Reinas by Klaudia Reynicke Awarded the Prix du Public UBS, While Gaucho Gaucho Takes Home the First Letterboxd Piazza Grande Award

The Swiss-Peruvian filmmaker won over 8,000 hearts in the Piazza Grande with her tender ‘90s-set family drama. Meanwhile, Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw’s panoramic Argentinian documentary Gaucho Gaucho was crowned the winner by Letterboxd, the global social media network for cinephiles.

The list of the Locarno77 Palmarès, announced in the afternoon on Saturday 17 August at the official ceremony in GranRex, is now complete, with the awarding of the Prix du Public UBS, done in collaboration with the Festival’s Main Partner for more than 20 years, and the Letterboxd Piazza Grande Award, which has been given for the first time at Locarno77. Both were awarded on stage at Europe’s largest outdoor screen on the final night of the Locarno Film Festival.

The Prix du Public UBS to Reinas

After 11 nights of screenings in Europe’s largest outdoor screen, the Locarno public crowned their winner. After voting in their thousands for the Prix du Public UBS, a popular prize given in collaboration with UBS for more than twenty years, the public judged that Swiss-Peruvian Klaudia Reynicke’s Reinas would take home this prestigious award. For filmmakers and distributors, winning the recognition of such a large audience in Locarno is an unmistakable sign that the film will have little difficulty connecting with audiences around the world in the future. “I feel there is a life before Reinas, and there is a life after it. To be able to spend three months in Peru – not as a tourist, but to do my job, surrounded by other Peruvians and Europeans… it was just priceless,” director Klaudia Reynicke reminisced about the shooting with Pardo, the Festival’s daily magazine. “I want to go back once a year now. I want my kids to be able to relate more to a country I was forced to leave too soon, and which now I’m old enough to reconnect with.”

While the Festival took place and Reynicke’s film had its swiss premiere, the selection committee appointed by the Swiss Federal Office of Culture included Reinas in the preselection for the Swiss Oscar Submission.

Letterboxd Piazza Grande Award to Gaucho Gaucho

Cinema everywhere, for everyone, forever. That’s the motto of the Letterboxd Piazza Grande Award, given by the world’s most popular social network for cinephiles. Locarno was the first major festival to partner with Letterboxd on an award, which this year was given by Ella Kemp, its London Editor, and a jury of young critics accredited at the Festival. “We were very much drawn to the mythology of the gaucho, which is similar to that of the cowboy in the United States,” directors Dweck and Kershaw told Laurine Chiarini in the August 14 edition of Pardo. “That's when we started looking for the real human stories that are part of that myth. We had to enter these people’s lives [...] Part of the beauty of the documentary process is that you are constantly being surprised: you start filming with an idea of what it might be, and it turns into something so much more beautiful.”

Besides Ella Kemp, the jurors were: Ena Alvarado (Venezuela), Amarsanaa Battulga (Mongolia), Tereza Dodoková (Slovakia), Emerson Goo (USA), Esmé Holden (UK), Öykü Sofuoğlu (Turkey).

The final awards of Locarno77 point to the diversity and breadth of the selection, reflecting the Festival’s artistic mission to move audiences with popular and accessible forms. Whether it’s a documentary like Gaucho Gaucho or a period drama like Reinas, the films playing in the Piazza Grande are each able to move an audience of thousands and address contemporary subjects in a rich and interesting way, making it a reliable barometer of popular taste.