The 76th Locarno Film Festival closes with a decidedly positive balance sheet, thanks to a 14.3% increase in screening attendance over the previous year, which translated into numbers is 146.930 spectators. Attendance by industry professionals also grew by 31% and accredited attendees, including online attendees, totaled 4,639, including 1.530 film industry representatives and 783 journalists and photographers.
In the prize list, announced at the conclusion of the festival, in addition to the victory of Mantagheye bohrani (Critical Zone), a film by Ali Ahmadzadeh, we also see the presence of two films that passed through MIA:
Pardo for Best Director of the City and Region of Locarno to Maryna Vroda for Stepne, Ukraine/Germany/Poland/Slovakia screened in 2020 in the C EU Soon section;
Pardo for best performance to Dimitra Vlagopoulou for Animal by Sofia Exarchou, Greece/Austria/Romania/Cyprus/Bulgaria, which was selected at the Film coproduction market also in 2020.
Marco Solari, outgoing president of the festival, comments on this edition: “My goal before leaving this post was to make sure that the Festival had the strength to position itself, and place Switzerland, among the major cultural realities globally. The results obtained with this 76th edition, the result of an enormous team effort, confirm that Locarno is an increasingly strategic reality for the film industry, and this can only benefit the local and national territory.”
Photo Credits: Pxhere
