Locarno Head Giona A. Nazzaro On Embracing The “Diverse World” With Shah Rukh Khan Honor And Remaining Competitive On The Festival Calendar

Zac Ntim
·5-min read

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival returns this week with what is perhaps the strongest lineup festival director Giona A. Nazzaro has conjured up during his short but impactful four-year tenure. Across the festival’s official competitions, you can find new works by arthouse leaders like Hong Sang-soo, Wang Bing, Radu Jude, and Ben Rivers — all world premieres. Hollywood will also be present on the Piazza Grande with an expansive retrospective titled The Lady with the Torch set to be mounted at the fest to celebrate the centennial of Columbia Pictures.

Neapolitan filmmaker Gianluca Jodice’s latest feature The Flood, a historical drama about the last days of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s reign opens the festival on August 7. The film stars Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet, who will be handed one of the festival’s career achievement awards. The festival will also honor Jane Campion, Shah Rukh Khan, Alfonso Cuarón, and producer Stacey Sher.

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Below, Nazzaro digs into this year’s edition, discussing why it was important to embrace the “diverse world” and honor Shah Rukh Khan, how Locarno continues to remain competitive between Cannes and Venice on the festival calendar, and the one unknown competition title he believes audiences should keep an eye out for.

The Locarno Film Festival runs from August 7 — 17.

DEADLINE: How strong was this year’s crop of submissions? There is a lot of chatter around that last year’s strikes are still affecting the films on offer.

GIONA A. NAZZARO: It was a challenging year because we received an incredible amount of films. We even added to our selection team to make sure we didn’t miss any. I had the feeling we were working even more than usual.

DEADLINE: Do you usually feel you miss a lot of films during the submission process?

NAZZARO: No, I just wanted to lift some of the heavy load from the shoulders of the selection committee and have a conversation that was even stronger than in the past.

DEADLINE: Tell me about the opening film. Why The Flood?

NAZZARO: We picked The Flood (Le Déluge) for opening night because it’s a very contemporary film. Usually, when you see wigs and costumes, you place the film in the historical context. But this is a very precise film that asks what happens when history comes knocking at your door but you don’t recognize it. Given everything that is going on, this is a film I believe could address different conversations without putting premanufactured answers in your pocket.

DEADLINE: Giona, this is your fourth year at the helm. Your programming has been very intentional. What effect do you think that has had on Locarno’s core local audience? Are you seeing changes?

NAZZARO: Locarno is very local in the very best sense of the word. We are rooted in the city. My obvious goal is to have a very ambitious festival with strong films. At the same time, I don’t want a festival where the rooms are empty because only the cool crowd shows up. So it is very important that the new film by Hong Sang-soo is experienced by the greatest audience possible. It’s our job to convey that Hong Sang-soo is an important filmmaker because if we don’t do that, then we haven’t done a good job. So the question is really how do you bring important films to the largest audience possible? To answer your question, the work we have been doing has been perceived by the audience. There is no longer suspicion from the audience where they don’t show up because they fell they haven’t been invited.

DEADLINE: So, in a way, do you see your job as raising the cinema literacy of audiences?

NAZZARO: What I really want to do is to raise the bar of curiosity and the possibilities of pleasure. Because ultimately, it’s about pleasure. Even a very intellectual experience is linked to pleasure. For me, as a cinephile, watching the new film by Ben Rivers is an experience of pleasure. I don’t go in thinking this will be extremely intellectual. It’s about pleasure in the same way as a film by Howard Hawks. It is important to bring together as many different approaches to cinema and still be able to experience that as cinema. I hope that doesn’t sound naive.

DEADLINE: With so much changing across the film industry, where do you see Locarno’s current position in the ecosystem?

NAZZARO: Locarno is placed between two major festivals. You always need to exist in that space and try to strengthen your position. On the other hand, you try to face the contemporary challenges that the whole audiovisual sector faces today. Locarno is in a good place to do this because it relies on an audience. So if we do a good job, we won’t lose our audience. On the other hand, the whole industry is changing at a very high rate. I’m quite conscious that things will never go back to a so-called ‘new normal’ or what we considered normal in 2017 or 2018. It will never happen simply because the whole landscape is fluctuating. This is why our job is important. We need to make sure that the so-called independent filmmakers do not vanish from the conversation simply because they are believed to be weak commercially and economically.

DEADLINE: Talk me through the Shah Rukh Khan decision. Why is it important to honor him at a festival like Locarno?

NAZZARO: Shah Rukh Khan has been a dream for many years. An opportunity opened to get him and we pursued for around two years. The idea is very simple. This is a very diverse world. It’s not Western or Eurocentric. There are so many people out there. And quite honestly, it goes back to pleasure. I also want to engage personally with other people’s pleasure. The first time I met Shah Rukh Khan was at Venice when Aśoka was presented. I didn’t know who this wonderful actor was, but the film felt immediately familiar. The way Shah Rukh Khan played his role reminded me of the very young Vittorio Gassman or some of the actors who would come to Rome to play mythological heroes. His flair carried the essence of cinema’s origins. There is not a single bone of cynicism in the way Shah Rukh Khan has structured his career and built his relationship with his fan base to become a global star.

DEADLINE: Are there any titles from new voices that audiences should be keeping their eye on?

NAZZARO: From the main competition, I would definitely suggest you keep a watchful eye on Toxic,   a debut feature from a female director.

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