Why is the Locarno Film Festival a “seismograph of reality”?

It was a definition by a former artistic director that I find very fitting. The festival can’t remain still while everything around changes. From film production to distribution, from consumption to financing mechanisms, to audience habits, to the media system: everything has changed. If in the good old days there was an audience that generated automatically because there was a reference system linked to theaters showing auteur cinema, and there was press that conveyed our messages with journalists who did it and especially readers who read and followed, now this dynamic has gone into crisis.

 

How has the festival adapted to these changes?

First, it should be said that our audience structure has three distinct components. We have 20% international, that’s not in crisis because it’s the B2B part, the industry that comes here to work. Locarno remains a relevant festival for a 

certain type of industry, it’s among the ten most important in the world. Then there’s about 30% Ticinese who come because they’re interested in culture, or because it’s a big event, with a very strong experiential dimension: lounges, bars, nightlife. Finally, there’s 50% Swiss audience from German or French-speaking regions, and this is where we need to work most.

 

In what sense?

On this 50%, until a few years ago you had people who went to Arthouse cinemas several times a month and had the references to come here almost automatically. Generations of cinephiles for whom cinema had a clear role in education and intellectual formation. This thing no longer exists. More films are produced than ever, but they’re consumed in different ways. And above all there’s no longer a structured media system, just look at the near disappearance of film critics.

 

How have you responded to this challenge?

The festival had to become a media, take responsibility for this communication. But above all we had to ask ourselves very big questions about how to continue regenerating our audiences. This is how initiatives like Locarno Edu, Locarno Kids, cultural mediation were born, but also work on young creatives with Locarno Factory and Basecamp. The latter is one of the most beautiful projects we’ve done: initially born in a former barracks, now it continues to host young creatives to whom we solve not only the hospitality problem during the festival, but we make them an active community that—for example—creates art, produces magazines, makes music.

 

Are you also evaluating changing dates?

It’s one of the hypotheses. The reason is simple: at an international level, both artistic and economic growth is negatively conditioned by the fact that we’re in August weeks, during which all international professionals are on vacation. Including actors and directors. Given that the festival is primarily a B2B platform around which we build an event for the broadest possible audience, if we want to grow, having at least one weekend in July becomes fundamental.

 

You’re also a member of the Ticino Film Commission. How do you see the relationship between film production and projection in the territory?

There’s obviously enormous potential. Film production is also a form of territorial marketing, promotion of a culture. Cinema is soft power. For a nation it’s important that cinematography of its own stories gets told in its own home. We have a tourist-oriented canton, but beyond this, a region’s prestige can be very strongly determined by film productions.

 

Do you have passions outside cinema?

I quote Solari: as a cardinal you must at least be Catholic. Obviously I frequent this world directly and indirectly, but it’s good not to share too many opinions: we have very clear governance where nobody enters the artistic director’s freedom. My true passion is literature, especially depth psychology, like Jung. I think it’s important, in a function like mine that has an impact on practical things, to have a conscious relationship with the symbolic, unconscious dimension. Because the less aware you are of it, the more you’re subjugated by it.

 

Interesting, this link between psychology and cultural management...

Yes, there are many contemporary authors on this. This year for the opening of literary events we invited Erik Davis, who over twenty years ago had written “Techgnosis,” putting together the relationship between technology and mysticism. He showed how everything that happened from Steve Jobs onwards is strongly influenced by a gnostic dimension. Even in our relationship with cellphones there’s something that transcends the utilitarian aspect.

 

How do you imagine the festival in ten years?

If there’s one thing we learned during the pandemic, it’s that the physical experience of community is irreplaceable. Locarno must continue to work on the magic and pleasure 

you feel being here. It’s a pleasant, fun festival, where you enjoy being, with the lake, the mountains, accessible. What can we improve? Ideally being capable of anticipating the Oscar season that now starts with Venice, even if just with one film a year, and thus elevate the Festival’s prestige through Piazza Grande, and create an active community that’s increasingly large and connected to us all year round, perhaps also through platforms in other realities, as Art Basel or Montreux are doing.

 

And the discovery mission remains central?

“Absolutely yes. We must continue to show the world’s diversity, doing research work on those emerging, less visible cinematographies, because this is part of Locarno’s DNA. I was reading a study on media and how much of their information they dedicate to the Global South: very little, and when it happens it’s mostly in negative terms. Actually, other realities and cultures have so much to teach us.

 

Raphaël Brunschwig represents a generation of cultural managers who must know how to combine artistic vision and economic sustainability, local territory and international scope. In his office, while describing the festival’s future challenges, it clearly emerges how the “seismograph of reality” he speaks of doesn’t just register changes, but anticipates them, interprets them and transforms them into creative opportunities. Because, as he says citing his artistic director, “last time I checked, films are made with money,” but with that money you can choose whether to tell an authentic reality or chase only commercial logic. Locarno, in Brunschwig’s vision, will continue to choose authenticity.

 

©Locarno Film Festival / Ti-Press

Raphaël Brunschwig

Year of birth: 1984

Profession: Cultural manager

 

He joined the Locarno Film Festival in 2013 and, since 2017, has headed its operational management. He currently holds the position of CEO of the Festival. He is also president of Monte Verità Literary Events and Co-President of Swiss Top Events, the association that brings together Switzerland’s nine main sporting and cultural events. He is also a member of various bodies and associations, including the Ticino Film Commission. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Eranos Foundation, known for its famous conferences that explore cultural, religious and spiritual themes through a multidisciplinary approach.