Ehsan Khoshbakht, a London-based Iranian film critic, is curating one of Locarno’s highlights: a retrospective of Columbia Pictures classics from the 1930s to the late 1950s. In an interview, Khoshbakht explains the challenges and joys of this cross-cultural tour de force. The Locarno Film Festival is one of the most fertile platforms for discovering new talents, but it’s also consistently been one of the top venues for exploring the history of cinema. Each year, Locarno’s “Retrospective” section concentrates on a specific theme, such as national cinemas, genres or auteurs. Mexican Popular Cinema of the 1940s and 1950s; Douglas Sirk, the master of melodrama; milestone Black films across continents – these are just a few of the most recent retrospectives screened in Locarno, and which later toured several countries. This year’s attendees are in for a treat with a 40-film retrospective of Columbia Pictures, “The Lady with the Torch”, organised in partnership with the Cinémathèque Suisse.
