Locarno Film Festival 2014 have shown that art films are not dead, as shown in the prestigious award-giving film festival in Switzerland over the last weekend. Filipino director Lav Diaz bagged the top prize in the recently concluded film festival besting other entries from filmmakers all over the world.
"From What Is Before" won the much coveted Golden Leopard prize, while the film's lead actress Hazel Orencio took home the best actress award. The black-and-white film recounted the odd events that happened in an isolated village in the Philippines in 1972, during the period of dictatorship by President Ferdinand Marcos.
In an interview with AFP, Diaz stated that his victory was also the victory of Philippine cinema. "It's good for the Filipino people. It's good for Filipino cinema. Our work is on par with other cinemas of the world," he said.
Although Diaz admitted that showcasing his five-hour film "From What Is Before" commercially would be a struggle, he still believed that the norm was just a misconception, especially since his long film was successfully screened to a full house audience three times during the Locarno Film Festival 2014.
Meanwhile, the Special Jury prize went to "Alex Ross Perry's 'Listen Up Philip,'" an American film with Jason Schwartzman playing the character of a self-absorbed young novelist mentored by the character portrayed by Jonathan Pryce.
Portuguese filmmaker Pedro Costa won the directing honors with "Horse Money," while other performance prizes were given to Ariane Labed for "Fidelio," and Artem Bystrov for "The Fool."
Even though the Locarno Film Festival 2014 is famous and respected for its intense art-film lineup, it also boasted of Europe's largest cinema screen for the Piazza Grande film viewing for some of the more populist films. These pictures were shown to the public, getting a number as large as 8, 000 filmgoers a night.
In this program, the audience chose the feel-good Swiss comedy entitled "Schweizer Helden" to win the UBS Public Prize. The film told the story of a woman who worked with a group of asylum seekers to stage a holiday show.
