Locarno takes centre stage at Solothurn film festival

Switzerland's best-known film festival briefly took centre-stage at Solothurn when the organisers of the Locarno film festival, including Guiseppe Buffi, announced plans for a radical overhaul.

Switzerland’s best-known film festival briefly took centre-stage at Solothurn when the organisers of the Locarno film festival, including Guiseppe Buffi, announced plans for a radical overhaul.

Switzerland’s biggest film festival has announced ambitious plans to raise its profile in Switzerland and Europe. The festival’s president and director, Giuseppe Buffi and Marco Müller, outlined their plans at a news conference in Solothurn where the Swiss film festival is underway.

Buffi said that Locarno had to better define its role in order to promote Swiss films without invading the territory of other festivals, such as Solothurn and Nyon.

In the past, the organisers of other Swiss festivals have accused Locarno of using its position as Switzerland’s only international film event to obtain and premiere the best Swiss films.

The interior minister, Ruth Dreifuss, had to intervene at one stage to calm the waters and ensure that other festivals got more Swiss films. But now Locarno is accused of not doing enough for Switzerland’s film industry.

For this reason, there will be more Swiss films on show at this year’s Locarno festival, which runs from August 2-12. Müller says he will select only the most innovative Swiss films. To avoid disputes many of these will already have been shown either in Swiss cinemas or at other Swiss festivals.

Müller said Swiss films would be shown in a new section, to be called Appellation Suisse. It will replace the current Swiss Perspectives sidebar at Locarno.

Buffi also wants to boost Locarno’s role by creating what he calls a permanent infrastructure. A future “Palazzo del Cinema” would house film archives and year-round exhibitions.

The festival would also produce books and other publications on a regular basis. The idea is to turn Locarno into a centre for film studies and research.

Buffi and Müller see these changes as vital to ensure Locarno’s long-term survival as a major international festival. It currently ranks fourth or fifth in Europe in order of importance.

Buffi says a stronger voice for Swiss Italians on Switzerland’s cultural scene is ultimately for the good of the country as a whole. He says it will guarantee unity by fostering closer political ties between the different language groups.

By Michael Mullane