In the beginning there was a lot of water this time. It came in relentless spurts, as if someone were pouring huge buckets over the mountains and passes, and everything that the never-ending Gotthard tunnel spat out with a sigh of relief rushed with the rivers into the valley. But just as the glamor of the Locarno film festival demands, where more than two hundred feature, short and documentary films will be shown again this August after a one-year break, the rain jackets bought for the equivalent of a visit to the pizzeria look splendid enough to be like to step to the red carpet in leopard costume. So everyone wanders to the Piazza Grande, one of the most beautiful backdrops in Switzerland, with a giant projector in the middle, which in earlier years was composed of the plastic shells of two pool basins, at least that's how it is said,and sit down on rickety chair legs.
Accompanied by sharp screams
This year there are around three thousand viewers in the evening open-air cinema, where there should otherwise be space for up to nine thousand. Then there are films to be seen outside of the competitions, for example “Monte Verità”, the story of a community that dropped out at the beginning of the twentieth century, right next door above Ascona, in which Hermann Hesse took abstinence and other artists and reformers danced naked around the fire, to get close to nature again, which is now going so crazy. The film was not shot here, but in the nearby, unspoilt Maggia Valley, where beer costs only half the price. So three thousand people in this square in the drizzle, and it gets so quiet that someone looks around every time the rain cape rustles. And while one is still resolvingTo take a natural bath in the Ticino evening light as soon as possible and thereby find peace of mind, the next film begins, which shows a crazy governor and contains so many moments of shock that one film lover after the other collapses with their chairs, accompanied by sharp screams and a lot of rumble.
The next morning the sky shines sneeringly again, as if it had never looked otherwise here, and it stays that way. And because Laetitia Casta, who was already honored on the opening evening, is nowhere to be seen, you can watch the directors at the lake reflecting on their life's work and the beautiful young guests who dare casual glances in front of the VIP lounges. Is that now Hannah Herzsprung? And then it is already evening again, there is again silence and again you take a position on your yellow chair. All around the houses are in darkness, with the screen in between, and you check your seated position, cling to the armrests and hope that there won't be so many shocking moments this time, and you thank heaven that there is nothing else to hope for at the moment.