It only took three months, in 1946, to organize the first ever Locarno International Film Festival. Yet that first, daring venture – which presented films by Sergei Eisenstein, Roberto Rossellini, and René Clair – blazed a trail for years to come. From the outset, the hallmarks were an enduring commitment to auteur cinema, and a tendency to select against the tide of fashion – say, by exploring emerging cinemas, or by breaking down barriers between highbrow and lowbrow, even in times when they appeared insurmountable (for instance, when a Retrospective was dedicated to Totò in 1975). Published to mark the 75th edition of the Festival and illustrated with rare archive photographs, Locarno on / Locarno off retraces the official history of the event and reveals hidden stories from behind the scenes, with 75 anecdotes that hover between truth and legend: Marlene Dietrich exercising her contractual right to silence; Rainer Werner Fassbinder stealing a folding screen from his hotel room; Roberto Benigni talking to 10,000 people on the phone; Spike Lee and Wim Wenders frozen by stage fright in Piazza Grande; Agnès Varda doing a leopard dance… Whether backstage or in the limelight, this is a story that invariably looks to the future.

Lorenzo Buccella (Lugano, 1974) è giornalista alla Radiotelevisione svizzera, critico cinematografico e scrittore. Per il Locarno Film Festival è stato responsabile editoriale di rivista e sito ufficiali e nel 2014 ha curato il volume "Sempre giovane. Festival del film Locarno 1997 –2012". Nel 2022, in occasione della 75a edizione, ha pubblicato con le Edizioni Casagrande il volume "Locarno on/Locarno off. Storia e storie del Film Festival" (quattro edizioni distinte, italiana, inglese, francese e tedesca). Lavora per la RSI – Radiotelevisione svizzera.