Nestled in the verdant Swiss Alps, on the shore of Lake Maggiore near the Italian border, Locarno is a beautiful setting for one of Europe’s preeminent summer film festivals. While most screenings take place in the sleek, modernist cinemas that are dotted around the small town, each evening also has at least one open-air projection in the central square, bolstering the impact of the festival’s more high-profile titles by presenting them amid rustic cobbles, gorgeous mountain scenery, and several centuries of history.
Holding an international showcase like this in such a breathtaking place also serves to underline some of the interesting contradictions and alternately jarring and fruitful clashes that a legacy film festival can create, which were never more apparent than at this year’s edition. Case in point, the Monday-night screening of Luc Jacquet’s Antarctica Calling, which was prefaced by a pre-screening award presentation that was interrupted by environmental activists.
Holding an international showcase like this in such a breathtaking place also serves to underline some of the interesting contradictions and alternately jarring and fruitful clashes that a legacy film festival can create, which were never more apparent than at this year’s edition. Case in point, the Monday-night screening of Luc Jacquet’s Antarctica Calling, which was prefaced by a pre-screening award presentation that was interrupted by environmental activists.
- 8/16/2023
- by David Robb
- Slant Magazine
Nearly two decades ago, “March of the Penguins” crossed a frontier hardly any nonfiction film ever does: not just the Antarctic Circle, but the even more remote $100 million mark at the global box office. A bona fide global phenomenon, Luc Jacquet’s wondrous nature doc got audiences from practically every continent to turn their attention to the South Pole and the adorable, surprisingly relatable emperor penguins its director found there.
The focus of “March” (and its 12-years-later sequel) was the 100-kilometer trek these remarkable black-and-white birds do between their mating grounds and the water. What undeniable force compels them to make that journey? In “Antarctica Calling,” it’s a different but no less irresistible urge that fascinates Jacquet: specifically, the almost-magnetic pull that draws the French filmmaker back to the South Pole time and again. He’s been coming since he was 23 years old. Now in his mid-50s,...
The focus of “March” (and its 12-years-later sequel) was the 100-kilometer trek these remarkable black-and-white birds do between their mating grounds and the water. What undeniable force compels them to make that journey? In “Antarctica Calling,” it’s a different but no less irresistible urge that fascinates Jacquet: specifically, the almost-magnetic pull that draws the French filmmaker back to the South Pole time and again. He’s been coming since he was 23 years old. Now in his mid-50s,...
- 8/9/2023
- by Peter Debruge
- Variety Film + TV
Climate change activists briefly halted the Locarno Film Festival’s honorary awards ceremony for environmentalist and documentarian Luc Jacquet on Monday evening.
Jacquet, who won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2006 for The March Of The Penguins, was being feted with the Locarno Kids Award, followed by a screening of his new film Magnetic Continent in front of a 7,000-strong crowd on the festival’s landmark Piazza Grande.
He was about to say a few words on the documentary, inspired by his 30-year passion for Antarctica and concerns for its future, when two young protestors burst onto the stage and tried to unfurl a banner.
Security guards quickly apprehended the pair, but festival director Giona A. Nazzaro and president Marco Solari intervened to allow them to speak, with the former declaring: “We’re with you. We’re worried about the same thing.”
The activists, wearing t-shirts bearing the slogan “Act Now...
Jacquet, who won the Best Documentary Oscar in 2006 for The March Of The Penguins, was being feted with the Locarno Kids Award, followed by a screening of his new film Magnetic Continent in front of a 7,000-strong crowd on the festival’s landmark Piazza Grande.
He was about to say a few words on the documentary, inspired by his 30-year passion for Antarctica and concerns for its future, when two young protestors burst onto the stage and tried to unfurl a banner.
Security guards quickly apprehended the pair, but festival director Giona A. Nazzaro and president Marco Solari intervened to allow them to speak, with the former declaring: “We’re with you. We’re worried about the same thing.”
The activists, wearing t-shirts bearing the slogan “Act Now...
- 8/7/2023
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Oscar-winning French director Luc Jacquet (“March of the Penguins”) will be honored by the Locarno Film Festival with its Locarno Kids Award celebrating a film personality who has brought the magic of movies to younger audiences.
“Luc Jacquet’s gaze has followed the perspective of the plant and animal kingdoms through his many voyages to the Antarctic or into forests both remote and close to home,” the Swiss festival dedicated to indie cinema said in a statement. It pointed out that this year’s prize “goes to a filmmaker who has consistently conveyed a powerful ecological message to younger generations of cinema lovers.”
The French biologist and filmmaker has made hugely popular nature documentaries such as “Penguins,” watched by more than 25 million people worldwide since its 2006 release, and “Once Upon a Forest” in 2013 and “Ice and the Sky” (2015). He also helmed a fiction feature “The Fox & the Child” (2007).
Jacquet...
“Luc Jacquet’s gaze has followed the perspective of the plant and animal kingdoms through his many voyages to the Antarctic or into forests both remote and close to home,” the Swiss festival dedicated to indie cinema said in a statement. It pointed out that this year’s prize “goes to a filmmaker who has consistently conveyed a powerful ecological message to younger generations of cinema lovers.”
The French biologist and filmmaker has made hugely popular nature documentaries such as “Penguins,” watched by more than 25 million people worldwide since its 2006 release, and “Once Upon a Forest” in 2013 and “Ice and the Sky” (2015). He also helmed a fiction feature “The Fox & the Child” (2007).
Jacquet...
- 4/18/2023
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Luc Jacquet, the Oscar-winning French director of March of the Penguins, will be honored with the 2023 Locarno Kids Award, an honor celebrating a film personality who has brought cinema to younger audiences, giving them “a sense of discovery about the big screen.”
Jacquet will receive his award in Locarno on Aug. 7, ahead of an open-air screening of March of the Penguins on Locarno’s legendary Piazza Grande. Jacquet will also take part in a panel discussion on Aug. 8. Locarno will screen a selection of Jacquet’s other films, which include documentaries Once Upon a Forest, 2015’s Ice and the Sky and Penguins sequel Penguins 2: The Next Step (2017), as well as the 2007 feature The Fox & the Child.
“Luc Jacquet is a director who has masterfully woven together the magical charm of observation and the pure poetry of storytelling, taking our gaze to dimensions of the planet never before explored,...
Jacquet will receive his award in Locarno on Aug. 7, ahead of an open-air screening of March of the Penguins on Locarno’s legendary Piazza Grande. Jacquet will also take part in a panel discussion on Aug. 8. Locarno will screen a selection of Jacquet’s other films, which include documentaries Once Upon a Forest, 2015’s Ice and the Sky and Penguins sequel Penguins 2: The Next Step (2017), as well as the 2007 feature The Fox & the Child.
“Luc Jacquet is a director who has masterfully woven together the magical charm of observation and the pure poetry of storytelling, taking our gaze to dimensions of the planet never before explored,...
- 4/18/2023
- by Scott Roxborough
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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