Locarno Film Festival Professor for the future of cinema and audiovisual arts

Always focused on innovation, the Locarno Film Festival welcomes the talents that reshape filmic language or experiment with different ways of storytelling. In recent years the Festival has gone beyond that longstanding commitment, extending its scope to include entirely new modalities of film viewing: a terrain that is still largely unexplored, especially as regards their place at film festivals and their appeal to younger audiences. 

To map this uncharted territory, the Festival joined with Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) to set up a new academic post, the “Locarno Film Festival Professor for the Future of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts”: combining teaching and research in academia with professional engagement on the festival circuit, the new chair develops reflections on the future of film events and the evolving audiovisual landscape, actively involving the younger generations in the local area.  

This role, born thanks to the joint action of the Festival and the Università della Svizzera italiana (USI), marks a new meeting point between the academic world and the reality of live events, essential to face an external context marked by profound changes. Through this pioneering experience, on the one hand, the development strategies of the Locarno Film Festival will be nourished, and on the other, both the research field and the didactic offerings of USI will be expanded. 

Kevin B. Lee, the first appointee to the chair from January 2022, mentors his USI students on a practical and theoretical journey around the contemporary phenomena that are shaping the future of cinema. From social media to digital technologies, from streaming platforms to virtual reality, to the new physical venues into which film is progressively expanding: museums, art galleries and urban spaces. 

Certain lessons and lectures will be posted online on this page, together with updates on future activities involving the Professorship.