Locarno Film Festival

An ethnographic documentary film in three movements, along the lines of a symphony. The three movements reflect the three differing stages of development co-existing within the mountainous canton. In Göschenen, at the foot of the Gotthard, which straddles Europe’s North-South axis, industrialization took hold long ago, and the mountain farmers of old now work in offices and factories. In the Schächtental, however, the traditional family-centric mountain economy survives. Meanwhile, the village of Bristen in the Maderanertal is in the throes of upheaval: while the traditional farming communities still exist, nigh on 250 inhabitants leave the area daily to go to work or school.

A film that pays tribute to the history of cinema, via six episodes inspired by the different forms of cinematic art. Each episode has a genre. The first episode could be regarded as a B movie, the kind that Americans used to shoot with their eyes closed and now just can’t shoot anymore. The second episode is a sort of musical with a touch of mystery. The third episode is a spy movie. The fourth episode is difficult to describe. The fifth one is inspired by an old French film. The last one is about some captive women in the 19th century who return from the desert, from the Indians, after many years.

Casanova meets a new servant who will witness his last moments in life. From a Swiss castle with its gallant and libertine Eighteenth Century atmosphere, to his final days spent in poor and shadowy Northern lands. There, his rationalist way of thinking and frivolous and mundane world will succumb to and new, violent, occult and romantic force, represented by Dracula and his eternal power. Director Albert Serra combines enlightenment and superstition to create a dazzling conversation film.

Abu Shadi is a divorced father and a school teacher in his mid-60s living in Nazareth. After his daughter's wedding in one month he will be living alone. Shadi, his architect son, arrives from Rome after years abroad to help his father in hand delivering the wedding invitations to each guest as per local Palestinian custom. As the estranged pair spend the day together, the tense details of their relationship come to a head challenging their fragile and very different lives.

Resemblances can be unnerving. Such as the one between the viscount who went, puffing on his pipe, to the guillotine during the Terror, the army chaplain who has a brigand's tattoos on his chest and is a compulsive baptizer of soldiers, pillagers and rapists, the Parisian down-and-out left as flat as a pancake by an encounter with a steamroller, and, last but not least, the cultivated concierge—and occasional arms dealer—in an upscale building. Almost all the film's characters meet in that very building except, of course, the homeless, who are carted by the cops from pillar to post. Yet amid all this chaos, there are dream spaces, love stories and solid friendships that perhaps allow us to hope that tomorrow will be better than today.

In the middle of the Aegean Sea, on a luxury yacht, six men on a fishing trip decide to play a game. During this game, things will be compared, measured and blood will be tested. Friends will become rivals, but at the end of the voyage, when the game is over, the winner will wear the victorious signet ring: the "Chevalier".

Alfredo seems to lead the life of so many Ticinese families born in the valleys, who now only go back to their native village for the weekend. But Alfredo doesn’t longer experiences the journey as a form of escapism, but as an obsessive rite which is repeated over and over again. Alfredo has lost his own identity.

El Dorado, a fictional country. Paulo, a poetry-writing intellectual, oscillates between the political extremes. First he devotes himself to the right-wing conservative Diaz, until he sees through the latter’s pseudo-religious fascism. Then he takes the side of Vieira, the populist reformer who wants to free the country of its misery. But Paulo’s true love is for Sara, the communist who works for Vieira. Paulo is forced to realize that both are interested only in power, not in change, and that they are willing to use any means to achieve their end. Disappointed and despairing, he sets off on his own path as a revolutionary, a path on which Sara is no longer able to follow him. He is shot and dies a lonely death, with a gun in his hand, sending a signal for others to take up arms. The lasting relevance of this masterpiece lies in the scene of long agony before Paulo dies. Sara calls out the question to him, “What does your death prove?” And he answers, “The victory of beauty and justice!” Glauber Rocha trusts in culture’s power of survival and connects it with the necessary struggle for social justice.

The film portrays three couples on the eve of Nouruz, the Iranian New Year. Rouhi, a young woman who is about to get married, takes a small job as a cleaner in an apartment in northern Tehran to finance her marriage. When she arrives in that apartment, she finds herself in a heated dispute between Mojdeh and Morteza. Mojdeh suspects her husband Morteza of cheating on her and her neighbour Simin, and obliges Rouhi to shadow them. Rouhi gets more and more between the fronts of the fighting couple.

While working on a story in the border area, a young journalist discovers a divided town bisected by a river which is also the national frontier. He observes a surreal wedding in which the bride and her family stand on one shore and the groom and his relatives on the other, lost under a cold sky: figure in a landscape who only delude themselves that they are masters of the earth and their destiny The town, a remote ghost town, almost forgotten at the end of the world, has been named «waiting room» by the locals because most of its inhabitants are refugees from different countries many of whom have crossed the border illegally at some time or other and are now waiting for their turn to leave and start life anew «somewhere else.» In the course of his investigation he also comes upon an aging, reclusive refugee, who lives there cultivating a field. But the young journalist believes he is a famous Greek politician who disappeared years before, leaving behind him many unanswered questions. The man's identity is never resolved but the hapless refugees and divided village allow the reporter to understand his despair over the human condition. Theo Angelopoulos weaves yet another poetical allegory on the great open questions of our turbulent age. The film is very contemporary in its treatment of borders, refugees and a changing world since the fall of communism in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. «Being a refugee is an internal condition more than an external one, says one of the characters in the film. And later on he also says, «We've passed the borders but we're still here. How many frontiers do we have to pass to get home?» Do politicians really care? Does anyone? Finally, there is the image of the stranger standing on the bridge poised over the dividing line between the two countries. He has one leg suspended in mid air, like a stork. «If I take one more step I am... somewhere else, or... I die.»

“Höhenfeuer” is both a story of childhood and of a love affair: The deaf-born “Bub” and his sister “Belli” live with their parents on a remote farm in the mountains. The father intentionally resists the modern age: “I'd rather beat him to death than put him in a home”. After school Belli is not only a servant in her own home but also her younger brother's teacher. From early childhood, they have been an inseparable pair. They love one another. “Holy Mother of God, what sort of children have I?” wails the resigned mother, when the two children do things that are not “normal”. This is just the beginning of the story… Had the film been made 100 years ago – it would have been a saga.

An ageing father waits, in vain, at the bus stop for his son Raghu, a student at the University of Trivandrum, who is supposed to be coming home for the holidays. The elderly Chakyar’s eager happiness slowly turns to disappointment and then anxiety. After several days with no news of Raghu, his family learn that the police have arrested him for singing revolutionary songs at the university’s annual fête. Chakyar goes to the capital, hoping to find support from the Minister of Internal Affairs, and is soon joined by his daughter, who does not, however, share his optimism. When it becomes clear that Raghu cannot escape a jail sentence, the old man gradually loses his reason … In Piravi, Shaji N. Karun denounces not only the corruption that exists within the establishment, but also focuses on the impotence of the individual in the face of an oppressive system. By keeping Raghu off-screen, the director conveys a sense of absence and uncertainty with a rare intensity.

Three people live in a remote Buddhist monastery near Mount Chonan: Hyegok, the old master; Yong Nan, a young man who has left his extended family in the city to seek enlightenment, and an orphan lad Haejin, whom Hyegok has brought to the monastery to raise as a monk. The story is mostly Yong Nan's, told in flashbacks: how he came to the monastery, his brief return to the city, his vacillation between the turbulence of the world and his hope to overcome passions and escape the idea of self. We also see Hyegok as a teacher, a protector, and a father figure, and we watch Haejin make his way as a curious and nearly self-sufficient child.

«Francofonia» by Alexander Sokurow is the story of two remarkable men, Louvre director Jacques Jaujard and Nazi Occupation officer Count Wolff-Metternich - enemies then collaborators - whose alliance would be the driving force behind the preservation of museum treasures. «Francofonia» explores the relationship between art and power, the Louvre museum as a living example of civilization, and what art tells us about ourselves even in the midst of one of the bloodiest conflicts the world has ever seen.

They call him "Svet-ake" ("Mr. Light"). The electrician is responsible for bringing more than just light to the people around him. Like moths, everybody is drawn to his kindness: those with short circuits in their electricity, and those with short circuits in their marriage, those who have taken all the power in the city, and those who have given up the will to live. He helps everyone and is everywhere. He doesn't even shy from breaking the law, rewinding an old and lonely pensioner's electricity meter so that he doesn't owe the State, but rather the State owes him. The economic devastation of the country has had an enormous impact on the working people and yet despite the upheaval they have not lost the ability to love, to suffer, to share their lives with friends, and enjoy what they have... in particular our resilient electrician who possesses a wonderful and open heart. He not only brings electric light (which is often out) to the lives of the inhabitants of this village, but he also spreads the light of love, loyalty, life, and most of all, lots of laughter. He only has two dreams: to someday have a son and to provide people with cheaper energy through wind power. Allen nennen ihn nur Svet-Ake (Herr Licht). Er ist der Elektriker des Orts, aber für viel mehr als nur für den Strom zuständig. Die Leute rufen den hilfsbereiten Mann zur Lösung der unterschiedlichsten Probleme, angefangen beim elektrischen Kurzschluss bis hin zum Beziehungskurzschluss. Egal, ob es die sind, die die ganze Energie einer Stadt kontrollieren wollen, oder jene, denen die Energie zum Leben fehlt: Svet-Ake ist immer zur Stelle mit praktischer Hilfe und Rat, auch wenn er manchmal das Gesetz zurechtbiegen muss. Da wird aus schierem Mitleid auch mal ein Stromzähler rückwärts eingestellt, so dass der bedürftige Benutzer statt der hohen Stromrechnung eine Gutschrift vom Elektrizitätswerk ausbezahlt bekommt. Doch Gutherzigkeit wird in einem Land, das mitten im politischen Umbruch steckt, nicht automatisch belohnt. Aktan Arym Kubat beschreibt in «Svet-Ake» auf vergnüglich lockere Art den Alltag im unabhängig gewordenen Kirgisistan und zeigt, indem er die Hauptrolle gleich selber spielt, dass die Menschen auch lernen müssen, mit der Freiheit umzugehen. The country is the midst of a revolution. Power lies in the hands of greed-driven people, obsessed with their personal enrichment. "Svet-ake" is a resistance against this dark madness. He who brings the light, takes it away, leaving the darkness in the dark. Only the light of the dream remains glowing in the night; a candle of a very delicate hope.

Although sixteen-year-old Peter would rather lie by the swimming pool watching girls, he instead has to monitor customers in a supermarket to make sure they don't steal anything. He has problems at work, for example when he sees a suspicious customer in a supermarket but doesn't dare to talk to him. At home, he constantly receives teachings from his pedantic father; his girlfriend has laid eyes on someone else. With amateur actors and Jan Nemecek's poetic camera work, young Miloš Forman captures the authenticity of ordinary summer days in a small Czech town in the early 1960s. At the same time he expresses the feelings of awakening rebellion in the youth of the Eastern Bloc, just a few years before the Prague Spring. A seismographic film and a strong contemporary document.

During World War II, Antonio (Nino Manfredi), Gianni (Vittorio Gassman) and Nicola (Stefania Sandrelli) are activists fighting for Italy's liberation from Nazi occupation. When the war ends and their ideals must change, the three men take different life paths. Antonio and Nicola incorporate their beliefs into adulthood, whereas Gianni takes a more affluent job as a lawyer's assistant. When the group reunites after several decades, their discourse unearths hostility and unsettling realizations.