European Films

The Swiss summer festival in picturesque Locarno kicked off Wednesday night with the traditional open-air screening on the Piazza Grande, this year with the European premiere of Michael Mann's big screen adaptation of his 1980s hit TV series Miami Vice. The Official Competition section of the festival counts 21 titles in total, with screenings scheduled to start on Thursday through the festival's closing on Saturday August 12. A retrospective and several other awards are also part of the festival line-up.

Titles include the British The Lives of the Saints, from director Chris Cottam and photographer Rankin, Italian entries Jimmy della Collina from Enrico Pau and the much-delayed Roberta Torre noir Mare Nero with Luigi Lo Cascio and Anna Mouglialis, the Catalan-language Dies d'agost from Marc Recha and the German films Der Mann von der Botschaft from Dito Tsintsadze with Burghart Klaussner and Gefangene from Iain Dilthey. The German-language Swiss film Das Fräulein from Andrea Staka is the only local title in the Official Competition.

Portugal is represented by Body Rice from Hugo Vieira da Silva, while Romania will count on Radu Muntean's Hirtia va fi albastra (Paper Will Be Blue) to represent the recent Romanian cinematic renaissance. Russian director Andrei Eshpai will present Mnogotochie (Ellipsis) with Eugenia Simonova, while the French have two titles in Competition: Le dernier des fous from Laurent Achard and Suzanne from Viviane Candas. The French-language Belgian film Ca rend heureux is one of the two new films from emerging director Joachim Lafosse, who has another film in Competition at the upcoming Venice Film Festival. The selection also includes titles from the usual suspects on the festival circuit: China, Iran, South Korea, Argentina and North America. A Cuban production is also part of the mix.

Also on the programme: a retrospective dedicated to Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki, whose latest Cannes competitor Laitakaupungin Valot (Lights in the Dusk) is also screened; the presentation of the Leopard of Honor to Russian director Aleksandr Sokurov (Russian Ark, Solntse/The Sun), and the Locarno Award of Excellence to actor Willem Dafoe.

The jury for the In Competition titles is composed of French actress Emmanuelle Devos (Rois et reine/Kings and Queen), German producer Peter Rommel, Japanese director Nobuhiro Suwa, Swiss director Edo Bertoglio, Austrian filmmaker  and producer Barbara Albert, Italian director  Antonio Capuano (La guerra di Mario/Mario's War) and Chinese-Japanese director Ann Hui. The winners of the festival's top prize, the Golden Leopard, will be announced on Saturday August 12.