Giona A. Nazzaro, who was born in Zurich and speaks fluent Swiss-German, lets his Italian roots
emerge when he passionately details his programming strategies.
His first experience of Locarno, as a spectator/critic, was in 1994, during the
Marco Müller years. It’s an edition still fondly remembered by seasoned festival goers,
chiefly for what remains the ultimate Müller-era double bill in Piazza Grande: Abbas
Kiarostami’s Through the Olive Trees, followed by Speed. And while Nazzaro may not be a
fan of the word “eclectic” per se, he aims to recreate that same sense of contrast with his programming choices.
“As a festival goer and critic, I’ve been to events where you end up feeling you’re
sort of always watching the same movies,” he tells The Film Verdict. “My hope for Locarno audiences is that after spending a day at the festival, they will go home and think they saw four or five films, all very different from one another.”
In fact, Nazzaro is keen on challenging the notion of what a festival film is. This
year, the Cineasti del presente competition includes an erotic comedy (the Spanish production
On the Go), and laughter has always been a key component of the current vision for Locarno.
Nazzaro looks back on one of his bolder choices for the 2021 edition, when Cop Secret was
among the contenders for the Golden Leopard: a gay buddy/cop movie from Iceland, the film
also boasted a director, Hannes Halldórsson, who is perhaps best known as a soccer
goalkeeper. (In fact, the world premiere in Locarno had to accommodate his match schedule.)
“I thought I had hit the jackpot, and then people started saying it wasn’t a Locarno kind of
movie,” the artistic director remembers with a chuckle.
But if you ask Nazzaro, the distinction between “commercial” and “arthouse” cinema
is nonsensical. “At the end of the day,” he explains, “when you produce an arthouse movie,
you still need actors, a director, a writer, a cinematographer, an editor, a composer, a sound
designer, etcetera. And unless they’ve all agreed to do it for the glory, that film will cost money, and you have to think about making it back.”
Going back to the topic of diversifying the lineup, he mentions two examples from the same country, the Philippines. “Lav Diaz is back in competition with what is perhaps his most overtly political work to date, dealing with what was going on under [former president of the Philippines Rodrigo] Duterte, with his usual style. And then there’s Topakk, out of competition, which looks at the same topic through a genre prism. So even if the subject might be more or less the same, the movies couldn’t be any more different, and I look
forward to the audience experiencing both of them.”
Diaz is, of course, part of what could be termed a Locarno “family” of returning filmmakers, including Radu Jude, Bertrand Mandico, Ken Loach and Quentin Dupieux. However, familiarity always comes with its share of novelty. “Dupieux has been to Locarno before, but always in Piazza Grande,” Nazzaro clarifies. “Yannick is in competition, which is a first for him at any of the major festivals.”
Locarno is also presenting the international premiere of the Searchlight-produced Theater Camp in Piazza Grande.
How has the festival’s relationship with the big Hollywood studios changed, if
at all? “The studios are aware Locarno exists”, Nazzaro replies. “And like with all festivals,
they try to figure out how these events best fit into their existing release and marketing
strategies.”
And in the context of the festival landscape, also given the events of the past few
years, what is Locarno’s identity today? “Locarno’s identity is Locarno’s identity. By which I
mean, recent years have strengthened and confirmed our position within the industry. And I think this year’s program reflects how we manage to retain that position and at the same time
keep moving forward.”
