Founded in 2010 with the aim of assisting the development of emerging talents, the Locarno Summer Academy is a training program for young filmmakers, professionals, students and film critics. The Locarno Summer Academy, this year in its fourth edition, came about from a desire to maximise Locarno's qualities as a meeting-place, and place of exchange for thinking about film, taking advantage of the Festival's overall structure and its numerous guests.
The program includes lectures, round tables, labs, workshops and case studies with well-established names from the film world, offering participants the opportunity to meet professionals and make new contacts.
The Locarno Summer Academy hosts four different initiatives, aimed at four different target participants. It thus offers a range of access levels: from a more general introduction for the youngest, to training new film critics, and from workshops for emerging filmmakers working on their first feature and labs for university students.
80 promising young talents from all over the world are selected by the Locarno Summer Academy and its partners, and invited to participate in one of the four programs on offer:
- Filmmakers Academy (12-17 August 2013): a Festival del film Locarno program for 25 young filmmakers from all over the world. A chance to interact with auteurs, producers, and other professional figures of international renown that will give participants the opportunity to extend their professional network and to broaden their knowledge of the various aspects of being a filmmaker, in the innovative spirit and auteur tradition that Locarno has always embodied.
Information and application.
- Critics Academy (7-17 August 2013): a Festival del film Locarno training program for 8 young film journalists/critics, in collaboration with Indiewire, the Film Society of Lincoln Center and the Swiss Association of Film Journalists. The program will be organized on a daily basis under the editorial guidance of a film critic, and the participants will cover the Festival by filing reviews of films in the program, articles on special events, Festival section profiles and analysis, or interviews with Festival guests.
Information and application.
- Documentary Summer School (12-17 August 2013): organized by the Swiss Italian University with the Festival del film Locarno, in collaboration with the Semaine de la critique, the Documentary Summer School enrols 20 university students with film, audio-visual and communication curricula. The students will have the opportunity to analyze various aspects of documentary filmmaking, also through meetings with directors in the selection of the Semaine de la critique section.
Information and application.
- Cinema&Gioventù (6-17 August 2013): an initiative of the Dipartimento dell'educazione, della cultura e dello sport - Centro didattico cantonale, aimed at 32 high school and university students or those coming from a vocational training school, in Switzerland and Northern Italy. Over eleven days, the young participants (17-21 years old) will participate in the Festival, as jury members and as privileged spectators: they will meet directors and actors, participate in classes with film experts and have access to the Festival’s sidebar events.
Information and application.
The Locarno Summer Academy enjoys support from the Ernst Göhner Stiftung (Zug) and has this year a new head, Ticino journalist and director Stefano Knuchel.
The official working languages are English and Italian.
The 4th edition will take place 7-17 August 2013, as part of the 66th Festival del film Locarno.
Information and enrolment:
Stefano Knuchel
Head of Locarno Summer Academy
Festival del film Locarno
ph. +41 (0)91 756 21 21, f. +41 (0)91 756 21 49
summeracademy@pardo.ch
