53rd Locarno Film Festival

The 53rd Locarno Film Festival was held from 2 to 12 August 2000 in Locarno, Switzerland. There were 18 films in competition. The opening film of the festival was the international premiere of X-Men directed by Bryan Singer. The Leopard of Honor was awarded to Paul Verhoeven, for his cinematic career, and his film Hollow Man had its European premiere on the Piazza Grande, the 10,000 seat open-air theater. A section called "Kings of the B's" was held to celebrate B-movies.

This was artistic director Marco Mueller's last year at the festival. After 9 years as the head of the festival Mueller left to become a film producer. Upon leaving he said it was hard to have a festival niche between big Hollywood summer releases and art house cinema, especially when losing out on films to the Venice Film Festival. Derek Elley of Variety remarked that, "Muller failed in his ambition to turn the well-regarded but basically eggheady Euro art-movie event into a glitzy fest to rival Venice." This was also the last year for recently hired festival president Giuseppe Buffi, who died two weeks before the opening night. In a closed meeting the day following Buffi's death, Mueller told the festival committee he would be resigning.

The Golden Leopard, the festival's top prize, was awarded to Father directed by Wang Shuo. The film was completed in 1996, but was banned by the Chinese government. Locarno artistic director, Marco Mueller arranged to smuggle the only English subtitled print out of China for the festival. Baba (Father) had its world premiere at Locarno and was shown without any prior advertising as a surprise film.

• Naum Klejman, Jury president, Soviet film scholar and critic
• Todd McCarthy, American film critic
• Zhang Yuan, Chinese director
• Shinji Aoyama, Japanese director
• Helene Angel, French director
• Alessandro D'Alatri, Italian director
• Clemens Klopfenstein, Swiss director
• Shirin Nashat, Iranian director
• Paz Alicia Garciadiego, Mexican screenwriter

The following films were screened in these sections:

Piazza Grande

International Competition

The Concorso Cineasti del Presente, also known as the Filmmakers of the Present Competition, showcases first and second feature films from emerging filmmakers

Out of Competition (Fuori Concorso)

Leopards of Tomorrow (Pardi di Domani)

Another Story of Soviet Cinema (Une autre Histoire du Cinéma soviétique 1926 - 1968) featured banned Soviet film and un-cut director editions in addition to seven different opening segments of Sergei Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. It was also advertised as "The Unknown Forbidden Soviet Cinema 1926 - 67"

The Semaine de la Critique is an independent section, created in 1990 by the Swiss Association of Film Journalists in partnership with the Locarno Film Festival.

• Golden Leopard: Baba directed by Shuo Wang

• Silver Leopard: Xilu Xiang directed by Fruit CHAN, Manila directed by Romuald Karmakar

• Bronze Leopard: Sabine Timoteo in L AMOUR, L ARGENT, L AMOUR directed by Philip Gröning, Ulrike Beimpold, Sonja Romei, Birgit Doll, Joachim Bissmeier, Josef Hader, Roland Düringer in DER ÜBERFALL directed by Florian Flicker

• Official Jury Prize: Gostanza Da Libbiano directed by Paolo Benvenuti

• Special Mention, Official Jury: BRONX-BARBÈS directed by Eliane de Latour, No Quarto Da Vanda directed by Pedro Costa

• Prix du Public UBS: Hollow Man directed by Paul Verhoeven

• SRG SSR idée Suisse Prize and Egli Film Prize, New Swiss Talents, Leopards of Tomorrow, (Short Films): Summertime directed by Anna Luif

• "Action Light" Prize, New Swiss Talents, Leopards of Tomorrow, (Short Films): Lignes De Fuite directed by Léo Maillard

• Eastman Kodak Company Prize, New Swiss Talents, Leopards of Tomorrow, (Short Films): Tout Est Bien directed by Vincent Pluss

• Special Mention, New Swiss Talents, Leopards of Tomorrow, (Short Films): La Bouee directed by Bruno Deville

• Film und Video Subtitling Prize, Spanish Films, Leopards of Tomorrow, (Short Films): El Trabajo directed by Igor Legarreta and Emilio Pérez

• Special Mention, Spanish Films, Leopards of Tomorrow, (Short Films): En Malas COMPAÑIAS directed by Antonio Hens

• First Prize, Youth Jury: No Quarto Da Vanda

• Second Prize, Youth Jury: Baba directed by Shuo Wang, Mua Oi directed by Nhat Minh Dang

• "The environnement is the quality of life" Prize": Cronicamente Inviavel directed by Sérgio Bianchi

• "Euro>26" Prize: 101 Reykjavik directed by Baltasar Kormákur

• Special Mention, Youth Jury: Gostanza Da Libbiano directed by Paolo Benvenuti

• Youth Jury Prize, New Swiss Talents, Short Films: Summertime directed by Anna Luif

• Youth Jury Prize, New Spanish Talents, Short Films: Disertaciones Sobre Una Coliflor directed by Carmen Conesa

• Special Mention, Youth Jury, New Spanish Talents, Short Films: Bancos directed by Santi Amodeo and Alberto Rodriguez

• Video Golden Leopard, Sony Prize: Les Yeux FERMÉS directed by Olivier Py

• Video Silver Leopard, Sony Prize, Long Format: Puisi Tak Terkuburkan directed by Garin Nugroho

• Oecumenical Jury Prize: Baba directed by Shuo Wang

• FIPRESCI Prize: Hotaru directed by Naomi Kawase

• FICC/IFFS Prize: Mua Oi directed by Nhat Minh Dang

• Special Mention, FICC/IFFS Jury: Baba directed by Shuo Wang, No Quarto Da Vanda directed by Pedro Costa

• SRG SSR idée Suisse Prize, Critics Week: Do It directed by Marcel Zwingli and Sabine Gisiger

• Special Mention, Critics Week: Blue End directed by Kaspar Kasics

Source:

• Official website