Screen ræðir við Giona A Nazzaro, nýjan listrænan stjórnanda Locarno hátíðarinnar um stefnu hans og markmið með hátíðinni. Frumraun Hannesar Þórs Halldórssonar, Leynilögga, er meðal þeirra mynda sem frumsýndar verða á hátíðinni.
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“I’ve been working with my pleasure principle. I wasn’t trying to be over-intellectual, or smart, or cool. I was thinking, ‘Let’s have a good time’,” says Nazzaro.
“Locarno has a reputation for being a cutting edge, auteur-oriented festival, which is great,” he continues. “But I believe this idea can be embodied in another idea to regain a deeper relationship with the audience. We’ve tried to shape the festival as a place with different doors, offering different points of entry for different members of the audience without levelling down.”
This approach is likely to be appreciated by festivalgoers as they return to Locarno’s iconic open-air Piazza Grande for the first time in two years amid the challenges of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic that moved the festival mainly online in 2020. It has resulted in a central 17-title International Competition that juxtaposes Chinese writer/director Qiu Jiongjiong’s three-hour drama A New Old Play, exploring China’s 20th-century history through the perspective of street theatre, with Icelandic professional footballer and director Hannes Thor Halldorsson’s action picture Cop Secret, about two undercover policemen who fall in love on the job.
“It was a no-brainer,” says Nazzaro on programming the latter title. “When was the last time you saw an action movie hailing from Reykjavik about two gay policemen falling in love, directed by a man whose day job is being the goalkeeper for Iceland’s national soccer team?”
