- This event has passed.
Last Locarno Film Festival: opening and farewell at Monte Verità
On 2 August, Alain Berset opens the Locarno Film Festival, the 76th, for the last time. It is also the last edition for Marco Solari, President since 2000. In the cloister of La Magistrale, he pretends to give a closing speech rather than an opening one. He praises Giona A. Nazzaro’s selection, a “2023 vintage” from every continent, and a Swiss cinema that has regained its colour, soon to be supported by the “lex Netflix”. He jokes about his joint retirement with Solari: he will have “2 of the 8,000 chairs on the Piazza Grande” taken to the Cinémathèque suisse in Penthaz, “to watch films there together in peace”. “Arrivederci Locarno, arrivederci Ticino e viva il cinema!”
At Monte Verità, at the traditional lunch hosted by the festival, he says his farewells. He recounts having entered his name and Solari’s on the LoveCalculator website: 28%. Then comes a quiz on Swiss cinema from 2012 to 2023, from “Ma vie de Courgette” to “Mad Heidi”. He ends in Italian: “Due parole che dicono tutto: bravo e grazie.”
On 3 August, he meets the press at the PalaCinema with Carine Bachmann, Director of the Federal Office of Culture, and Ivo Kummer, Head of the Film Section.
Wednesday 2 August 2023 — Locarno
- Opening ceremony of the festival at La Magistrale, speeches by Alain Scherrer, Marina Carobbio Guscetti, Alain Berset, Marco Solari and Giona A. Nazzaro
- Opening film on the Piazza Grande
Thursday 3 August 2023 — Locarno
- Meeting with the press at the PalaCinema, with Carine Bachmann and Ivo Kummer
Friday 4 August 2023 — Ascona and Locarno
- Festival lunch at Monte Verità, speeches by Luca Pissoglio, Marina Carobbio Guscetti, Marco Solari and Alain Berset
- Aperitif hosted by the Federal Office of Culture at Villa San Quirico, Minusio
- Festival political dinner at La Magistrale
Saturday 5 August 2023 — Locarno
- 75 years of the Cinémathèque suisse, at the Castello Visconteo
Speeches on this site
- Locarno Film Festival – cocktail d’ouverture (in French, French-language page)
- Adieux au Locarno Film Festival au Monte Verità (in French, French-language page)
Sources