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16.12.2021
Ticino in Film

Locarno Film Festival

Sixteen films from among the many, one after another, that have been able to tell the story of Ticino or that, choosing it as their backdrop, have managed to win over audiences, from 1945 to 2019. 74 years, to be precise. The same years as the Festival.


 


 

Collection: Locarno Film Festival

A journey through epochs and genres, between local and international sets, between breakthrough films, springboard films and films destined to trace a furrow, as if they were valleys in which to establish a new cinema, by Hermann or Sorrentino. 

 

(in collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival)

To look for Ticino in the Locarno Film Festival might suggest the obvious, if not a kind of schizophrenia. And yet here it is, the land of the Locarno Film Festival: from guest to star, from event screening to shooting location of the films that have populated the event for over seventy years. Sixteen films from among the many, one after another, that have been able to tell the story of Ticino or that, choosing Ticino as their backdrop, have managed to win over audiences, from 1945 to 2019. 74 years, to be precise. The same years as the Festival.

 

In 1945, just a few months before the screening of O sole mio on the lawn of the Grand Hotel - the first of the many at the Locarno Film Festival - Austrian Leopold Lindtberg sowed the seeds of the screenplay for The Last Chance, shot in Gandria, Mergoscia, Caprino and Lamone and picking up a Palme d'Or at Cannes. Then forty years later, in 1984, the film returned home, to the Locarno Film Festival, in Ticino. In 1972, Alfredo arrived in Ticino laden with money, only to arrive when the banks were closed. This is how Ettore Scola's The Most Wonderful Evening of My Life begins, in Locarno in 2003 for the tribute to Dürenmatt. Again in 2003 in which the region, between Chiasso and Bellinzona via Lugano, would once again welcome Italian cinema, offering itself for The Consequences of Love, which in 2009 lit up Piazza Grande with the talent of future Oscar winner Paolo Sorrentino. In those years, the story to which a great Teco Celio lent both his face and emotions was also marvellous: Probably Love by Giuseppe Bertolucci, capable of painting the Lugano station, the Bellinzona theatre or the Ceresio with the strokes, colours and expressions of introspection.

 

So here it is, the Ticino of its residents, for which the Locarno Film Festival has been able to serve as a springboard and stage in years - the first years of the third millennium - that have never been so productive: from 2007 with Out of Bounds by Fulvio Bernasconi to 2012 with Tutti giù by Niccolò Castelli, from 2018 with Cronofobia by Francesco Rizzi to 2019 with Love Me Tender by Klaudia Reynicke, who set sail from Locarno, with her Ticino in sixteen ninths and blue overalls, for Toronto. Before Klaudia, in 2015, it was Sabine Boss who brought madness to the valleys with Vecchi pazzi. But if we talk about Ticino cinema at Locarno, we have to go back a couple of decades to find Innocenza (1986) and Bankomatt (1989) by Villi Hermann, winner of the Pardo d’argento in 1977 with San Gottardo and the Premio Cinema Ticino in 2011, but above all the lynchpin of Ticino and Swiss cinema, capable of making the thriller resonate between Chiasso and Airolo.

 

Then there is the cinema that goes beyond Airolo except to go back and shoot. It is the cinema of the writers from the other side of the Alps; the cinema of Katalin Gödrös (Songs of Love and Hate, 2010), Michael Steiner (Rascals on the Road, 2005) or the giant Francis Reusser with Seuls (1981) at Locarno, a film that seems mysteriously linked to Ticino but which was not actually filmed there. And the cinema of Andres Pfäffli (Terra Bruciata, 1995), a "Swiss German from Ticino".

 

A long journey, even one which goes overseas and returns together with Eugène Green (La Sapienza, 2014), reminding us once again that for the language of cinema there is no accent, no curtain, no border or customs that matter. A language that from Hollywood to Bissone, between dams and banks, passes and piazzas, has been conquering the eyes and the silence of our audience for 74 years. In Ticino, in Locarno.

Discover the films in the collection

1945
The Last Chance
by Leopold Lindtberg

Programme spécial, 1984

Shot in Gandria, Mergoscia, Caprino and Lamone in 1945, Leopold Lindtberg's film won a Palme d'Or at Cannes in 1946. Today it can be appreciated thanks to the restoration by the Cinémathèque suisse.

1972
The Most Wonderful Evening of My Life by Ettore Scola

Omaggio a Friedrich Dürenmatt, 2003

The film begins with Alfredo (Alberto Sordi) crossing the customs of Chiasso and arriving in Lugano, passing through Riva Paradiso and Piazza della Riforma, to deposit money in a Swiss bank.  

1981
Seuls
by Francis Reusser

Histoire(s) du cinéma: Cinéma suisse redécouvert, 2018

Concours, 1981

This lyrical work by Francis Reusser recounts the inner journey of a man revisiting his past. A film that seems mysteriously linked to Ticino but which was not actually filmed there.

1986
Innocenza
by Villi Hermann

Information Suisse, 1987

Villi Hermann's film was shot on the Ceresio, between Gandria, Figino, Lugano, Mendrisio and Campione, and tells of the struggles of a new and disturbing teacher who arrives in a small farming village.

1989
Bankomatt
by Villi Hermann

Nouveaux films suisses, 1989

This thriller by Villi Hermann takes place in and around Lugano. In the financial city, an individual plans and commits a robbery at the Banca del Gottardo in Lugano, but things are not always as they seem.

1995
Terra Bruciata
by Andres Pfäffli

Films Suisse, 1995

Andres Pfäffli's first feature-length film about crime and corruption in top-level sport was made in Ticino, and more specifically in Chiasso.

2001
Probably love
by Giuseppe Bertolucci

Histoire(s) du cinéma: Premio Cinema Ticino a Teco Celio, 2015

Giuseppe Bertolucci's film paints, with the hues of introspection, Lugano railway station and its funicular (prior to 2016 renewal), the Bellinzona theatre, and a Ceresio transfigured by an extraordinary expressionist light.

2004
The Consequences of Love
by Paolo Sorrentino

Piazza Grande, 2009

Sorrentino filmed in Bellinzona in Piazza del Sole and Viale Stazione, at the FoxTown Factory Stores in Mendrisio, in Chiasso on Piazza Indipendenza, on the Piano di Magadino and on the lakeside promenade in Lugano, a film set amidst the hidden depths of the banking world.  

2005
Rascals on the Road
by Michael Steiner

Centre Suisse du cinéma, 2006

Based on the eponymous book by Klaus Schädelin, this film tells the story of the journey from Bern to Zurich of four young boys riding their bicycles who find themselves first transported to Carona in the municipality of Lugano and then to the rest of Switzerland.

2007
Out of Bounds
by Fulvio Bernasconi

Concorso internazionale, 2007

Film delle giurie, 2008

Histoire(s) du cinéma: Premio Cinema Ticino 2019

Ticino director Fulvio Bernasconi's film tells the story of Mike, an Italian boxer who comes to Ticino to fight. The choice of the final duel is memorable, all to be revealed.

2010
Songs of Love and Hate
by Katalin Gödrös

Concorso internazionale, 2010

Shot by a Swiss-German team in Ticino and mainly in the vineyards of Novazzano in the Mendrisiotto area, this film by Katalin Gödrös takes us into the heart of a Ticino family and its ups and downs.

2012
Everybody Sometimes Falls
by Niccolò Castelli

Concorso Cineasti del presente, 2012

The first feature film of director Niccolò Castelli's sees a young generation moving through the streets at night in the suburbs and the city centre of Lugano. The film was supported by the Ticino Film Commission.

2014
La Sapienza
by Eugène Green

Concorso internazionale, 2014

The film tells the story of an architect who makes a journey in the footsteps of Francesco Borromini; he leaves from his birthplace in Bissone to arrive in Rome to contemplate his work La Sapienza.

2015
Vecchi Pazzi
by Sabine Boss

Panorama Suisse, 2015

Director Sabine Boss shot her film mainly in the residence "Al Parco" in Muralto. However, the film also shows places such as the Camellia Park, the cemeteries in Muralto and Locarno, the Grotto da Enzo in Ponte Brolla and Ligornetto.

2018
Cronofobia
by Francesco Rizzi

 

Panorama Suisse, 2019

This psychological drama by director Francesco Rizzi features several Ticino locations in the Mendrisiotto, Chiasso, Lugano and Leventina areas. Playing a leading role the town of Ambrì (Quinto, Leventina) with a thriller atmosphere as never seen before. The film was supported by the Ticino Film Commission.

2019
Love me Tender
by Klaudia Reynicke

Concorso Cineasti del presente, 2019

Klaudia Reynicke's film shows Seconda's journey to freedom. It was shot in Chiasso for the exteriors and in Lugano for the interior of the protagonist's self-prison flat. It was supported by the Ticino Film Commission.

Ticino Film Commission, PalaCinema Via F. Rusca 1, CP 20, 6601 Locarno
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