Locarno hits musical high note

"Jam Session" from 1944 is one of films devoted to jazz and the cinema. swissinfo.ch

Music is a key theme of this year’s Locarno film festival, with a retrospective of films inspired by jazz and a tribute to Vincente Minnelli, a giant of the Hollywood musical.

The hundreds of films on offer include works from Switzerland and Latin America, and a number of world premieres.

Now in its third year under the leadership of Marco Solari and artistic director Irene Bignardi, the event in the lakeside town in Ticino has once again stacked up an impressive line-up and seems to have escaped the severe cash problems afflicting the film industry.

At a press conference on Wednesday, Solari said funding had been secured for 2003 and was on track for 2004.

But he said organisers were having to battle for sponsorship in a climate marked by “lack of money and a tangible fear of investing”.

Bignardi said the selection of films was also affected by a general shortage of big-budget features – but this had turned out to a blessing in disguise.

“Maybe I could have found more lavish and rich films, but I actually liked the ones I got so much that I don’t feel that I have missed out at all,” Bignardi told swissinfo.

“For instance, ‘Video de familia’, made in Cuba with only $400, is a piece of genius. You are enthralled while watching these five guys talking in a room. So when a lack of money produces these kinds of things, we welcome them.”

Musical greats

The film opening the festival on August 6 is a digitally-remastered version of Minelli’s 1953 musical, “Band Wagon”, starring Fred Astaire and Cyd Charisse.

The Technicolor classic also serves as the launch pad for Locarno’s retrospective, “All that Jazz”, several years in the making and featuring a staggering 115 films, including some of the earliest talking pictures dating from 1929.

“We chose jazz because it is a form of music which was born among the underdogs of society, among those who couldn’t play in the big orchestras and who played music to console themselves for their unhappy lives,” said Bignardi.

“Therefore, jazz has in a way always been an irregular, revolutionary kind of art.”

Other musical classics include Anthony Mann’s “The Glenn Miller Story”, Francis Ford Coppola’ “Cotton Club” and Clint Eastwood’s “Bird”.

Calendar Girls

Many of the screenings on the Piazza Grande, traditionally the heart of the Locarno festival, will pay tribute to cinema greats such as Italian director Federico Fellini and star of the golden age of Hollywood, Katharine Hepburn.

There will also be a world premiere of a British comedy, Nigel Cole’s “Calendar Girls”, starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters. It is based on a true story about a group of mature women who pose naked for a calendar.

Two Swiss films will also get their first public screening in the picturesque town square, including “Jagged Harmonies – Bach vs. Frederick II”, a feature focusing on the stormy relationship between the classical composer and the Prussian emperor.

“Le Génie Helvetique” (“Swiss genius”) is a sharp, humorous take on the lawmaking process in Switzerland.

Telling tales

There will be a total of 50 films from Switzerland this year, but only a handful of feature films – the result of a lack of funds, says Marc Wehrlin, head of film at the Federal Culture Office.

“It’s very serious situation, I can rarely give film-makers the necessary subsidies,” Wehrlin told swissinfo.

“We can only pay for around 40 per cent of the budget [which is not enough to get involved] in European co-productions.”

“It’s fine for us to make documentaries, but this country has to have fiction. We have to tell stories in a modern way, and that means with moving images.”

Locarno is also paying tribute to the Swiss writer, Friedrich Dürrenmatt (1921-1990), as a source of inspiration for cinema.

It will include films ranging from the recently released thriller, “The Pledge”, directed by Sean Penn, to the Senegalese version of “The Old Lady’s Visit”, a tale of vengeance, which throws a community off balance.

swissinfo, Vanessa Mock

Locarno in brief

The Locarno Film Festival, founded in August 1946, runs from August 6-16.

This year, 20 films from 17 countries will be competing for the coveted Leopard trophies, including films from Kazakhstan, Romania, Bolivia and Switzerland.

The Leopard of Honour is going to British director Ken Loach, whose films include “Land of Freedom” and “My Name is Joe”.