Italy in the 57th Locarno Film Festival

In Competition the Italian film Private by Saverio Costanzo and the Italian-Swiss coproduction Promised Land by Michele Beltrami

Italy in the 57th Locarno Film Festival

Private, first feature film by young documentary filmmaker Saverio Costanzo was selected for competition in the 57th Locarno Film Festival. "I am very pleased to participate in the Locarno Film Festival,” states the author “ an unconventional festival, focusing greatly on the quest for languages. I did not expect to be invited for competition. My first feature film is an attempt to bring the western world to a distant reality, eventhough well-known, like the middle east conflict.”

Also in competition, the Italian-Swiss coproduction Promised Land by Michele Beltrami. But the Italian presence in the Festival does not stop here. From the famous Queimada by Gillo Pontecorvo - to be screened in Piazza Grande with the director present, during the tribute organized by the Festival for the great Marlon Brando, recently deceased - to the short film About the house by Jacopo Gassmann in competition in the video section, to the 6 Italian titles that make up the film and media retrospective : Inviati speciali by Romolo Marcellini, Blow up by maestro Michelangelo Antonioni, Il caso Mattei by Francesco Rosi, L’affare Sofri by Jean Louis Comolli, I Tigi a Gibellina. Racconto per Ustica by Davide Ferrario and Ilaria Alpi - Il più crudele dei giorni by Fernando Vicentini Orgnani.

Piazza Grande will host the screening of Cantando dietro i paraventi by Ermanno Olmi who will receive the Leopard of Honor; two shorts by the same author will also be screened: La pattuglia di Passo San Giacomo and Manon: Finestra 2.

Presented in the section “Cineasti del presente” is the 35 mm short Twisted Tango by Tommaso Cardile and Francesco Carrozzini. To be presented in video, Andrea Liberovici e Aldo Nove’s short 500 Mila leoni, Appunti Romani by Marco Bertozzi, Detur De Seta by Salvo Cuccia, and Frammenti di 900 by Citto Maselli.

Finally we must not forget the Premio Raimondo Rezzonico for the independent producer of the year, which will be awarded to Karl Baumgartner, the founder of Pandora Film.