The Future of Survival is a new initiative to explore at Locarno Film Festival the future of cinema. Made possible by the partnership between Locarno Film Festival and Università della Svizzera italiana – with the support of Swiss National Science Foundation, Swisscom, Mercator, Swissnex, and Harun Farocki Institute –, the project connects audiovisual innovation to social and environmental responsibility.
As part of its larger mission to discover and support new directions for cinema, the Festival offers an exciting environment to convene the world's prominent voices in film and media, serving as a platform to define the future of the field.

The initiative is held during the days of Locarno77 in parallel with The 2024 Cinema Audiovisual Futures Conference. Focused on the main theme of Cinematic Survival – elaborated through three modes of survival: Digital Survival, Social Survival, and Environmental Survival –, for three days from August 13 to 16 the Conference will host approximately 50 scholars, students, filmmakers, and artists, providing a place for the intersection of theory and practice. 
The Conference is the result of the ongoing collaboration between the Festival and USI, with the support of SNSF and Swisscom.

While the Conference is for invited specialists only, the Future of Survival project features three public evening events (from August 13 to 15) in which leading artists, thinkers, and audiovisual innovators bring the insights of the Conference to a wide audience. These encounters – curated by Professor Kevin B. Lee (USI) – are free and open to all, as part of the 2024 BaseCamp program.

What impact will this new era of videos have on journalism, social perceptions of reality, and our understanding of humanity?

The event will feature Paul Trillo as the keynote speaker, in conversation with Miriam de Rosa (Ca' Foscari University of Venice) and Richard Misek (University of Bergen).
Trillo will share his observations from his hands-on experiences, offer key practical insights for those still learning about generative AI, and preview his newest work, The Golden Record, an exploration of human history and civilization through the lens of the algorithm.

In collaboration with USI, Swiss National Science Foundation, and Swissnex

How can cinema respond to colonial legacies of extraction and violence? How can artists and activists use digital technology in ways that bring attention to questions of structural violence and histories of anticolonial struggle?

Featuring Suneil Sanzgiri as the main guest, in conversation with Greg de Cuir Jr. (Kinopravda Institute) and Devika Girish (Film Comment), the event will explore the themes of migration, deracination, and diaspora and the ways in which films, and especially the video essay, can travel across space and time, as social and visual journeys in the process of healing distances provoked by colonialism and violence.

In collaboration with USI and Swiss National Science Foundation

How can digital tools be employed by artists today in order to pay attention to and learn from material witnesses, and in particular, how do these tools create new forms of evidence in both image and sound? What is the role of the audiovisual in ensuring and creating environmental sustainability and how can cinematic practices allow us to see and hear wounds of environmental and social injustice present in the materials and spaces around us?

The main guest of the event will be Susan Schuppli, in conversation with Doreen Mende (Harun Farocki Institut) and Nora Alter (Temple University). Schuppli, through her lecture, will try to provide an answer to these questions.

In collaboration with USI, Swiss National Science Foundation, and Harun Farocki Institute