Locarno 2023

Festival Reviews

CineVerdict: Espectáculo a diario. 36 filmes en la retrospectiva mexicana en el Festival de Locarno

by Lucy Virgen | Aug 3, 2023 | Cine Verdict, Featured, Festivals, Locarno 2023

Espectáculo a diario. 36 filmes en la retrospectiva mexicana en el Festival de Locarno

Spectacle Every Day – 36 Films in Locarno’s Mexican Retrospective

by Lucy Virgen | Aug 2, 2023 | Festivals, Locarno 2023

Spectacle Every Day: The Many Seasons of Mexican Popular Cinema is a retrospective that comes to the Locarno Film Festival full of diversity, history and joy.

The Falling Star

by Oris Aigbokhaevbolo | Aug 2, 2023 | Locarno 2023

Fiona Gordon and Dominique Abel return with ‘The Falling Star’, another picture more wacky than substantial — and therein lies its charm and limitation.

Tsai Ming-liang Receives Locarno’s Leopard Award

by Clarence Tsui | Aug 2, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Locarno 2023

Locarno celebrates the elegant, contemplative work of renowned Asian filmmaker and artist Tsai Ming-liang.

Conann

by Stephen Dalton | Aug 1, 2023 | Festivals, Locarno 2023, Spotlight

Director Bertrand Mandico’s lurid saga of gender-queer decadence and visceral violence ‘Conann’ is a ravishing sensory feast for viewers with strong stomachs.

Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro on Hollywood, Locarno and Diversifying the Lineup

by Max Borg | Aug 1, 2023 | Festivals, Locarno 2023

Artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro show TFV how bold programming makes Locarno a memorable festival.

Critical Zone

by Deborah Young | Aug 10, 2023 | Festivals, Locarno 2023

In another angry bulletin from Iran in revolt, Ali Ahmadzadeh’s ‘Critical Zone’ hits censorship out of the ballpark.

First Case

by Boyd van Hoeij | Aug 9, 2023 | Locarno 2023, Spotlight

A young French law-office worker unexpectedly finds herself defending a murder suspect in First Case (Première Affaire), the debut feature from Victoria Musiedlak. The unassuming drama continues in the vein of down-to-earth portraits of regular people working in...

Lousy Carter

by Jay Weissberg | Aug 9, 2023 | Festivals, Locarno, Locarno 2023

American indie darling Bob Byington will please his fans with this minor amusing look at an underachieving English lit professor whose greatest disappointment is himself.

Kudos to István Szabó

by Stephen Dalton | Aug 9, 2023 | Festivals, Featured, Locarno 2023

Feted Hungarian Oscar-winner István Szabó has spent his epic career probing Central Europe’s painful, morally complex history of post-imperial trauma and totalitarian tragedy.

Dammi

by Ben Nicholson | Aug 9, 2023 | Featured, Festivals, Locarno 2023, Verdict Shorts

Riz Ahmed takes centre stage with Isabelle Adjani in ‘Dammi’, Yann Mounir Demange’s fragmentary, experimental and highly sensorial reckoning with his own bifurcated past.

Baan

by Jay Weissberg | Aug 8, 2023 | Festivals, Locarno, Locarno 2023

An undisciplined feature debut burdened by regrettably immature dialogue that knee-caps a potentially interesting impressionistic exploration of what “home” means in a globalized world.

iNTELLIGENCE

by Ben Nicholson | Aug 8, 2023 | Festivals, Featured, Locarno 2023, Verdict Shorts

A man learns of his own imminent death in iNTELLIGENCE, a strikingly graphic meditation on a curtailed life and the allure of immortality.

Kudos to Renzo Rossellini

by Deborah Young | Aug 8, 2023 | Festivals, Locarno 2023

Renzo Rossellini has lived an adventurous life on the cutting edge of movies and politics.

Patagonia

by Jay Weissberg | Aug 8, 2023 | Festivals, Locarno, Locarno 2023

A developmentally delayed young man falls under the spell of a pansexual itinerant children’s entertainer in Simone Bozzelli’s well-performed but psychologically ill-judged feature debut.

Touched

by Oris Aigbokhaevbolo | Aug 7, 2023 | Locarno 2023, Festivals

Claudia Roranius’s ‘Touched’ competently telegraphs a complex intimate relationship with unusual frankness and gorgeous visuals, and yet, it falls short of its own material in true emotional terms.

Awards Corner

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