10 Swiss film festivals with international standing are joining forces on a symbolically significant screening series to be held in Locarno’s PalaCinema multipurpose venue which is also known as the Swiss lakeside town’s house of cinema.
The innovative initiative – which is being launched with a press conference on Saturday at the Locarno Film Festival – is the brainchild of Nadia Dresti, the Locarno fest’s grand dame, who recently joined the PalaCinema board.
The PalaCinema (pictured) houses the Locarno film festival offices, its film academy, the CISA film school, the Ticino Film Commission, Swiss pubcaster RSI, as well as several commercial cinemas and other screening venues.
“On the 75th anniversary of the Locarno festival we want to pay homage to all Swiss international film festivals, inviting their artistic directors to each talk about their vision for their respective festivals, and also to chose a film that represents this vision,” Dresti told Variety.
“This is a way to bolster the strength and visibility of these festivals,” she added.
“With this initiative we want to underline the range of diversity and the number of festivals we have in Switzerland, and also help boost their global standing and reach,” Dresti went on to note.
The “10 Film Festival @ PalaCinema” initiative will involve the head honchos of ten top Swiss film events.
Besides Locarno, these comprise the Zurich Film Festival; the Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, which is Switzerland’s major short film festival; the Fribourg International Film Festival; Solothurner Filmtage; Neuchâtel International Fantastic Film Festival; the Geneva International Film Festival; the Festival del Cinema Giovane, which is dedicated to youth cinema; the Fantoche International Animation Film Festival; and Visions du Réel, which is dedicated to docs.
Locarno Film Festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro will open the monthly screening series on Sept. 15 with a screening of Roberto Rossellini’s “Rome, Open City” which screened in 1946 during Locarno’s first edition.