’Ruben Brandt, Collector’ at Piazza Grande

8,000 viewers a night, the Piazza Grande is both the Locarno Festival’s heart and its showcase. With its giant screen, one of the biggest in Europe, endowed with truly exceptional projection quality, the Piazza Grande is one of the finest open-air venues in the world. The programming on the Piazza Grande offers prestigious screenings introduced by the director and the cast. 

Ruben Brandt, Collector by Milorad Krstic

Ruben Brandt, a famous psychotherapist, is forced to steal 13 paintings from world-renowned museums and private collections to prevent his suffering from terrible nightmares. Accompanied by four of his patients, he and his gang of thieves strike regularly and with great success: The Louvre, Tate, Uffizi, Hermitage, MoMA.’The Collector' quickly becomes the most wanted criminal. Gangsters and headhunters chase him around the world while the reward for his capture keeps rising, approaching a hundred million dollars. A carter of insurance companies entrusts Mike Kowalski, a private detective and leading art theft expert, to solve the case.

Screenings:
5 August 5 pm @ Rialto 1 - INDUSTRY
8 August 11:30 pm @ PalaCinema Sala 1 - PRESS
9 August Midnight screening @ Piazza Grande - PREMIERE

'Hier’ at Cineasti del presente Competition

An ideal arena for discovery, the Cineasti del presente Competition is dedicated to emerging directors from all over the world and devoted to first and second features. Around fifteen feature films compete for the Pardo d’oro Cineasti del presente. 

Hier by Bálint Kenyeres (Hungary – France - The Netherlands – Germany – Sweden – Morocco)

The central character, 50-year-old Victor Ganz owns a thriving building and civil engineering company that operates worldwide. Some very costly problems on a building site in North Africa mean he has to go there (he hates traveling), to a country where he is confronted with memories of his youth, which have been carefully buried in the depths of his mind. Meetings in ministries, disinformation, the reappearance of a past love who had mysteriously disappeared, an investigation in the local underground to find her: Victor Ganz slowly plunges into a labyrinthine world where present and past intertwine. 

Screenings:
4 August 7 pm @ Rialto 1 - INDUSTRY
5 August 6 pm @ Teatro Kursaal - PRESS
6 August 11 am @ PalaCinema Sala 1 - PREMIERE
7 August 4:15 pm @ L’altra Sala
8 August 11 pm @ PalaCinema Sala 2

’Easy Lessons’  at Semaine de la critique

Founded in 1990, the Semaine de la critique is an independent section within the Locarno Festival, organized by the Swiss Association of Film Journalists. The Semaine de la critique shows seven documentary feature films, it focuses on innovative films on the brink of the mainstream – both formally and content wise. Bold films which open up new perspectives and which provoke a debate. The goal is to bring together a wide range of different works, each with a unique vision. 

Easy Lessons by Dorottya Zurbó

Easy Lessons is a poetic journey of a beautiful, young girl, Kafia who on the brink of adulthood breaks up with everything she grew up with in Somalia. Cultural values, taboos and dogmas fall apart in the most casual situations while trying to adapt to a new life in Europe, Hungary. Her Mum helped her escape her fate but how can she explain the changes she lives through to her most loved one? She wants to do it for a sense of duty or a desire of resurrection, but how… This inner struggle becomes the film itself and maybe the only form of confession.

Screenings:
7 August 11 am @ La Sala - PREMIERE
8 August 6:30 pm @ L'altra Sala

Easy Lessons by Dorottya Zurbó