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| Juliette Binoche - star of Olivier Assayas's Clouds of Sils Maria - and recipient of a career achievement award in Locarno |
With special career achievement awards for stellar actresses Mia Farrow and Juliette Binoche and the veteran Armin Mueller-Stahl, as well as a line-up of such diverse talents as Dario Argento, Agnès Varda, Aleksandr Sokurov and Olivier Assayas, the Locarno Film Festival’s director Carlo Chatrian today (16 July) unveiled the cornucopia of delights in store for next month’s bumper 67th edition.
Other names figuring in the cast list include Luc Besson (for the opening film Lucy with Scarlett Johannson), cinematographer Garrett Brown and Spanish director Víctor Erice (both the subject of special focuses and workshop sessions), as well as American star Melanie Griffith, and French actress Julie Depardieu.
The vast 8000-seat Piazza Grande open air auditorium will see a host of international and world premieres among them Jean-Jacques Zilbermann’s new film A La Vie with Julie Depardieu and Hippolyte Girardot, Israeli director Eran Riklis’s Dancing Arabs, Tony Gatlif’s Geronimo, Olivier Assayas’s Sils Maria and Lasse Hallström’s The Hundred Foot Journey with Helen Mirren, an adaptation of the Richard C. Morais novel about the rivalry between an Indian restaurant and the three-Michelin-star restaurant that is 100 feet away from it, in France.
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| Helen Mirren in The Hundred-Foot Journey by Lasse Hallström, premiered in Locarno |
In revealing his selection Chatrian said: “Every film festival, be it small or large, claims to offer, if not an account of the state of things, then an updated map of the art form and the world it seeks to represent. This cartography should show both the major routes and the byways, along with essential places to visit and those that are more unusual. The Festival del film Locarno is no exception to the rule, and I think that looking through the programme audiences will be able to distinguish the route map for this edition.”
There will be a special tribute to one of Italy’s iconic studios, Titanus, founded by Gustavo Lombardo in 1904 and and directed by Goffredo Lombardo, who took over after his father’s death in 1951, and steered the company through the crucial decades of Italian cinema, including some crisis-ridden periods.
In recent years, Titanus has concentrated on television, while still keeping alive its cinematic tradition. Guido Lombardo, son of Goffredo, is the current chairman.
Among the guests for the Titanus retrospective will be Dario Argento, introducing his first feature film The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, actress and singer Rita Pavone, with Lina Wertmüller’s Non Stuzzicate La Zanzara, and Eleonora Brown, introducing Two Women and Amore Mio.
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| Isabelle Carré in Mary's Story by Jean-Pierre Améris in Locarno's Piazza Grande selection |
The Line-up
Piazza Grande
A Hitman's Solitude Before The Sho,t by Florian Mischa Böder, Germany
À La Vie, by Jean-Jacques Zilbermann, France
Dancing Arabs, by Eran Riklis, Israel
Geronimo, by Tony Gatlif, France
Hin Und Weg (Tour De Force), by Christian Zübert, Germany
Il Gattopardo (The Leopard - in restored copy for Titanus focus) by Luchino Visconti [film] Land Ho![/film] by Aaron Katz and Martha Stephens, United States/Iceland
Love Island, by Jasmila Žbanić, Croatia/Germany/Switzerland/Bosnia and Herzegovina [film] Lucy[/film], by Luc Besson, France
Marie Heurtin (Mary's Story), by Jean-Pierre Améris, France
Pause, by Mathieu Urfer, Switzerland
Schweizer Helden, by Peter Luisi, Switzerland
Sils Maria (Clouds Of Sils Maria), by Olivier Assayas, France/Germany/Switzerland
The Hundred-Foot Journey, by Lasse Hallström, United States
International Competition
A Blast, by Syllas Tzoumerkas, Greece/Germany/Netherlands
Alive, by Jungbum Park, South Korea
Cavalo Dinheiro (Horse Money), by Pedro Costa, Portugal
Cure - The Life Of Another, by Andrea Štaka, Switzerland/Croatia/Bosnia and Herzegovina
Dos Disparos, by Martín Rejtman, Argentina/Chile/Germany/Netherlands
Durak (The Fool), by Yury Bykov, Russia
Fidelio, L'Odyssée D'Alice, by Lucie Borleteau, France
Gyeongju, by Zhang Lu, South Korea
La Princesa De Francia (The Princess Of France), by Matías Piñeiro, Argentina
La Sapienza, by Eugène Green, France/Italy
L’Abri, by Fernand Melgar, Switzerland
Listen Up Philip, by Alex Ross Perry, United States
Mula Sa Kung Ano Ang Noon (From What Is Before), by Lav Diaz, Philippines
Nuits Blanches Sur La Jetée (White Nights On The Pier), by Paul Vecchiali, France
Perfidia, by Bonifacio Angius, Italy
The Iron Ministry, by J.P. Sniadecki, China/United States
Ventos De Agosto, by Gabriel Mascaro, Brazil
The 67th edition of the Festival del film Locarno takes place 6 – 16 August 2014.
