Locarno Critics Week: Celtic Utopia by Dennis Harvey and Lars Loven
Folk music has held a deeply ambivalent place within Irish culture over the last 100 years, since the end of British colonial rule. As Dennis Harvey and Lars Loven point out early on in their feature doc Celtic Utopia (a world premiere in Locarno’s critics' week), it has come to "incarnate the contradictions of the island: rebellion, conservative Catholicism, nostalgia for a future unrealised.” The directors get musical with BDE.
Locarno Kids Screening: Fantastique by Marjolijn Prins
Guinean teenager Fanta is the acrobatic star of Marjolijn Prins’ feature debut, which world-premieres August 11 in Locarno Kids Screenings. Produced by Ellen De Waele and Mirna Everhard of Serendipity Films (Belgium), the film follows the girl as she seeks a place, together with her best friend Makhissa, within the world-renowned Amoukanama Circus. “Fanta’s discipline, openness, and drive to become an acrobat stood out immediately,” the director observes. “As I spent time with her, I saw the potential for a nuanced film about empowerment.”
Locarno Critics Week: Green Light by Pavel Cuzuioc
German neuropsychiatrist Dr Johann Spittler, a man who seems both wise and compassionate, bears an enormous responsibility in assessing the decision-making capacity of individuals seeking assisted suicide. As a qualified doctor, he can also assist in their subsequent passing which, as we see in Pavel Cuzuioc’s Green Light, can be highly problematic. “[But] I'm convinced that this right of getting assisted is something every person should have,” Cuzuioc tells BDE before the film’s world premiere in Locarno. “It's not the state - or the law - that should forbid you that.”
Exclusive preview: Parsifal Reparato’s She, selected for Locarno Critics Week
Sold internationally by CAT&Docs, the feature documentary She gives voice to some of the 80,000 workers in one of the largest electronic industrial plants based in Vietnam, where 80% of the basic workforce are women who work 12-hour shifts, day and night. All protagonists are connected by the exploitation they are subjected to every day. Italian distribution rights are held by AntropicA and PFA Films, while Les Films de l’oeuil sauvage will distribute the film in France.
