Locarno Film Festival; 'Piazza Grande' and the Muslim Man Who Became a Woman

The 70th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, one of Europe's oldest and most important film festivals, opened on Wednesday night at 'Piazza Grande' in Locarno, Switzerland; Locarno is a small and beautiful town in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. 'Piazza Grande' and its night screenings are a major part of the festival's fame, where the largest cinema screen in Europe is set up, accommodating up to eight thousand viewers, with films sometimes screening until two in the morning. The films selected for Piazza Grande are not part of the festival's competition section; instead, they are different films, sometimes related to the honorary Leopard award for lifetime cinematic achievement or new films typically aimed at a broader audience. One night before the festival began, the film 'Goldfinger' directed by Guy Hamilton, the third installment of the James Bond series, was screened for the residents of Locarno and surrounding towns. 'Atomic Blonde' directed by David Leitch is one of the films expected to attract many viewers; a loud action film starring Charlize Theron. The opening film titled 'Tomorrow and the Day After' directed by Naomi Kawase from France attempts to tell the story of a nine-year-old girl named Matilda who lives with her sensitive and fragile mother after her parents separate. However, the second night's screening featured one of this year's most controversial films: 'Lola Pater' directed by Nadir Moknèche from France, which tells a strange story: Zino, who loses his mother, seeks out a father he has been estranged from for twenty-five years, but his father, Farid - who is Algerian and Muslim - transitioned to a woman named Lola twenty-five years ago. The acclaimed French actress Fanny Ardant plays the role of Lola and intriguingly manages to convey many masculine feelings in this complex character, leading the audience to sometimes believe that the character on screen was once a man. The filmmaker, born to an Algerian family in Paris, challenges the taboos present in family relationships, particularly in a Muslim family. Although the film ultimately does not go beyond a simple melodrama with a different idea, it can still create beautiful moments in the relationship between a father and son; a relationship that seems unlikely to ever fulfill the lost moments and inner needs of these characters. Classic films will also grace the screen of Piazza Grande: 'I Walked with a Zombie', directed by the acclaimed Jacques Tourneur, is among the films that will be shown in its 35mm version in this large square; a strange dark film from one of the masters of suspense that combines human fears with predominantly popular stories, visually peaking in this film produced by the famous Val Lewton; a film that Tourneur considered one of his best works. 'Cecilia', a 1999 production by one of the strangest filmmakers of European intellectual cinema, Jean-Marie Straub, is another film set to be screened during these warm, rainless days at Piazza Grande, with an honorary Leopard award being presented to this acclaimed filmmaker. The Locarno Festival has shown special attention to Iranian cinema over the decades, with several acclaimed Iranian films finding their way to other global festivals, including 'The Runner' and 'Where Is the Friend's Home?'. However, in recent years, the new management of this festival has not shown as much attention to Iranian cinema as the Cannes, Venice, and Berlin festivals. The only presence of Iranian cinema in recent years in the competition section dates back to the film 'We Are in Heaven' by Sina Attaiyan Dena in 2015. This year, the long film competition continues without Iranian cinema, but in the short film competition section - which is substantial and has its own special judges led by French actress Sabine Azéma - a film by an Iranian female filmmaker has been included: 'Look' by Farnoush Samadi. Samadi, who participated in the Cannes festival last year with the short film 'Silence' - co-directed with Ali Asgari - tells the story of a woman who witnesses an event on a bus and must decide whether to make it public or not. The Locarno Film Festival will continue until next Saturday (August 12, 21 Mordad).