Editor

The retrospective for the 61st edition of the Locarno International Film Festival (6 -16 August 2008) will be devoted to the work of the Italian filmmaker, actor and producer Nanni Moretti.

This retrospective follows the tradition of major and exhaustive retrospectives of the work of contemporary auteurs held at the Locarno Festival over recent years that alternate with substantial historical monographs and more thematic programmes.
These keenly appreciated programmes aim to enable audiences to (re)discover, in one go, the work of a major filmmaker who is still active, as well as the films that have influenced or inspired him or her, and to discuss them with the filmmaker in person.

Following Youssef Chahine, Abbas Kiarostami, Marco Bellocchio, Joe Dante, and, most recently Aki Kaurismaki, in 2008 the spotlight turns to Nanni Moretti, alongside several friends and some of his closest colleagues. The Locarno Festival intends to celebrate a figure who has played an essential role in the Italian cultural and cinematic landscape over the last thirty years. But this special retrospective aims, above all, to provide an arena for dialogue and exchange with a world-renowned auteur and truly passionate individual, for whom film is lived at 360 degrees.

This retrospective is an opportunity for professionals and the Locarno audience alike to view and review the ensemble of feature films directed by Nanni Moretti, from Io sono un autarchico (I am Self-sufficient) (1976) to Il Caimano (The Caiman) (2006), as well as the numerous short and mid-length films made over the course of his career, from his very first films to his most recent documentaries. Several rarities (rushes and making-ofs) will round out this corpus, as well as a number of documentaries on Moretti as filmmaker. Locarno will also screen all the films directed by others that feature Nanni Moretti as an actor, from the Taviani Brothers' Padre Padrone (1977) to Daniele Luchetti's Il Portaborse (1991). The third section of the retrospective will illustrate Nanni Moretti's work as a producer through his company Sacher Film, which has supported a number of the most exciting filmmakers in Italian cinema in recent years, in both fiction and documentary. Finally, Nanni Moretti has, in response to a "carte blanche" invitation, selected a dozen films especially for this occasion, that will shed new light on his own work.

A book co-published with Cahiers du cinema, comprising interviews and hitherto unpublished material, will accompany this retrospective.