Israel, Gaza, Iraq, Lebanon, Korea: Political and Dystopian Films in the Locarno Spotlight
As such, its 78th edition will present 'cinema that unfolds while the world is undergoing violent upheavals, while we witness — in real time — horrors that we had only read about in history books or studied in archival footage,' as artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro put it in unveiling this year's lineup.
More from The Hollywood Reporter
Writer Steven Knight Teases His Plans for Amazon's James Bond: "Better, Stronger and Bolder"
British Tough Guy Ray Winstone to Receive Sarajevo Festival Award
Gus Van Sant to Receive Venice Fest's Passion for Film Award
Indeed, political movies or ones likely to cause political debate or are a prominent part of the Locarno78 program. Audiences will find dystopian films, documentaries, and experimental fare that is likely to be cause for reflection.
Israel, Gaza and Lebanon are among the places represented on Locarno screens. The two Koreas, Iraq's nuclear ambitions, and climate change are also being dissected cinematically in the various sections of the fest.
Kicking off the fest on Wednesday is Tamara Stepanyan's In the Land of Arto, starring Camille Cottin and Zar Amir Ebrahimi, which dives into Armenia and the war traumas its people deal with. Iranian dissident auteur Jafar Panahi's Cannes winner It Was Just an Accident also dissects trauma — and vengeance. Plus, fans of Romanian provocateur Radu Jude can expect his Dracula to ruffle some feathers.
Here is THR's look at some of the other Locarno 2025 feature-length films with political or dystopian undertones.
Tales of the Wounded LandDirector: Abbas FahdelCountry of production: LebanonFestival section: International Competition
'Intimate chronicles of the war that devastated southern Lebanon for a year and a half, this film captures the everyday lives of those left behind in the scorched land, as a wounded community struggles to rebuild and find a semblance of peace.'
The description for this documentary hints at such themes as loss, displacement and the attempt to preserve dignity amid destruction.
Explains Fahdel in a director's statement: 'My film was born from the need to bear witness to a war that shattered our lives and homes, and to show how, despite everything, resilience and humanity continue to flourish amid the ruins.'
Some Notes on the Current SituationDirector: Eran KolirinCountry of production: IsraelFestival section: Out of Competition
'A philosophical tragicomedy about space, time, cinema and wars, composed of six episodes, all together forming an absurdist footnote.' This is how Israeli filmmaker Kolirin's new movie is described.
Starring third-year acting students, Kolirin (The Band's Visit, Let It Be Morning) tells seemingly absurd stories to offer reflections on Israel amid the conflict in Gaza.
Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro, who lauds Kolirin as 'an extremely outspoken' filmmaker, highlights: 'That is not a film about Gaza. It's really a film about the Israeli and Jewish Zionist identity. … And it's terribly prophetic in a way.'
With Hasan in GazaDirector: Kamal AljafariCountries of production: Palestine, Germany, France, QatarFestival section: International Competition
'This is my first film, which I have never made,' Palestinian filmmaker Aljafari (A Fidai Film, Recollection) says about his new, but also old, movie. And he calls it 'an homage to Gaza and its people, to all that was erased and that came back to me in this urgent moment of Palestinian existence, or non-existence. It is a film about the catastrophe, and the poetry that resists.'
A synopsis explains that three Mini-DV tapes of 'life in Gaza from 2001 were recently rediscovered.' What started as a search for a former prison mate from 1989 has become a documentary about an unexpected journey through the Gaza Strip, accompanied by local guide Hasan. A trailer for the film has just been released.
Nazzaro told THR: 'It's a film that was supposed to be Kamal Aljafari's first film, when he was looking for a friend in Gaza, around the early years of the 2000s, when the so-called largest open-air prison in the world was creating the preconditions of the unspeakable tragedy that we are witnessing today. And the reason why we picked that film as programmers was that we see a filmmaker who, while he thinks he's making something, he's actually creating his very own archive of himself, his family, his land, his homeland, and so on.'The FinDirector: Syeyoung ParkCountries of production: South Korea, Germany, QatarFestival section: Filmmakers of the Present
If you like dystopian genre films or love exploring young South Korean voices, The Fin could be for you.
Here's what to expect: In a post-war, ecologically devastated unified Korea, mutated outcasts called Omegas are exploited as cheap labor. A newly recruited government worker becomes suspicious of an Omega, but then begins to question her once unshakable faith in the state's ideology.
Korean singer Pureum Kim and Pachinko actress Yeji Yeon star in the movie, which 'explores the contagion of fear and the making of myths,' as its young filmmaker explains.
The DealDirector: Jean-Stéphane BronCountries of production: Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, BelgiumFestival section: Out of Competition
Bron is pulling double duty in Locarno's 2025 out-of-competition lineup. His Le Chantier, about the renovation of a legendary cinema, led by architect Renzo Piano, 'paints a portrait of a miniature society,' a synopsis says.
In contrast, The Deal is a geopolitical drama series that takes viewers behind the scenes of the 2015 nuclear negotiations between the U.S. and Iran in Switzerland. It has already won Series Mania's first annual Buyers Choice Award.
Starring Veerle Baetens, Juliet Stevenson, Arash Marandi, Anthony Azizi, Fenella Woolgar, and Alexander Behrang Keshtkar, the series not only sounds West Wing-y but also feels particularly timely again.
Mare's NestDirector: Ben RiversCountries of production: United Kingdom, France, CanadaFestival section: International Competition
English filmmaker Rivers has made a name for himself with documentaries. In his latest, Bogancloch, he revisited a Scottish hermit.
At Locarno, he is premiering a dystopian hybrid film, starring Moon Guo Barker and inspired by the impact of COVID-19 on children and Don DeLillo's climate change play The Word for Snow. It sees a young girl traveling through a mysterious world free of adults.
'I wanted to create a world of kids with underlying uncertainty, echoing global anxieties, while somehow also being hopeful,' Rivers says in a director's note. 'I didn't want any relation to the adult world, and no explanation as to why.'Best of The Hollywood Reporter
The 40 Greatest Needle Drops in Film History
The 40 Best Films About the Immigrant Experience
Wes Anderson's Movies Ranked From Worst to Best
Solve the daily Crossword
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Vogue
5 hours ago
- Vogue
James Baldwin's Love Stories
It was 1996 and I was a junior in college, taking a class on James Baldwin in which we were reading pretty much everything he'd ever written: his groundbreaking novels, his controversial plays, his searing and celebrated essays. Everything, that is, except for one book my professor mentioned in passing—a children's book, originally published in the UK in 1976 but now out of print, entitled Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood. I looked it up in the index of David Leeming's then recently published Baldwin biography and found a scant paragraph or two, including a reference to an obscure French artist, Yoran Cazac, who had apparently illustrated the book. Leeming referred to Baldwin's relationship with him as a 'friendship,' but the sentences that followed suggested there was more to the story: 'Yoran was not a solution to Baldwin's need for a full and lasting relationship. He was committed to his marriage and his children and spent most of his time in Italy.' Leeming's other bits of information only piqued my interest further: 'When Baldwin went to Italy to stand as godfather to Yoran's third child on Easter Sunday, he must have been reminded of another friend, another marriage, and another baptism of another godchild in Switzerland in 1952. He was to dedicate If Beale Street Could Talk to Yoran, as he had dedicated Giovanni's Room to Lucien.' I knew 'Lucien' was Lucien Happersberger, the Swiss man Baldwin had called the love of his life; and Baldwin's classic gay novel Giovanni's Room, published in 1956, was the first of his books I'd read, way back in the ninth grade. I'd borrowed my twin sister's copy and pored over it in the secrecy of my bedroom, simultaneously thrilled and terrified by its exploration of a tortured love affair in Paris between David, a closeted American, and his Italian lover, Giovanni. I had hidden it beneath my mattress, afraid someone in my family would see it in my possession and suspect that I was gay, too—a reality I hadn't yet been able to admit to myself. Now, in college, as I recovered from the ending of my own secret relationship with another college student, my first with another man, I was finally in the process of coming out—and Baldwin was my North Star. How had he survived his own heartbreaks and wrestled with his own identity as a man who loved other men? And what role had this played in his journey to becoming a writer? For this was what I, too, hoped to become. Illustrations © Yoran Cazac (Beatrice Cazac) from James Baldwin, Little Man, Little Man: A Story of Childhood, illus. Yoran Cazac, eds. Nicholas Boggs and Jennifer DeVere Brody (Duke University Press, 2018). Used with Permission of Beatrice Cazac. Soon enough, I was heading to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, which I'd been told had a copy of Little Man, Little Man. Something electric passed through me when I held the book for the first time, not unlike how I'd felt when I first flipped through the pages of Giovanni's Room. Yes, with its large type and colorful illustrations, it looked like a children's book, but its jacket flap described it as a 'children's book for adults.' Instead of author and illustrator photos, Cazac had drawn an image of himself painting Baldwin, both men smiling at each other and Baldwin smoking a cigarette.
Associated Press
a day ago
- Associated Press
Photos from 'In Women's Words' exhibition that showcases modern Iranian women artists
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Visitors attend an exhibition called 'In Women's Words,' which displays works by modern Iranian women artists. The works are from the collection of the Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art in Iran. This is a photo gallery curated by AP photo editors.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Swatch Just Released a Teaser for a New Snoopy MoonSwatch
"Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links." It's been a full four months since we got our last new Omega x Swatch MoonSwatch, the Mission to the Pink Moonphase. Surprised? Don't be. Swatch is playing the long game. The Swiss watch manufacturer understands that if you overfeed fans you also risk killing the hype (a lesson learned by companies like Marvel Studios and Nike). Still, you don't want to let the interest die out. Like everything in life, balance is paramount. And after a quarter of a year without a launch, it genuinely does feel like the right time to welcome another. In other words, we're ready to get excited again. Enter—right on time—a MoonSwatch teaser that signals a third Snoopy iteration. Despite only debuting last year, the Snoopy MoonSwatch series can be considered a true failsafe for the Omega x Swatch collaboration. Its popularity stems from a few key factors. Chief among them is the long-standing relationship between Snoopy, Omega and space—deep roots that lend genuine authenticity to this modern alliance. (You can read more about that history right here). But also, the lovable pup simply looks at home on the bioceramic variation of the planetary timepiece. On the black one, the white one, and very likely, whatever's next. We at Esquire—as well as fans on Reddit—are theorizing that the August 9 drop will be inspired by the Sturgeon Moon, the orangey-yellow full moon named after a large Jurassic fish species that is typically caught during this time. We're confident in this assumption not only because previous Omega x Swatch launches are typically themed to the lunar calendar, but also due to the short ad posted by Swatch's global Instagram profiles. Swatch, consider your clues caught. Check back on Esquire soon for more information. You Might Also Like Kid Cudi Is All Right 16 Best Shoe Organizers For Storing and Displaying Your Kicks
