Locarno 2024: Industry Attendance Soars Amid Sales Agent Feeding Frenzy (2024)

LOCARNO, Switzerland — Taken multiple ways, 2024’s Locarno industry days proved hot.

Attendance at Locarno Pro, the festival’s industry arm, hit over 1,743 on-site participants and 141 online accreditations, an all-time historical record of 1,884 delegates, 23% up on last year’s 1,530 total.

Business witnessed a mini feeding frenzy from sales agents as 13 of the 28 titles without an announced sales agent at the July 10 Locarno lineup announcement were picked up for international sales by festival start.Varietyalone unveiled 16 sales deals, also an all-time high.

As temperatures hit a highly humid 36ºC, the big industry question at this year’s Locarno was why business – in terms at least of sales pack-ups –seemed so bullish. A few potential answers to that and other industry takes on this year’s Locarno Festival, Europe’s biggest mid-summer event.

Arthouse Crosses Over…

Maybe what makes an art film has changed. Boosted by new government funding, a new generation of directors emerged in the 2000s which made out-there, sometimes minimalist movies which tore up the filmmaking rule book: Think Carlos Reygadas’ “Japan.” Now the center of gravity in non-English language filmmaking is moving ever more towards a commercial arthouse still addressing, however, urgent hot button issues.

….and Embraces Genre

Some of the biggest market hits from early festival going, moreover, look like movies that bring genre into play. Psychodrama “Sparrow” is spangled by horror tropes, “Fréwaka” is “an old-dark-house horror movie,” saysVariety, while “Mexico ’86” wraps family high drama in a political thriller. In all, at this year’s Locarno,Varietyreported deals – pick ups, sales – on six movies with genre elements – “Sew Torn,” “Fréwaka,” “Electric Child,” “Agora,” “Moon” and “Red Path ” – as many as it did on arthouse drama titles, also six. Multiple movies of course mix it up, melding genre with social issues or simply drama. “It’s the mythical and political Irish context of “Fréwaka” that makes it stick,”Varietysays of “Frewaka.” “Red Path” begins with a ghastly act of inhuman jihadism, haunting characters and spectators for the rest of the film, which plays out as a coming of age drama.

Locarno Welcomes Next Gen Genre Makers

More than anything else, the genre surge is driven by a next generation of filmmakers. At Locarno’s co-pro Open Doors, focused this year on Latin America, five of its eight projects had genre. These ranged from a vampire body horror love story (“Fiebre Caribe”) to Ecuadorian queer sci-fi (“UFOs in the Tropics”); El Salvador’s “Salvation,” “a thriller with a found-footage horror spirit,” says its director; a Peruvian gamer thriller (“The Return of the Last Mochica Warrior”) and a Jamaica-set tropical horror story (“The Periphery”). “Auteur films are increasingly permeated with genre-flirting tropes to tell real life stories. This is a market trend, but also due to a younger generation of filmmakers which has grown their cinematic culture with films from masters like Carpenter, Lynch and Cronenberg, just to name a few,” says Markus Duffner, head of Locarno Pro.

And Smart Genre Drives Sales

The industry, market and audiences, as Duffner suggests, is also warming to more commercial arthouse. “Audiences worldwide have picked on what we now call ‘elevated arthouse’ films which show that there is an appetite for different ways of making films,” France’s Solal Coutard, at Locarno’s Match Me! Forum toldVariety. “From our perspective, Locarno offered a good platform for ‘Fréwaka,’ which enjoyed many trade reviews and lots of press interest and was well-attended,” says Jan Naszewski at New Europe Film Sales. “We’re now getting many requests for a screener and I believe we went wider than a typical horror would. ‘Fréwaka’ is a smart film, which offers more that just a cheap thrill so the setup in Locarno to be part of a bigger conversation was perfect.”

Buzz Titles

“This darkly engrossing psychodrama of pent-up domestic tensions should be an arthouse breakthrough for Switzerland’s gifted Zürcher brothers,”Varietysaid of “The Sparrow in the Chimney,” while “Fréwaka” is a “rattling Irish horror film.”Varietyalso called “The Beautiful Summer” a “gorgeously mounted Italian period drama.” Tunisian Lotfi Afour’s “Red Path” is sparking good word-of-mouth. So are Iranian Leila Amini’s doc-feature “A Sister’s Tale,” and “Mexico 86,” Cesar Diáz’s follow up to Cannes Camera d’Or winner “Our Mothers,” bulwarked by an admired central perf by “The Artist’s” Bérénice Béjo.

Locarno: A Massive New Talent Platform

So more sales agents than usual may have hailed into town for Locarno. Fuelled by film schools, the number of filmmakers entering the industry shows little sign of diminishing. Focusing on emerging producers (networking forum “Match Me!”) or first or second-feature directors (pix-in-post First Look, Open Doors), Locarno Pro works as a massive but highly curated new talent platform. “In our fourth year working together with Locarno Artistic Director Giona Nazzaro, we have finetuned our joint efforts to make Locarno more and more attractive for the international industry,” says Duffner. “It trusts our Festival and Locarno Pro industry platform in offering a great roaster of new talents both in the Official Selection and among the selected emerging professionals in our industry activities.”

Adapting to a New Age

“Sales agents never die, they just print up new business cards,” the saying goes. If the sales business is a vocation, many agents are proving willing to adapt to leaner times as theatrical openings abroad contract and returns on most foreign films plummet. Apart from often entering production, as sales agentsthey will be prepared to work far slimmer margins on films they love. “We have been cutting our margins for the past decade or so. As the distribution business is changing and evolving in ways we cannot fully predict, we are also evolving and adapting our own business models,” says Lidia Damatto at MoreThan Film, which acquired Locarno titles “Listen to the Voices” and “Hanami” (see below).

A Rising Tide?

Other bigger picture factors may also be at work. “It feels like there is a positive vibe in the market in general which logically also means that sales agents are looking for more content as well,” TrustNordisk Managing Director Susan Wendt tellsVariety.

“Furthermore, it has become hard to finance films only in country of origin (at least in some territories). As it gets harder and takes longer, therefore more films are being co-produced with other countries, which also gives the films a more international appeal.”

A Resilient Family & Kids Sector

Sales agents can also look to options which still command considerable cinema theater audiences, such as family & kids entertainment. In Locarno dealing, Denmark-based sales agency LevelKboarded sales on Slovenian family title“Block 5.” Loco Film Paris also confirmed toVarietythe sales to over 40 territories on Veit Helmer‘s German kids and family feature “Akiko – the Flying Monkey,” playing Locarno’s Kids Screenings, a now key trading hub at Locarno. “A Flower of Mine,” also targeting kids & family and a devastating take on glacier melt, has also initiated sales.

Locarno Pro took place Aug. 7-13. Also kicking off Aug. 7, the Locarno Festival runs through Aug. 17.

The Deals

*Closed at Locarno, “A Flower of Mine” has clinched a rights deal for Benelux with Lumière, which includes a theatrical release. Praesens-Film has taken all rights to Switzerland. Handled by Nexo Studios, the film will open in Italy over Nov. 25-27. Samarcanda Film, Nexo Digital and Harald House produce.

*The Playmaker has partnered with UTA to handle sales on Locarno, SXSW title “Sew Torn,” described byVarietyas a “high-concept crime farce that pits genre grit against fruit-loop fantasy.”

*In some of the first major territory sales announced on a Locarno title, Aislinn Clarke’s “smart horror” “Fréwaka” scared up deals for Japan (Hakuhodo DY Music & Pictures Inc.) and Spain (Filmin), ahead of its Locarno Premiere.

*Spain’s Mansalva Films confirmed Alba Flores, Nairobi in “Money Heist,” as well as Spanish Academy Goya new actor nominees La Dani and Julio Hu Chen, as part key cast for “The Shepherdess.”

*Hong Sang-soo’s Locarno main competition entry “By the Stream” was acquired for North American by Brooklyn-based Cinema Guild. Finecut sold.

*MPM Premium announced sales on a Locarno heartrender, “Red Path,” to France, Belgium, MENA.

*New York-based Visit Films acquired international sales rights to sci-fi parable “Electric Child” from Swiss writer-director Simon Jaquemet.

*Miyu Distribution picked up animated Dominican feature “Olivia & the Clouds” ahead of Locarno, Ottawa screenings

*Barcelona-based Cornelius Films is co-producing Lantica Studio’s “My Uncle’s Movie,” starring “Better Call Saul’s” Steven Bauer and Dominican newcomer Maia Otero.

*Dominican producer Cristian Mojica and filmmaker Yoel Morales, behind SXSW Audience Award winning “Bionico’s Bachata,” revealed a new project, “The Baker.”

*France’s Wrong Films, producer of Sundance Jury prize winner “Animalia,” is prepping Beirut-set thriller “Thaoura.”

*Cairo-based sales-distribution house Mad Solutions is handling international rights on Tunisian auteur Ala Eddine Slim’s Locarno competition entry “Agora,” a mystery drama with supernatural overtones.

*Parallel to that, Mad World, a Mad Solutions subsid, took world sales on Lebanon Civil War doc feature “Green Line,” competing for Locarno’s Golden Leopard in main competition.

*Bendita Film Sales acquired rights to Lithuania’s “Toxic,” about warped gender practices at a modeling school, then closed sales on another Locarno competition entry, “Moon,” turning on a martial arts fighter on an “unsettling” assignment in Jordan.

*MoreThan Films closed a sales rights pickup deal on the eve of the festival on “Listen to the Voices,” a memorable take on the wonder and violence of French Guiana, adding a few days later, Denise Fernandes’ Cape Verde-set debut “Hanami.”

*Madrid-based “La Pecera” producer Solita Films has boarded divorce drama “March 14th,” from Locarno Match Me! player Contraria Media.

*Darya Zhuk, behind Belarus Oscar entry “Crystal Swan,” is prepping “Exactly What It Seems,” a dark science fiction satire of contemporary authoritarianism.

*Italy’s Fandango took sales on Silvia Luzi and Luca Bellino’s Locarno competition title “Luce,” which immerses spectators in the obsessed world of leather factory who wants more from life.

*”Sensory” Dominican Drama “Beyond the Mist” has kicked off sales with a deal with distributor Latin Quarter which has also taken world rights on trans doc “The Beach of the Enchaquirados.”

*Shellac launched global sales at Locarno on Catholic Church sex abuse doc “The Deposition.”

*Switzerland’s Hugofilm is co-producing Michèle Flury feature debut “Pas Ta Maman,” set up at Germany’s Sommerhaus Filmproduktion and presented at Locarno Match Me!