5 Must-See Movies at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival

David Ehrlich
·2 min read

Easy to overlook in the looming shadow of the Venice, Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals (and all of the awards season hoopla they portend), Switzerland’s historic Locarno Film Festival has remained so distinct and essential precisely because of its refusal to concede to industry pressures or chase attention over artistry.

While the magical Piazza Grande has been home to its fair share of glitzy outdoor screenings over the years — last year saw the 8,000-seat town square transform into an impromptu “Bullet Train” station, for example, while this year’s fest will host open-air screenings of everything from “Theater Camp” to Federico Fellini’s “City of Women” — Locarno has always prided itself on providing a more curious and less hostile platform for elite auteurs whose work may not conform to the commercial demands of the international marketplace; recent winners of the festival’s prestigious Golden Leopard award include Hong Sang-soo (“Right Now, Wrong Then”), Lav Diaz (who returns to the lineup with a new 215-minute quickie called “Essential Truths of the Lake”), and the great Chinese documentarian Wang Bing (“Mrs. Fang”).

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At the same time, Locarno has also become a reliably well-curated showcase for rich and idiosyncratic work from emerging filmmakers whose ethos may not adhere to the more rigid sensibilities of other major festivals. Last year’s edition reinforced that reputation with aplomb, as Locarno helped launch the likes of Helena Wittmann’s “Human Flowers of Flesh,” Alessandro Comodin’s “Gigi la Legge,” and Thomas Hardiman’s “Medusa Deluxe” (which A24 is finally releasing in the U.S. this month), along with several other titles that went on to travel the circuit and remind festival audiences that Cannes and company are just the tip of the iceberg.

Now celebrating its 76th year on the northern shore of Lago Maggiore, the festival has continued to play to its strengths under the leadership of artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro (who assumed the reins during the early days of the pandemic), and that trend seems poised to continue this summer. Highlights of the festival’s 2023 slate range from new films by “Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn” provocateur Radu Jude and prolific French absurdist Quentin Dupieux, to a windswept American horror movie set in the badlands of California (“Falling Stars”), a David Krumholtz/Bob Byington collaboration (“Lousy Carter”), and Eduardo Williams’ much-anticipated sequel to his  much-anticipated sequel to Eduardo Williams’ 2016 Locarno breakout, “The Human Surge.”

Here are 5 must-see movies at the 2023 Locarno Film Festival, which runs from Wednesday, August 2, to Saturday, August 12.

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