Like most film festivals this year, Locarno Film Festival will not be moving ahead as usual. However, they’ve found inventive ways to both celebrate filmmakers they’ve long admired and present films physically and digitally. After announcing a new initiative to support new films by Lucrecia Martel, Lisandro Alonso, Lav Diaz, Wang Bing, Miguel Gomes, and more, they’ve asked this class of talented directors to select their favorite films in Locarno history.

A Journey in the Festival’s History is devoted to Locarno’s 73-year history of showing the best in international cinema. Made up of twenty films, a selection will screen online for those in Switzerland as well as MUBI internationally. On August 5-15, they will also screen in person at Locarno’s theaters.

Lili Hinstin, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival, said, “It would be an impossible task to present a review of the history of the Locarno Film Festival in its entirety: the international full-length features selected since 1946 would add up to over 1,400 titles on their own. Cinephile history, like that of all the arts, is shaped by hidden and unexpected connections between periods, genres and aesthetics. This is the subjective journey that the Festival invites you to join us on this year, a journey led by the gaze of today’s filmmakers, who will also be the creators of the cinema of tomorrow.” 

Check out the selections below and learn more here.

Germany, Year Zero (Italy, France, Germany, 1948)
Dir. Roberto Rossellini
Selected by Pierre-François Sauter

Love Meetings (Italy, 1964)
Dir. Pier Paolo Pasolini
Selected by Anna Luif 

Entranced Earth (Brazil, 1967)
Dir. Glauber Rocha
Selected by Lisandro Alonso

Charles, Dead or Alive (Switzerland, 1969)
Dir. Alain Tanner
Selected by Raphaël Dubach and Mateo Ybarra 

Invasion (Argentina, 1969)
Dir. Hugo Santiago
Selected by Andreas Fontana 

In Danger and Deep Distress, the Middleway Spells Certain Death (Germany, 1974)
Dir. Alexander Kluge and Edgar Reitz
Selected by Juliana Rojas 

India Song (France, 1975)
Dir. Marguerite Duras
Selected by Helena Wittmann 

Perfumed Nightmare (Philippines, 1977)
Dir. Kidlat Tahimik
Selected by Verena Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor 

Land of Fire All Night Long (Switzerland, 1981)
Dir. Clemens Klopfenstein and Remo Legnazzi
Selected by Michael Koch 

Stranger Than Paradise (US, Germany, 1984) 
Dir. Jim Jarmusch
Selected by Marí Alessandrini

The Terrorizers (Taiwan, 1986)
Dir. Edward Yang
Selected by Eric Baudelaire 

The Jester (Portugal, 1987)
Dir. José Alvaro Morais
Selected by Miguel Gomes 

The Seventh Continent (Austria, 1989)
Dir. Michael Haneke
Selected by Lav Diaz 

Metropolitan (US, 1990) 
Dir. Whit Stillman
Selected by Axelle Ropert

Rapado (Argentina, Netherlands, 1992)
Dir. Martín Rejtman
Selected by Lucrecia Martel 

Au Nom du Christ (Ivory Coast, Switzerland, 1993) 
Dir. Roger Gnoan M’Bala 
Selected by Mohammed Soudani 

A Moment of Innocence (Iran, France, 1996) 
Dir. Mohsen Makhmalbaf
Selected by Miko Revereza 

Horse Money (Portugal, 2014)
Dir. Pedro Costa
Selected by WANG Bing 

No Home Movie (Belgium, France, 2015)
Dir. Chantal Akerman
Selected by Cyril Schäublin 

(France, 2018)
Dir. Yolande Zauberman
Selected by Elie Grappe

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