The Locarno Film Fest this summer will pay tribute to Hollywood’s original bad boy, Sam Peckinpah (1925-84). Director of the landmark western The Wild Bunch, as well as classics including Straw Dogs, Junior Bonner, The Getaway and Pat Garret & Billy the Kid, Peckinpah consistently explored rich characters in violent worlds fighting against the system. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1970 for best adapted screenplay for The Wild Bunch.
“With Sam Peckinpah, the festival pays tribute to both classical and post-modern cinema, the genre film and the auteur film, the kind of film that gets made against all the odds and the kind of cinema that resists any form of interference,” said festival director Carlo Chatrian.
“Peckinpah’s films have a great deal to say to those filmmakers who set themselves the task of looking to the future, and not only because they often foresaw how society was to develop,” he continued. “His films, both brutal and lyrical at the same time, fearlessly look at the men they depict, and their world — straight in the eye.”
Locarno will screen the director’s entire film catalog and TV work, as well as his stints as an actor. The festival will also host a series of roundtables to discuss Peckinpah’s body of work.
Last year Locarno paid tribute to Titanus, the legendary Italian film studio. The 68th edition of the festival runs Aug. 5-15.
