Locarno Residency, a career opportunity for young audiovisual talent

It is well known that the Locarno Film Festival is also a place of discovery for new talent. There is no shortage of initiatives aimed at accompanying young directors on their professional path. One of these is the Locarno Residency, which offers the possibility of receiving support in the development of a feature film through meetings and discussions.

The first phase of the project, open to ten participants chosen by the Locarno Film Festival artistic team on the basis of their subject presentation and professional background, will take place during the 76th edition of the Festival, scheduled from 2 to 12 August 2023.

The Ticino Film Commission has endeavoured to network the Locarno Residency with another career opportunity for screenwriters, namely the writing residency at Casa Pantrovà in Carona, an initiative to support screenwriting promoted by the City of Lugano, in collaboration with Casa della Letteratura per la Svizzera italiana, Gruppo registi e sceneggiatori della Svizzera italiana, Castellinaria, Locarno Film Festival and Ticino Film Commission. For this reason, since last year, the possibility of participating in the Locarno Residency has been open to residents of Casa Pantrovà. In 2022, it was Ticino filmmaker Tommaso Donati (who later graduated among the winners) who was able to take advantage of this possibility. In 2023, joining the ten Locarno Residency participants chosen by the Festival will be Benjamin Donateo and Valentina Shasivari.

Each participant will have the opportunity to discuss their film subject in dis cussion with a jury composed of three personalities from the film industry, who will choose two international and one Swiss project from the ten projects, and which will be able to progress to the next stages in a mentoring process in several sessions organised over the course of a year. One session will take place in December in Venice, in the prestigious Palazzo Trevisan degli Ulivi, in collaboration with the Swiss Consulate in Italy; the other, lasting the whole month of March, will be held in Locarno at the Fondazione Eranos, a place of peace and reflection where work will be done on the writing of the screenplay with tutors and contributions by the Locarno Film Festival artistic team.