Locarno Film Festival

For eleven August days, Locarno turns into a film town with a lake breeze. The festival lives across Piazza Grande, the festival cinemas, the lakefront promenade, and the old town streets, so a day here rarely stays inside one building for long. You might start with a quiet morning screening, spend the afternoon moving between cinemas and coffee stops, then join the slow evening drift into the square as rows of seats fill under the open sky.

Mornings feel calmer, with early screenings and industry activity while the town is still easing into the day. By afternoon, the pace picks up around festival cinemas as people stack another film or two, compare notes over espresso, and thread through the old town streets toward the next venue. In the evening, attention shifts toward Piazza Grande, where the crowd gathers well before showtime for the big open-air screening. After dark, the square becomes the emotional center of the festival, and when the film ends, people spill back toward nearby streets and the lakefront promenade talking through what they just saw. The central days carry the fullest mood, the longest queues, and the strongest sense that the whole town is tuned to cinema.

Locarno’s identity comes from the way serious cinema and public scale meet in the same place. A competition title might play earlier in a festival cinema, then the whole town seems to reassemble for the night in Piazza Grande, where an open-air screening turns filmgoing into a shared civic ritual rather than a sealed-off industry event. The short walks between cinemas, old town streets, and the lakefront keep that feeling alive all day, so the festival never disappears when you step outside the theater.

Locarno’s film-festival eating has a clear rhythm: espresso between screenings, gelato in the afternoon heat, aperitivo near the lake before the evening program, then something filling after a late finish in Piazza Grande. The Swiss-Italian setting shows up in simple, satisfying choices that fit a day built around screening times rather than long formal meals. Must Try:

• risotto
• pasta
• espresso
• gelato
• aperitivo