The greatest thing about the Locarno Festival is how accessible their venues are and how organic an experience watching great cinema becomes here. As author and filmmaker Emmanuel Carrère pointed out earlier, he is in Locarno on Jury duty, while at other festival you basically know what you can expect, here it's wonderful because the discoveries you make are completely unexpected.
Personally, I find it perfect to get up in the morning and catch the press screening of competition films at 9 a.m. at the Kursaal cinema and return there after lunch for more great things. Also sprinkled around town and culminating in the Piazza Grande screening each night, there are many wonderful films to be discovered. I mean, like Meg Ryan said during our public chat this past Saturday, the "Piazza Grande has 8,000 seats!" Now wrap your head around that.
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