innovative in the world of cinema. A few years ago the New York Times praised this effort. "Although it's almost unknown to Americans, Locarno is one of the best-attended festivals on the circuit. ... With its 150 feature films (as well as short films and documentaries) Locarno may be the ideal place to see as many unusual films as possible."
        But how do you convince people to come to Locarno to see the works of unknown directors, however good they may be? How do you compete with star-studded events such as Cannes and Venice that feature blockbuster films and appearances by megastars from the United States? Locarno's organizers chose the strategy of discovery, allowing only first or second works to be entered into competition. More accessible, mainstream movies are screened in the piazza.

Glimpses Behind the Curtain

Locarno has played a significant role in making East European film accessible to the West. A Russian film, Ivan the Terrible by Sergei Eisenstein, was featured in the first festival in 1946. Although other cinema festivals in Western Europe allowed East European productions to be shown, only Locarno was bold enough to consistently screen films coming out of communist Europe, and it was the first to show anything from East Germany (in 1954). Before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990, films from other nations locked behind the Iron Curtain, such as Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia, only reached the West thanks to festivals like Locarno's.          I met Czech filmmaker Jan Svankmajer at Locarno in 1996, when he brought a surrealistic comedy--on electronic gadgetry taking over society--to the festival. The director was impressed by the size of the audience that turned up to see his "little" movie. His British producer, Keith Griffiths, was also there. I couldn't help wondering how the two had met. "We've been producing Jan's films for a long time," Griffiths said. "We used to smuggle his movies out in the old days."         It is no longer necessary to resort to devious methods to trick customs officials in order to carry movies out of eastern Europe. Nevertheless, if it weren't for movie festivals like Locarno, finding anything other than mainstream American and European movies to watch would still be difficult. --M.G.

        Judging by the quality of new talent discovered, as well the number of spectators crowding Locarno every summer, the strategy is working. In the 1980s, 100 to 130 movies were screened, to the satisfaction of around sixty thousand festival attendees and the 350 journalists covering the festival. By 2002, some 180,000 admission tickets were being counted; over a thousand journalists turned up for the screening of 360 movies in ten different categories. In 1988 the festival budget was around 2.25 million Swiss francs ($1.6 million). In 2002 it jumped to S.F. 9.3 million ($6.5 million). As Marco Solari, who presides over the festival, put it: "Locarno is now a Serie A [major league] event. We'll respect its fundamental personality and continue searching for ways to improve on quality."
        Locarno's townspeople and local newspapers have questioned how big the festival should become. Once defined as "the smallest of the big cinema events, the biggest of the small cinema events," it had perhaps grown to an undesirable scale. Despite a desire to continue talent-scouting, in 2002 something fundamental was changed. Established filmmakers were permitted to compete alongside the younger generation. The winners, however, were unheard-of directors (from Germany and Hungary) at the dawn of their careers. A young man from Greece won the best actor award, and the best actress was a teenager from Iran. These actors were in direct competition with established stars like Robin Williams, G‚rard Depardieu, Kyra Sedgwick, and Italy's Anna Galiena.
        These results paradoxically maintained the philosophy of "discovery" at Locarno. Who knows what might happen in the years to come? How many as yet undiscovered Woody Allens, George Lucases, or Spike Lees will be put on the world stage? This will happen only if festivals like Locarno continue giving space to talented new filmmakers to show their works to a substantial number of spectators, distributors, and producers.

Watching a movie under the stars in Piazza Grande.

        I believe that the best definition for Locarno, in its newfound self, comes from Irene Bignardi, the current festival director. "The Locarno festival is a mixture," she says, "of curiosity [for other cultures], passion, search for the extraordinary, an obstinate desire to explore, and an informal atmosphere disguising effort with style.
        "Locarno's aim, just as all festivals' should be, is to weave in this world of ours--which at times seems to have lost all reason--a network of friendship, solidarity, reciprocal understanding, and discovery of other cultures. This can only result in bringing us all closer."