After 23 years, the President of the Locarno Film Festival is stepping down. He looks back on his tenure with The Film Verdict.
When TFV arrives for the scheduled interview with Marco Solari, he’s just getting off the
phone with another journalist, answering a question in flawless Bärndütsch (the Bernese
variant of the Swiss-German High Alemannic dialect) with only the mildest trace of an Italian
accent. The soon-to-be former President of the Locarno Film Festival is, in fact, a veritable
embodiment of Switzerland as a cultural melting pot.
Born in the Swiss capital to a Ticinese father and a Bernese mother, he studied at the University of Geneva and has worked all over the country. When the Ticino government approached him in 2000 to take on the job of President, he was one of the top executives at Ringier, one of the major Swiss publishing groups, in Zurich. Choosing to relocate to Ticino once more was, by Solari’s own admission, a hard decision, as he had to give up power and salary. And now, 23 years later, leaving that post is an even harder one.
“The team really is like a family,” he explains. “The festival, which is a magnificent cultural
event, has always been very fortunate in having extraordinary people who keep it going. I
think it has something to do with the Locarno region. My predecessor, Raimondo Rezzonico,
the things he did for the festival! He truly earned his ‘Presidentissimo’ nickname.” Rezzonico
served as President from 1981 to 1999, and his original successor was Giuseppe Buffi, who
sadly passed away before the beginning of the 2000 edition. “He’s a star that went out way
too early,” says Solari.
Before joining the team, he’d been an avid festival goer since 1972, when he first made Ticino
his home as head of the tourism board. “I got to know the various artistic directors:
Moritz De Hadeln, Jean-Pierre Brossard, David Streiff, and Marco Müller, of course, who left
the same year I became President.” During his tenure, Solari has appointed six artistic
directors: Irene Bignardi (2001-2005), Frédéric Maire (2006-2009), Olivier Père (2010-
2012), Carlo Chatrian (2013-2018), Lili Hinstin (2019-2020) and Giona A. Nazzaro (2021-
present). “Each of them contributed to keeping the festival going, and I’ve always admired
the results of their work. And I’m very happy that we managed to bring about this growth,
not only in terms of the festival’s profile, but also structurally with the introduction of the
Managing Director, starting with Doris Longoni and then Marco Cacciamognaga, Mario
Timbal and now Raphaël Brunschwig.”
Over the years, Solari has often stated his admiration for one film in particular that he saw in
Piazza Grande: the Taviani brothers’ The Night of the Shooting Stars (1982), which he also
introduced at a special screening during the 2020 Zurich Film Festival, as part of a “carte
blanche” extended to the Swiss film events that had been adversely affected by the pandemic.
Another Locarno screening that left a mark was that of Pasolini’s Salò (1975), and in more
recent years there are fond memories of Lagaan (2001) and The Lives of Others (2006), both
of which won the Audience Award of their respective editions. Generally, though, he doesn’t
have much time to watch films during the actual festival.
“I do have early access to them, actually,” he concedes, “but I don’t watch them because it helps ensure the autonomy of the artistic director’s selection process. I’ve always made a point of not interfering. Locarno was born as a festival that symbolized freedom, in contrast to Venice which, since its beginning in 1932, was a product of the fascist regime, and that freedom remains paramount.”
And while he has selected a surprise film this year, which will play on the last evening of the festival in Piazza Grande as a goodbye to the audience, that’s as far as the programming exercise will go. “I could not pick my own Piazza Grande double bill”, he says when asked what he would personally choose for the festival’s flagship venue. “It’s a skill set I leave to the artistic committee. I’m a managerial figure, which is exactly what they were looking for when they approached me.
“Besides, I’ve always been more about words than images. I came to cinema through the
adaptations of great literature, like the work Visconti did with Thomas Mann’s Death in
Venice, or Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa’s The Leopard. He was an aristocrat himself, and
he put all those details in the films. The same applies to Hemingway and Proust, for
example.”
There may not be time to see all the films, but Solari always manages to find a moment for the
numerous guests that make the festival an even richer experience for viewers. “Indeed, the
people around the movies often impress me — the intelligent glamour of Locarno,” he says as he looks back on some
memorable encounters. “Harry Belafonte, in 2012, was an extraordinary presence, telling his
story. Susan Sarandon, also. And Isabelle Huppert, who was in a bit of a mood when she first
arrived, but then we managed to win her over.”
As for what the future holds, the Pres — as he’s affectionately known in Ticino – has been
very clear on that for years, citing the Swiss motto servir et disparaître, to serve and to
disappear. Once he’s done, after a handover period that begins at the end of this year’s
edition, he will still attend the festival, sitting discreetly somewhere in the Piazza, but strictly
as a spectator, with not one comment about the work of his successor. (Not yet announced at
the time of our conversation, she was subsequently revealed to be Maja Hoffmann).
“What else am I supposed to do at almost 80?” he says with a smile, before getting serious. “I’ve always had an issue with politicians who don’t adhere to that philosophy upon retirement. It’s fine to take part in political debates, but you’re not supposed to criticize your successor’s choices.” And while there is some melancholy at play now that it’s almost over, there’s no bitterness. “It’s the end of a period of my life where I received just as much as I gave, if not more.”
