Locarno Festival concludes with celebration of cinematic arts

The 65th edition of the Festival del film Locarno concluded last week with the Official Jury awarding the Grand Prize of the Festival, the City and Region of Locarno to La Fille De Nulle Part by Jean-Claude Brisseau of France. The other big winner at the festival was Wo Hai You Hua Yao Shuo (When Night Falls), a Chinese-SouthKorean co-production directed by Ying Liang. The festival accorded a special mention to the extraordinary character CANDY from the film A Última Vez Que Vi Macau due to her powerful presence through absence which resonated for the Jury as representing the immense courage of Portuguese cinema in times when the failures of government and social systems threaten the cinematic arts worldwide.

The Locarno Festival was attended by over 161,500 audiences over eleven days along with 3950 delegates and 900 journalists from 45 different countries. Artistic director of the festival Olivier Père described the 65th Edition of the Locarno Festival as, " a celebration of film in all its forms, with challenging competetion sections and ample retrospectives, eagerly attended discussions with the public, an insight into training initiatives, industry meetings and tributes to those who make and have made films.” Expressing his gratitude to the whole Festival team, President Marco Solari, reminded right away, that “the end of a Festival is the beginning of the next one. Among the priorities there is an increase of the worldwide marketing of the Festival and the support to the efforts of the City of Locarno in the fulfillment of the Palazzo del cinema, a structure intended to be a centre of audio-visual competence”.

The 66th Festival del film Locarno will take place from 7-17 August 2013.