University of California - Davis: Cannes & Locarno - World Cinema and the European Film Festival

Starting in Milan, traveling to Switzerland, and then on to the French Riviera in Cannes, this program examines contemporary cinema by considering the role of film festivals in producing and distributing films around the world. While studying film festivals and their history, the highlight of our time will be the Locarno Film Festival, set in the lovely lake region of southern Switzerland/northern Italy (near Lake Como and Milan). Perched between Cannes (in the spring) and Venice (in the fall), Locarno is the most important festival of the summer. Students will have a full pass to the festival and much of the writing and learning in the program will concern the films at the festival. The class will consider the relationship between conventional national filmmaking and the transnational film festival as well as the relationship between Hollywood film and more independent/smaller scale productions around the world. We will examine a series of contemporary filmmakers whose reputations were established at film festivals, including Pedro Almodovar (Talk to Her), Michael Haneke (Funny Games), Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love) and Lars von Trier (Dogville).