Research and publications

• Research projects

  From "Crypto-Communism" to "Pornography" : Challenging the Narratives about the Locarno Film Festival
  Status: Ongoing

  Start	01.06.2024
  End	31.07.2025
  Funding	SNSF  Open project sheet
  In 2023, more than 500’000 people attended Swiss film festivals. Among those, the Locarno Film Festival (LFF), one of the oldest in the world, attracted 145’000 spectators by itself. In August 2026, this major event of Switzerland’s film culture will be 80 years old. On this occasion, many publications will retrace its long history. Commemorative books, special issues, and television programs are likely to portray it as a pioneering event that became part of the country’s cultural heritage by introducing auteur cinema to Swiss audiences ; "a calm, quiet, gentle, and relaxed festival, without scandals". However, a much less consensual past made of controversies lies behind this narrative. When trying to push boundaries, the LFF encountered many difficulties caused by Switzerland’s conservatism and political divisions. This remains largely unknown today, which is why this project will challenge the traditional portrayal of the event by engaging with the public on two levels: during screenings-debates of a documentary and through the online collection of testimonies. The first part of this project will be a medium-length film about the scandals caused by the LFF, accused of showing communist propaganda and pornography when it included in its program Eastern European movies (1950s), "Third World films" (1960s), and subversive features (1970s). The documentary will be directed by the creator of the YouTube channel Cinéma et politique. The second part of this project will be a collaborative experience challenging the usual narrative about the Festival’s history: a call for the participation of the people who "made" the Festival but have so far remained unheard (attendees, volunteers, and staff). People will be invited to share testimonies, thoughts, and documents about their own experience of the LFF from the 1980s onward to build a "bottom-up" narrative.

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