Locarno Meets

Alexander Payne on the Art of Casting and Keeping Budgets Low | Locarno Meets

<p>This week on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/hashtag/locarnomeets">#LocarnoMeets</a>, we sat down with Alexander Payne, the comedic genius behind some of the best films of the past three decades, including “The Holdovers”, “Election”, and “Sideways”. He joined us to discuss his career, working with George Clooney on “The Descendants”, and his low, low budgets.</p>

“We Are the New Voice, We Are the New Dreams”: Iraqi Filmmaker Mohamed Al-Daradji Speaks About ‘Irkalla: Gilgamesh's Dream’

<p>Iraqi filmmaker Mohamed Al-Daradji’s latest film (“Irkalla: Gilgamesh&#39;s Dream”), which premiered on the Piazza Grande during Locarno78, was hailed as a major achievement, both in terms of its artistry and the circumstances of its production. He joined us to discuss the myth of Gilgamesh, shooting a movie in Baghdad, and being shot at in Baghdad.</p>

A Conversation with Georges Schoucair and Myriam Sassine on the Resilience of Lebanese Cinema

<p>When, in August 2025, we had the honour of awarding the Raimondo Rezzonico Award to the Lebanese independent company Abbout Productions – founded by Georges Schoucair and Myriam Sassine – we could never have imagined that, just a few months later, we would find ourselves facing the current dramatic international situation and that war would be raging harsher than ever in Lebanon.</p><p>At the time, in Locarno, these two outstanding producers joined our podcast to discuss their careers and the future of Lebanese cinema. We spoke about the trauma of the Beirut explosion in 2020, the work of creative producing and the Arab film community, as well as their films “Costa Brava, Lebanon” and “Memory Box”.</p>

Rithy Panh on Social Media, Digital Isolation, and Making Movies Cheaply

<p>Serving as head of the Locarno78 jury last year, Rithy Panh is a legend of Cambodian cinema. Over his thirty year career, he has tirelessly interrogated the atrocities of the Khmer Rouge with creativity and originality. He joined us on the latest episode of #LocarnoMeets to talk about movies, TikTok, and the demagogues of the tech world. </p>

Vicky Krieps Talks Filming in Japan with Naomi Kawase and “Yakushima's Illusion”

<p>Vicky Krieps is one of the definitive European actors of her generation. But her new film, the astonishing “Yakushima's Illusion”, which world premiered at Locarno78, dropped her deep into an ancient forest on the eponymous Japanese island, the mystical place that once served as, among other things, the inspiration for Hayao Miyazaki's “Princess Mononoke”. We talked about preparing for a role as a pediatric heart surgeon, adapting to the sounds of the forest, and the challenge of accommodating the Japanese way of doing things. </p>

“She Took Me On a Journey I Couldn’t Make Myself”: Director Brian Kirk on Shooting in Snow and Working with Emma Thompson

<p>Best known for “21 Bridges” and his work on television shows like “Game of Thrones”, director Brian Kirk’s much anticipated new film is the icy thriller “The Dead of Winter” starring Emma Thompson in a bravura role as a steely Minnesotan widow named Barb. As the film premiered to acclaim on the Piazza Grande at Locarno78, we sat down with Kirk to dig into the mechanics of shooting in snow and collaborating with a living legend. </p>

“I Loved that Freedom of Creation”: Nadia Tereszkiewicz on Corsets, Horses, and ‘Heads of Tails?’

<p>Nadia Tereszkiewicz is the actor at the heart of “Heads of Tails?” an award-winning new spaghetti western by Italian filmmaking duo Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis. This magnetic actress joined us on the latest episode of LocarnoMeets to talk about “McCabe &amp; Mrs. Miller”, John C. Reilly, corsets, and horses.</p>

Director & Cinematographer Fabrice Aragno on Shooting “Le Lac” on Lake Geneva, Godard’s Influence & Every Film as Documentary

<p>The Swiss director, cinematographer, and close collaborator on some of Jean-Luc Godard’s final works Fabrice Aragno made his debut as a feature filmmaker at Locarno78 with the hypnotic “Le Lac”, a near-wordless experimental romantic drama that takes place during a sailing competition on Lake Geneva.</p><p>Aragno joined us on Locarno Meets to discuss his work to capture the spirit of the lake itself, why every film is a documentary of its own making, what it meant to see “La Notte” as a young man, and the profound personal influence of working so long and so closely with JLG.</p>

Colm Meaney on Irish Talent, “Star Trek” & Why Digital Cameras Suck

<p>Colm Meaney is the definitive Irish character actor of his generation, having starred in classics like “The Commitments”, “The Damned United”, and “Layer Cake” over a near 50-year career. Meanwhile, his roles in Hollywood blockbusters like “Die Hard 2”, “Con Air”, and “The Last of the Mohicans”, as well as on TV in “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine”, have cemented his place as one of those character actors we’re always happy to see appear in a movie. Meaney joined us to discuss his new movie – Duwayne Dunham’s “The Legend of the Happy Worker” – and to tell us quite why digital cameras suck.</p>

“I said David, I’m more of a Disney guy”: Duwayne Dunham on Lynch & ‘Legend of the Happy Worker’

<p>From ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Blue Velvet’ to Disney Channel originals, nobody has had a career like Duwayne Dunham’s. In the latest episode of Locarno Meets, the singular editor and director reflects on cutting some of the most iconic films of our time, explores longstanding collaborations with George Lucas and David Lynch – from ‘Twin Peaks’ to ‘Wild at Heart’ – and dives into his “Western capitalist fairy tale,” the new feature ‘Legend of the Happy Worker’, which premiered out of competition at Locarno78 and marks the final film to feature Lynch’s name as executive producer.</p>

Maysoon Zayid Says Stand-Ups Are the Last Bastions of Free Speech

<p>A comedian from New York who knows what’s wrong with the movie industry, Maysoon Zayid spent Locarno78 haranguing cinema executives about the kind of work being produced, and she joined us on Locarno Meets to do the same.</p><p>“The idea that diversity only applies to diverse audiences is a supremacist mindset” says the Palestinian-American comic, a disability rights advocate uncompromising in her critiques of how and why movies get made. In Locarno last year to speak at StepIn during Locarno Pro, Zayid’s many insights were a powerful and much-needed provocation on the first day of our industry activities.</p>

Anatomy of a Thriller: Lucy Liu & Eric Lin Talk Their Award-Winning Film “Rosemead”

<p>We start the new year off with another episode of our movie podcast Locarno Meets, this time in conversation with the iconic star LucyLiu and Eric Lin, director of her celebrated film “Rosemead”.</p><p>Winner of the Prix du Public UBS – the audience award – at Locarno78, “Rosemead” tells the heart-wrenching, real-life story of a woman, played by Liu, who discovers her teenage son is obsessed with violent fantasies and plans to act on them. Only her drastic intervention can stop him from destroying everything they’ve built as a family and bringing harm to others.</p><p>We sat down with Lucy Liu and her director Eric Lin to discuss this extraordinary film and dig into the specifics of Liu’s remarkable performance.</p>

“Bugonia” Producer Ed Guiney Talks Indie Movies, Yorgos Lanthimos & the Smarthouse

<p>Ed Guiney is an Irish producer known for his collaborations with filmmakers like Yorgos Lanthimos and Joana Hogg. We invited him to join us on Locarno Meets to give his insights on the state of indie filmmaking in Europe, his artistic partnership with Yorgos Lanthimos, Letterboxd’s influence on arthouse attendance, and his definition of the role of producer.</p>

“I Like It When a Director Has a Vision”: Willem Dafoe Talks Acting Process, David Lynch, and ‘The Birthday Party’

<p>Over the course of a more than 45-year career, Willem Dafoe has played everything, from the Green Goblin in “Spider-Man” to Jesus Christ in Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ”. But crucially, he has never rested on his laurels, and continues to collaborate on ever more bold and daring projects with a new generation of emerging filmmakers.</p><p><br></p><p>In Locarno to present Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s caustic “The Birthday Party” on the Piazza Grande, we sat down with Dafoe on Locarno Meets to talk about how you should find your own role when on set, working with David Lynch on “Wild at Heart”, juggling the demands of Hollywood and the arthouse, and getting fired from the set of “Heaven’s Gate” for laughing at a dirty joke.</p>

From Sundance to the Piazza Grande: Bill Condon Talks J-Lo Indie Musical “Kiss of the Spider Woman”

<p>Our guest this week on Locarno Meets is Bill Condon, the man behind some of the biggest movie musicals of the modern age, from “Chicago” to “Dreamgirls” to “Beauty and the Beast”. He joined us to talk timeliness, down and dirty prison dramas, working with Jennifer Lopez’s tight schedule, and how it all combined in his latest film “Kiss of the Spider Woman”, which was the closing film of Locarno78.</p>

Pink Paint & the Pleasures of Horror Cinema: Julie Pacino Talks “I Live Here Now”

<p>An eye-popping, heart-pounding genre film that premiered at Locarno78, “I Live Here Now” is a very funny, very scary, and very weird debut movie from Julie Pacino. This week on LocarnoMeets, the director joins us to talk about pink paint, David Lynch, and being traumatized on the set of “The Devil’s Advocate”.</p>

Golshifteh Farahani: Exile from Iran, Necessity of Art & Full Body Action Cinema

<p>This week on Locarno Meets we&#39;re joined by the Iranian actress Golshifteh Farahani, who – in a remarkable and emotional in-depth discussion – talks about leaving Iran, the retribution she faced for debuting in Hollywood with “Body of Lies”, the Women, Life, Freedom (Zan, Zendegī, Āzādī) movement, making the extraordinary and disturbing “Alpha” with Julia Ducournau, and finally the joy – and physical toll – of making high-octane action movies. </p>

“Sentimental Value” Screenwriter Eskil Vogt on Joachim Trier and Writing Nuance

<p>Joining us this week on Locarno Meets is Eskil Vogt, the Norwegian screenwriter and filmmaker best known for his collaborations with Joachim Trier that include the celebrated “Oslo, August 31st”, “The Worst Person in the World”, and this year’s “Sentimental Value”. We chatted with Vogt about that ongoing creative partnership, the difficulties and revelations of working in middle age, and working with children on his own film “The Innocents”, which premiered in Cannes in 2021.</p>

Emma Thompson: “We Cried a Lot Making this Film”

<p>Our video podcast Locarno Meets is back for its third season, and for the first episode we sat down with Emma Thompson to talk about her new thriller “Dead of Winter”, which is now released in the UK following its world premiere at Locarno78, as well as her theory of adapting Jane Austen, her origins in sketch comedy, and bundling her Best Screenplay Oscar through airport security. </p><p><br></p><p>Locarno Meets: a Locarno Film Festival original podcast – brought to you by UBS – where established legends of cinema and exciting new talents chat about art, life, movies, and everything in between.</p>

Caroline Goodall: from Steven Spielberg to Lars von Trier to “The Princess Diaries”

<p>For our final episode for season two of Locarno Meets, we were delighted to be joined by actress Caroline Goodall, whose illustrious career has seen her turn in remarkable performances in now-classic films by many of the greatest names in contemporary cinema. </p><p>Goodall was in Locarno to promote her latest film, the Piazza Grande-playing “Sew Torn”, directed by the prodigious young director Freddy MacDonald. We spoke with the marvellous actress about working, in this case, with a gifted filmmaker in his early twenties, as well as reminiscing about some of her major films, like “Schindler’s List”, “Hook”, “The Princess Diaries”, and Lars von Trier’s “Nymphomaniac”.</p>

Hollywood Legend Ben Burtt and the Sounds of “Star Wars”, “E.T.” and “Indiana Jones”

<p>Close your eyes for a moment and think of the sound a lightsaber makes. Think of the sound of Darth Vader breathing. Think of E.T. saying he wants to phone home. All those sound effects are the work of legendary sound designer Ben Burtt.</p><p>At the 77ᵗʰ Locarno Film Festival, Burtt was in town to collect the Vision Award Ticinomoda, given to celebrate his exceptional career as a sound artist in Hollywood. From a childhood spent tape recording the sounds of movies from television to his pioneering effects work with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, Ben Burtt has lived a life through sound. </p>

Producer Stacey Sher Talks “Pulp Fiction”, “Contagion” and Her Most Iconic Movies

<p>Producers don’t always get their day in the spotlight. At the 77ᵗʰ Locarno Film Festival, the Raimondo Rezzonico Award was given to legendary indie producer Stacey Sher, who is responsible for a genuinely eye-popping line-up of iconic movies. Just to name a few: “Pulp Fiction”, “Erin Brockovich”, “Reality Bites”, “Out of Sight”, “Mathilda”, “Mrs. America”, “Contagion”, “Man on the Moon”, “Gattaca”, “Django Unchained”, “The Hateful Eight”, and recently the Hugh Grant-starring horror film “Heretic”. </p><p>Anybody with a career like that has plenty of stories to share, and when Sher joined us on Locarno Meets, she certainly didn’t disappoint.</p>

Luca Marinelli: “When I Was Young, I Didn't Watch TV, I Watched Fellini”

<p>This week on Locarno Meets, we caught up with Italian star Luca Marinelli, best known to international audiences for his roles in “M”, “The Eight Mountains”, and “Martin Eden”. Marinelli was in Locarno to serve on the main jury at the 77ᵗʰ edition of the Festival alongside some of the leading lights of auteur cinema. </p><p>We took the opportunity to sit down with the charismatic and thoughtful actor to discuss his early influences – including watching De Sica and Fellini movies as a child –, his extraordinary performances done inside and outside of the Italian film industry, and his criteria for what makes a good movie. </p>

Tim Blake Nelson on Boxing Movies, the Coen Brothers, and “Bang Bang”

<p>An exemplary character actor with a distinctive face: that’s how Tim Blake Nelson is perhaps most often described. Yet beyond memorable roles in films by Steven Spielberg, the Coen brothers, and Terrence Malick, Nelson is also an accomplished filmmaker in his own right, responsible for a handful of impressive works in a variety of genres.</p><p>This week, Nelson joins us on Locarno Meets while serving as a member of the jury at the 77ᵗʰ Locarno Film Festival and presenting the boxing drama “Bang Bang” out of competition at the Festival, following a successful debut at Tribeca. We took the chance to speak with the great actor about the appeal of genre, his boxing influences, and his ability to disappear into a role, whether through a physical transformation or by learning – as he is now doing – to convincingly play the mandolin at age 60.</p>

Locarno Jury President Jessica Hausner Speaks About Her Films

<p>Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner has one of the most immediately recognizable signatures as an auteur. Her films are known as much for their formal austerity as for their daring subject matter; they are films that – to use her phrase – “do not shout so loudly”. </p> <p>Those are also the kinds of films that Hausner, as Jury President at the 77ᵗʰ Locarno Film Festival, did not want to overlook in favor of louder, splashier titles. When she met her fellow jurors for the first time, Hausner stressed that it was important to consider films whose emotional power develops inside the viewer more slowly, accruing over time.</p> <p>We sat down with Hausner for a conversation on Locarno Meets to delve into her process in making films, her taste in cinema, the more than 30 takes it often takes to get a scene right, and her philosophy as president of a festival jury. </p>

A Conversation on AI Artmaking with Filmmaker Paul Trillo

<p> What are the ethics of AI art? Can it ever be a tool of artistic liberation or are AI systems inherently extractive? Should artists surrender knowledge of these tools or should they try to master them so they are put to better use? These are some of the questions that came up in our conversation with filmmaker Paul Trillo, who has been experimenting with AI technologies for years.</p> <p>He was in Locarno as a guest at the ‘Future of Survival’ conference organized in parallel to the Festival itself, and we didn’t want to miss the opportunity to speak about this controversial and disruptive technology with a world-renowned artist for whom it is a signature tool of expression.</p>

“I Try Not to Lose the Battle for Humanity”: Edgar Pêra on His AI-Generated ‘Telepathic Letters’

<p>The Portuguese filmmaker Edgar Pêra is an experimental artist in the truest sense of the word. Time and again, Pêra has embraced still-nascent technologies without hesitation and with enormous playfulness, as with early digital video or 3D. Whatever the technology, he then tries to use them as a “toy of consciousness”, paraphrasing Aldous Huxley.</p> <p>In this conversation on Locarno Meets, Pêra discusses his latest work, “Telepathic Letters”, an AI-generated feature film based around a fictional exchange of letters between Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa and American fantasy writer H.P. Lovecraft. This memorably gonzo experiment had its world premiere at the 77th Locarno Film Festival (August 2024) and was one of the most talked about works in the program. </p>

Irène Jacob Reflects on “Three Colors: Red” After 30 Years and Speaks New Films

<p>In 1994, a young Swiss-French rising star named Irène Jacob and a legendary Polish auteur, Krzysztof Kieślowski, travelled to Locarno to present “Three Colors: Red” on the Piazza Grande, in front of an audience of thousands of jubilant spectators. 30 years later, Jacob, now herself an established legend of international arthouse and commercial filmmaking, returned to Locarno to present the film while being honored with the Festival’s prestigious Leopard Club Award (2024).</p> <p>We took the chance to sit down with Irène Jacob on Locarno Meets to reflect on the legacy of this monumental work and her remarkable and risk-taking career in the years since. In 2024 alone, Jacob has created indelible new films with Amos Gitai and Rithy Panh, each of which premiered to rave reviews at the Berlin and Venice film festivals. No matter the assignment, Irène Jacob continues to forge her own path – a deeply original one – within and through the landscape of international cinema. </p>

Lina Soualem on Palestinian Grief and Making Films With and About Family

<p>French-Algerian-Palestinian actress and filmmaker Lina Soualem has spent the past few artistically productive years co-writing a TV series (“Oussekine”, 2020) as well as directing the celebrated films “Their Algeria” (2020), about her French-Algerian grandparents and their fraught relationship with their homeland, and “Bye Bye Tiberias” (2023), about her mother, the celebrated Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass, and the women of her family who stayed in their village in the Lower Galilee despite the effects of war, occupation, and erasure. </p> <p>After premiering at the Venice Film Festival and having a successful distribution run arund the world, her film was nominated to represent Palestine at the Academy Awards in 2024. But Soualem was at the 77th Locarno Film Festival not primarily as a filmmaker but as a judge: she sat on the jury deciding the Swatch and MUBI First Feature Awards.</p> <p>While she was in Locarno, we took the opportunity to sit down with Soualem on Locarno Meets to speak about how exactly she approached the work of navigating the complex relations of family, displacement, emigration, grief, and – yes – making films.</p>

A Seamstress Caught in a Drug Deal Gone Wrong: Freddy Macdonald on the World of “Sew Torn”

<p>Following a successful premiere at South by Southwest, 24-year-old Swiss-American filmmaker Freddy Macdonald, the youngest directing fellow ever accepted to the American Film Institute, brought his audacious debut feature “Sew Torn” to the Piazza Grande at the 77th Locarno Film Festival. </p> <p>We caught up with Macdonald on Locarno Meets during the Festival to discuss the unique genesis of the film, its many wild narrative twists and turns, as well as to unpack the influence of the Coen brothers on his work and talk about what it’s like to develop a film with one’s Dad.</p>