The 76th International Film Festival ended in Locarno

The 76th International Film Festival ended in Locarno. The “Golden Leopard” prize in the main competition was awarded to the Iranian film “The Critical Zone” by Ali Ahmadzade, the special jury prize went to the Romanian Radu Jude for the film “Don’t Expect Too Much from the End of the World”. Comments on the results of the festival Andrey Plakhov.

In fact, Radu Jude’s film about the end of the world was the clear artistic leader of the competition and deserved the main award in all respects. Against the backdrop of the exhaustion of the energy of the Romanian new wave, this director is the only one who demonstrates fresh ideas and the search for a new language. His film I Don’t Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians appeared five years ago and predicted much of what is happening in the world today. Two years ago, his Crazy Adult Movie, about sex, internet terror and the pandemic, blew up the Berlin Festival and brought the director the Golden Bear.

Judet’s new painting captures the phobias and frustrations of the “new Europe”, essentially becoming a colony of rich countries. In parallel, the objects of sarcasm are many forbidden areas, fenced with a palisade of political correctness. Judet, following the fearless strategy of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, satirically plays with such acute topics of today as national populism, discrimination against gypsies, and even the Ukrainian crisis that turned the world upside down.

It is surprising that a wonderful Romanian film was not selected (but was clearly proposed) in the program of the upcoming Venice Film Festival. But, accepting the second most important award on stage in Locarno, Jude did not look offended at all. He uttered an ode to the Swiss and noticed that the two directors who became role models for him were both from this country: Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Tanner (the first of them, by the way, also received an ironic remark in the film).

As for the main award, the jury led by actor Lambert Wilson unanimously awarded it to the Iranian film Critical Zone, and this was entirely in line with the general mood of the festival, as well as its tradition of supporting alternative independent cinema from troubled countries.

Back in 1997, the film “Mirror” by Jafar Panahi won here – one of the first signals of Iranian protest feminism. At that time, the principle of voluntary self-censorship, adopted by local filmmakers after the bloody Islamic revolution, worked: do not show violence and other dark sides of life, focus on a positive picture of the world. For quite a long time, this strategy, adopted by talented people, worked and brought international recognition to Iranian cinema. The heroes of those films were most often children, in addition, they contained a self-reflection of the role of cinema in the life of society. Masterfully shot, aesthetically refined, they attracted with their humanism and, in a sense, inherited the image of Soviet cinema.

But the further, the more cinema came into conflict with the Iranian regime, faced censorship barriers and repression. Humanist pictures in neo-realist style began to seem unbearably false. The famous director Mohsen Makhmalbaf fled the country, Panahi has been restricted in his rights for many years and deprived of the opportunity to work legally.

It is in this context that Ahmadzade’s painting should be considered. It was filmed without the sanction of the state, shows the forbidden zone – the life of the outcasts of Tehran, seeking oblivion in drug addiction. The very existence of an alternative reality and subculture documented by the camera is a challenge to the authorities, suppressing even hints of an opposition movement. No wonder the article about this picture in the festival magazine is called “Before the Revolution” – as a film manifesto by Bernardo Bertolucci, filmed in anticipation of 1968.

The prize for the best director went to the Ukrainian Marina Like, who presented the film “Steppe”. Actor’s “Leopard” undoubtedly deserved the Greek Dimitra Vlagopulu, who played temperamentally in the film “Animal”. She shared it with another great actress – Dutch René Southendijk (film “Sweet Dreams”). The jury did not have enough awards for such bright, extravagant opuses as Lava Diaz’s Fundamental Truths of the Lake and Quentin Dupyeux’s Yannick. But this only testified to the good level of the competition: this is far from being held every year in Locarno.

In parallel, the second competition – “Directors of today” was held here. It also had interesting works, but the cute but not outstanding film “I Dream and Die” by Nelson Yeoh (Singapore-Indonesia) came to the fore. An elderly woman, married to a classmate, dreams of their mutual friend and sees him in the form of an amphibian man with a fish tail. Perhaps the politically loaded and too serious films tired the jury, and Yeoh’s uncomplicated picture got two prizes at once – the Golden Leopard of the second competition and the Swatch award for best directorial debut.

And the public prize, awarded on the basis of the results of the gala screenings in Piazza Grande, was taken away by 87-year-old Ken Loach for the social drama “Old Oak” – about Welsh miners and Syrian refugees. The British veteran managed to turn even such a plot into a fascinating spectacle. And some middle-aged viewers remembered how, twenty-five years ago, Loach invited the entire Piazza Grande audience of many thousands to a reception at the Grand Hotel, and the youth, sitting long after midnight on the steps of the main staircase, listened to the prophecies of the humanist guru about what awaits their generation in the 21st century.