Locarno Film Festival – Solari: “Ticino has developed a new self-confidence” – Culture

This year the last Locarno Film Festival will take place under the direction of Marco Solari. The 79-year-old with Ticino roots explains why Ticino is more self-confident today and what it takes to stay young.

SRF: Marco Solari, as president of the film festival, you are something of a calling card for the festival. Is it difficult to follow in your footsteps?

Marco Solari: Every president must have their own personality. It’s never good when you want to imitate someone. I’m convinced that the selection committee will find the right personality, and they certainly won’t have to follow my example.

From the Ticino point of view, is it important that your successor is a Ticino?

Let’s put it this way: It is important in Ticino that my successor has great sympathy and sensitivity for Ticino. What Ticino always wants is evidence of a certain sensitivity.

Legend:

According to Marco Solari, the most important thing for the film festival is secure funding. The festival is growing in spurts. The next line must succeed in pushing again.

Keystone / Urs Flüeler

You also said that a Federal Councilor from Italian-speaking Switzerland is important so that understanding between the different parts of the country can continue to grow. Since the six years of Federal Councilor Cassis, has there been more understanding of German-speaking Switzerland than southern Switzerland?

It is essential that there is a member of the Federal Council who thinks, speaks and dreams in Italian. I am convinced that if there is no Italian-speaking member of the Federal Council, then an important element is missing in our country.

Ticino has finally shed the complex of 300 years of bailiff ownership.

We politicize differently in Ticino. The priorities are different, you think differently. In German-speaking Switzerland people are very concise, in Ticino people tend to approach the problem in concentric circles, but the solution is then more comprehensive.

You also say that there are still differences in mentality between southern and northern Switzerland.

There will always be. There is a north-south border in Europe where everything is a little different.

Can we improve mutual understanding? It’s not that we’re the same, but that we understand each other better.

People are always needed to stand up for this understanding. Ticino is no longer the same as it used to be. In the past, people always said: “Ah, Ticino is so nice and beautiful”, you saw it a bit paternalistically.

German-speaking Switzerland recognizes the power of Ticino.

Today, Ticino has developed a new self-confidence, also thanks to the culture, the university, the technical college: these are all drivers of a new Ticino. It has finally shed the complex of 300 years of bailiff ownership and is more confident today. and a self-confident, strong Ticino is also good for the whole of Switzerland.

I think we are a happy country because the German-speaking Swiss majority is tolerant and receptive. She sees that Ticino is not just an appendage, but recognizes the power of Ticino.

You will be 80 years old next year. You once said that we are all running out of time. But you don’t notice that you’re being rushed.

You always have to see the positive and be able to put things away, forgive. A poem by Fontane impressed me: «Ever narrower, quieter, quieter / the circles of life draw. / Vanishes what brags and boasts / Hope, hate, love vanishes / And nothing remains in sight / but the last dark point.» It’s all relative. You have to find that calm. I don’t always have them on a daily basis, but generally I have them.

The interview was conducted by Karoline Thürkauf.