Locarno 2005

Critics Prize: "A Perfect Day"

Irene Bignardi's last festival. The Italian critic who headed the event for five years, returns to Rome (and the editorial staff of the daily La Repubblica). An era ends. Irene Bignardi has made Locarno one of the leading events – if not the leading – taking care of and being curios for worldwide independent cinema, including Third World cinemas. With an admirable enthusiasm, she engaged herself for films which she liked and loved (among others, she adored the cinemas of India). She was also attentive to the history of cinema — at her last edition, she dedicated a retrospective to Orson Welles. Ciao Irene. (k.e.)
At the end of the festival, Irene Bignardi's successor has been appointed: the Swiss film journalist and director Frédéric Maire ()
The Prize of the Critics went to the second feature by directors Joana Hadjithomas and Khalil Joreige (France-Lebanon-Germany, 2005). Details

A Perfect Day. Ruth Pombo reviews our prize-winner, the story of "a family and a city both wounded by the consequences of war, the city being Beirut where the scars of a terrible and recent war in Lebanon are still visible everywhere".
A Male Fantasy by a Young Woman Filmmaker. Claudia Lenssen is disappointed by Keller — Teenage Wasteland, "one of the worst choices of this year's unconvincing competition program".
Unglamorous Life on the Riviera. Marcel Martin welcomes a French film, Riviera, with "intellectual ambition', which differs from the usual psychological dramas of the petit-bourgeois, by dealing with aspects of the class war".
Finally Quebec. André Roy is thankful that the Locarno Film Festival has finally made amends by selecting two (good) films from Quebec in the main competition and another in the video competition, after years of neglect.
A New Director. The 43-year-old Swiss Frédéric Maire is the new director of the Locarno International Film Festival. He follows the Italian Irene Bignardi, who resigned after five years. Our Swiss colleague Christian Jungen explores the future of the festival after Irene Bignardi.

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