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The final selection of titles that from 5 to 15 August will compete in the short films section Pardi di domani has been announced. During the special edition Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films, the shorts will be available for viewing online throughout Switzerland and the rest of the world, with theatrical screenings in Locarno and Muralto. Twelve titles will be in the national competition, while the other thirty-one will compete for the international awards. Judging the entries – and awarding the Pardino d’oro and Pardino d’argento – will be the international jury made up of Kiri Dalena, Mamadou Dia and Claudette Godfrey.
After careful consideration of more than 2,200 entries, the Pardi di domani selection committee – current members Tizian Büchi, Liz Harkman, Stefan Ivančić and Head of selection commitee Charlotte Corchète – picked out the 43 short subjects which will be competing for the 2020 Pardino d’oro and Pardino d’argento. The final line-up includes emerging filmmakers from 34 countries around the world: from the USA to the Philippines, from Finland to the Democratic Republic of Congo, via Switzerland of course. The short films selected involve extreme variations of genre, subject matter and aesthetic, shaping a multi-faceted sample of auteur filmmaking.
The selection
The directors selected include a number of names already featured at the Locarno Film Festival, such as Sorayos Prapapan, a Competition entrant last year; Renee Zhan, who presented her films in 2016 and 2018; Octav Chelaru, one of the Pardi di domani in 2017; Gunhild Enger and Jacqueline Lentzou, who took part in the section in 2016. Others making a welcome return include Mahde Hasan, Linh Duong and Phạm Ngọc Lân, young directors discovered at Locarno in recent years thanks to the exploratory gaze of Open Doors in South-East Asia, and now graduating to the international competition. Other names already familiar to festival-goers are Zhannat Alshanova, a key player in the workshop for L’immagine e la parola led by Béla Tarr in 2019, and Hamza Bangash, who took part in Open Doors with his film Dia in 2018, joined the Locarno Filmmakers Academy in 2019 and in 2020 was the winner at the first ever Locarno Shorts Weeks.
The full line-up in the two Pardi di domani competitions is as follows:
International competition:
1978, by Hamza Bangash – Pakistan – 2020
An Act of Affection, by Viet Vu – Portugal/Vietnam – 2020
Aninsri daeng (Red Aninsri; Or, Tiptoeing on the Still Trembling Berlin Wall), by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke – Thailand – 2020
Bethlehem 2001, by Ibrahim Handal – Palestine – 2020
Digital Funeral: Beta Version, by Sorayos Prapapan – Thailand – 2020
Ekti ekgheye film (A Boring Film), by Mahde Hasan – Bangladesh – 2020
Fish Bowl, by Ngabo Emmanuel – Rwanda – 2020
Giòng sông không nhìn thấy (The Unseen River), by Phạm Ngọc Lân – Vietnam/Laos – 2020
Gramercy, by Pat Heywood and Jamil McGinnis – USA – 2019
Here, Here, by Joanne Cesario – Philippines – 2019
History of Civilization, by Zhannat Alshanova – Kazakhstan – 2020
I ran from it and was still in it, by Darol Olu Kae – USA – 2020
Icemeltland Park, by Liliana Colombo – Italy/United Kingdom – 2020
Kako sam pobedio lepak i bronzu (How I Beat Glue and Bronze), by Vladimir Vulević – Germany/Serbia – 2020
Life on the Horn, by Mo Harawe – Somalia/Austria/Germany – 2020
Memby, by Rafael Castanheira Parrode – Brazil – 2020
Nour (Noor), by Rim Nakhli – Tunisia – 2020
O Black Hole!, by Renee Zhan – United Kingdom – 2020
Pacífico Oscuro, by Camila Beltrán – France/Colombia – 2020
Parcelles S7 (Land Lot S7), by Abtin Sarabi – Senegal/Iran/France – 2020
Play Schengen, by Gunhild Enger – Norway – 2020
Retour à Toyama (Return to Toyama), by Atsushi Hirai – France/Japan – 2020
Spotted Yellow (Zarde khaldar), by Baran Sarmad – Iran – 2020
Statul Paralel (The Parallel State), by Octav Chelaru – Romania 2019
Szünet (Break), by Levente Kölcsey – Hungary – 2020
Ta cong an chu lai (Cloud of the Unknown), by Gao Yuan – China – 2020
The Chicken, by Neo Sora – USA – 2020
The End of Suffering (A Proposal), by Jacqueline Lentzou – Greece – 2020
Thiên đường gọi tên (A Trip to Heaven), by Linh Duong – Vietnam/Singapore – 2020
Thoughts on the Purpose of Friendship, by Charlie Hillhouse – Australia – 2020
Where to Land, by Sawandi Groskind – Finland – 2020
Swiss competition:
Bugs, by David Shongo – Democratic Republic of the Congo/Switzerland – 2019
Ecorce (Peel), by Samuel Patthey and Silvain Monney – Switzerland – 2020
Espiritos e Rochas: um Mito Açoriano (Spirits and Rocks: an Azorean Myth), by Aylin Gökmen – Switzerland/Portugal/Belgium/Hungary – 2020
Grigio. Terra bruciata (Burnt. Land of Fire), by Ben Donateo – Switzerland/Italy – 2020
Lachsmänner (Salmon Men), by Veronica L. Montaño, Manuela Leuenberger and Joel Hofmann – Switzerland – 2020
Megamall, by Aline Schoch – Switzerland – 2020
Menschen am Samstag (People on Saturday), by Jonas Ulrich – Switzerland – 2020
Nha Mila, by Denise Fernandes – Portugal/Switzerland – 2020
Push This Button If You Begin To Panic, by Gabriel Böhmer – United Kingdom/Switzerland – 2020
The De Facto Martyr Suite, by Justine de Gasquet – Switzerland – 2020
Trou Noir (Black Hole), by Tristan Aymon – Switzerland – 2020
Um Tordo Batendo As Asas Contra o Vento (A Thrush Flapping Its Wings Against the Wind), by Alexandre Haldemann – Switzerland – 2020
The jury
The three jury members have themselves all turned the short format to their own purposes of artistic expression and analysis. Filipino visual artist, film and documentary maker Kiri Dalena is also a human rights activist and co-founder of the collective Southern Tagalog Exposure. Senegalese writer and director Mamadou Dia attracted international notice with his two short films Samedi Cinema (2016) and Lost in Transit (2018). In 2019 he won the Swatch First Feature Award and Cineasti del presente Pardo d'oro with his first full-length feature Baamum Nafi (Nafi’s Father). Lastly, Claudette Godfrey is Senior Programmer at the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas, where her special focus is selecting short films.
The prizes
The following four Pardini prizes are to be awarded:
The following additional prizes will also be awarded:
The Jury Cinema&Gioventù (Junior Jury) awards the following prizes:
Padrini&Madrine
Padrini&Madrine is a new project from the Locarno Film Festival, conceived specially for the online edition Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films. Fourteen international filmmakers have been invited to take part in the experience and act as “godfathers/mothers”: fostering upcoming talents in the new generation of cinema by giving them the chance to network and discuss their own output with established directors. Each of the mentors will engage in a conversation with the selected short filmmakers, critiquing their work, fielding questions and exchanging ideas and points of view on directing practice. These moments of sharing and exchange will be filmed and made available online for the audience during the Locarno Film Festival. The project’s objective is to provide a platform for emerging auteurs while giving the public an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of the established filmmakers’ work.
The personalities chosen to be the Padrini&Madrine are directors already known to the Festival public for their previous appearances at Locarno to present their films. The full list includes:
Safia Benhaim, Benjamin Crotty, Sergio Da Costa and Maya Kosa, Cherien Dabis, Ted Fendt, Annemarie Jacir, Bouchra Khalili, Dane Komljen, Luis López Carrasco, Damien Manivel, Valérie Massadian, João Pedro Rodrigues and Angela Schanelec.
Further details on the encounters between filmmakers and the fledgling directors of Pardi di domani will be announced on the Festival website, which will also be the platform for viewing their conversations online, from 5 to 15 August.
The program
During Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films (5-15 August) the Pardi di domani international competition will reach out to audiences worldwide thanks to the unprecedented free online programming available on the Locarno Film Festival website. Almost all titles in the Swiss selection, on the other hand, will be available for viewing only in Switzerland. For each of these films a maximum of 1,590 online viewers will be guaranteed, equivalent to the total number of physical spectators who can watch the screenings of short films at Locarno each year. These free virtual admissions will have to be reserved on the Festival website at least 24 hours in advance of the actual screening online and will be available from the end of July.
Alongside this completely new mode of viewing, there will still be classic theatrical screenings, again from 5 through 15 August, with premieres at the PalaCinema in Locarno and PalaVideo in Muralto, with repeats on the following days.
To learn more about obtaining tickets and the conditions for safe viewing of physical screenings, visit www.locarnofestival.ch.