Locarno Film Festival 2009: strong Swiss presence on the Piazza and in numerous sections

Filmmakers from several generations will participate in the festival’s competitions: the fiction film “Complices” by Frédéric Mermoud (Saga Production, Lausanne) will participate in the International Competition; and Richard Dindo’s documentary film “The Marsdreamers” will compete in the Filmmakers of the Present. The French-Swiss coproduction “Ivul” by British filmmaker Andrew Kötting will also compete in the Filmmakers of the Present. Jean-Marie Blanchard, former director of the Grand Théâtre de Genève, is a member of the international jury, while the actress Celine Bolomey (“Du bruit dans la tête”, Swiss Shooting Star in Berlin 2009) is a member of the jury in the short film competition of Leopards of Tomorrow.



Many facets of Swiss filmmaking, from all linguistic regions this year, will be presented in the Ici et ailleurs (Here and Elsewhere) programme, with two films celebrating their premieres: the documentary film “Dirty Paradise” by Daniel Schweizer (Dschoint Ventschr, Zurich); and the fiction film “Baba's Song” by Wolfgang Panzer (Vega Film, Zurich). Ruedi Gerber’s “Breath Made Visible” will be screened in the 20th Critic’s Week. Thirteen short films will participate in the Swiss competition of the Leopards of Tomorrow. A number of other Swiss short films will be featured in the Ici et ailleurs section, including “Custodi di Guerra” by Zijad Ibrahimovic and “So long no see” by Véronique Goël.



This year marks the 4th edition of the Swiss Film Day, a special programme which honours Swiss filmmaking. It is presented by the Federal Office of Culture, the Locarno International Film Festival and SWISS FILMS, and will be held this year on August 12, with the Centenary of Film Music as ist motto. A film music class will focus on the relationship between the composer and filmmaker. Using film excerpts, composers Fabian Römer and Marcel Vaid together with film directors Anno Saul and Oliver Paulus (“Tandoori Love”, screened in the Appellations Suisse section) will provide insight into this close collaboration. In a panel discussion (“Wer gibt eigentlich den Ton an?”), sponsors and recipients of sponsorship funds will discuss the topic of sponsoring the arts in times of financial crisis – with Beat Glur (moderation), Marco Solari (Festival President), Michael Steiner (filmmaker) and others. The films “Baba’s Song” and “La valle delle ombre” will celebrate their world premieres on this year’s Swiss Film Day.



SWISS FILMS, the national film promotion agency, will present five fiction films, five documentary films and the short animation film “Chrigi” in the Appellations Suisse series, which will open with the documentary film “From Somewhere to Nowhere” by Villi Hermann. This year’s audience favourite “Die Standesbeamtin” will also be screened, together with the documentary film “Geburt” by Silvia Haselbeck and Erich Langjahr, which has not yet had ist theatrical release, and the fiction film “Du bruit dans la tête“ by Vincent Pluss. The documentary film “Isa Hesse-Rabinovitch” by Anka Schmid will be complemented by three short films about the film’s protagonist. The eleven films in this series are characterised by originality and have shaped Switzerland’s cinematic landscape or attracted a great deal of attention at major international festivals.



Locarno / Zurich, 15 July 2009



Ciné-Portrait by Christoph Schaub, Richard Dindo, Villi Hermann, Erich Langjahr, Fredi M. Murer, Anka Schmid et Vincent Pluss:


Ciné-Portrait



Appellations Suisse



Journée du Cinéma Suisse