Locarno 2012: three Swiss films showing on Piazza Grande

Swiss filmmaking is represented in all of the sections at the 65th Locarno International Film Festival, which will be taking place from August 1 – 11, 2012. With regard to documentaries, there will even be two Helvetian films competing for the Golden Leopard: “The End Of Time“ by Canadian-Swiss Peter Mettler and “Image Problem“ by Simon Baumann and Andreas Pfiffner. The feature debut “Tutti Giù”, a Ticino production by Niccolò Castelli, has been nominated for “Cinéastes du présent”. On Piazza Grande, no less than three new Swiss films are scheduled to be shown: the latest films by star directors Christoph Schaub and Michael Steiner, “Nachtlärm” and “Das Missen Massaker”, and – as the concluding film – the documentary “More Than Honey” by doyen Markus Imhoof.

Swiss documentaries are convincing
In addition to the documentaries from Switzerland at the international competition and on Piazza Grande, the “Semaine de la Critique” will be showing Stefan Haupt’s film “Sagrada – El misteri de la creatiò” about Antoni Gaudi’s monumental building project. The festival will also be presenting a film about actor “Hannes 'Pussi' Schmidhauser“ by Victor J. Tognola and Fabrice Aragno’s portrait of filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard, which is part of the Swiss Television’s SRG SSR CINEMAsuisse series.

Short films by young talents at the “Pardi di domani”
Nine Swiss short films will be screened at the national competition of “Pardi di domani”. Among them are the comedy “L’amour bègue”, a graduate film from ECAL Lausanne by director Jan Czarlewski, whose film “L’ambassadeur & moi” won the “Pardino d’oro” last year. Eight further films – most of them feature films – will be celebrating their world release. Among them are “On The Beach” by Marie-Elsa Sgualdo and “Letzte Runde” by Kerstin Polte. Director and film programmer Isabelle Mayor and director Robin Harsch will be serving on the jury  dedicated to young talents.

Distinctive films at the “Appellations Suisse”
The film series “Appellations Suisse”, which is organised by SWISS FILMS, will be showing ten Swiss films that already played at the movies or attracted international attention, three short films, and one special screening. The highlights of this selection include the Swiss film “Sister” by Ursula Meier, which won an award in Berlin, the feature film “Summer Games” by Rolando Colla, which won three “Quartz 2012” prizes and "Opération Libertad" by Nicolas Wadimoff, which was well received in Cannes, as well a documentary popular with the public audience, “Die Kinder vom Napf”. On the occasion of a special screening by “Appellations Suisse”, the film festival will be honouring filmmaker Carole Roussolpoulos who died in 2009 by showing a film Emmanuelle de Riedmatten has dedicated to her.

Locarno / Zürich, July 11, 2012