Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, short, avant-garde, and retrospective programs.

As stated by cinema historians, it emerged as a ‘grassroots celebration’ and mostly oriented on attracting tourists to Locarno, offering various entertainment events such as fashion shows and excursions.

Managed mostly by the Pro Locarno tourists office, it strived to offer the visitors an extraordinary entertainment and stood out as an international meeting point in a neutral country.

The critics, however, accused the event of communist propaganda, as the anthem of socialist countries was played before the screenings of their films and the flag was raised during the ceremony.

Still, the accusations made the Swiss intelligence services closely monitor the festival, while the officials insisted on lesser selection of features from the Eastern bloc.

[4] In 1956, a commercial dispute between Swiss distributors and foreign producers amidst heavy political tension in connection to the repression of the 1956 Budapest insurrection led to cancellation of the 1956 LFF edition.

By then, the festival had gained a unique reputation as an alternative “to traditional commercial distribution” as it pioneered Italian Neo-Realism, Latin American and Asian Cinema, and especially Polish, Czech, and Hungarian New Waves.

[4] Later, the Locarno Film Festival presented features and short films by many international directors such as Claude Chabrol, Stanley Kubrick, Paul Verhoeven, Miloš Forman, Marco Bellocchio, Glauber Rocha, Raúl Ruiz, Alain Tanner, Mike Leigh, Béla Tarr, Chen Kaige, Edward Yang, Alexandr Sokurov, Atom Egoyan, Jim Jarmusch, Ang Lee, Gregg Araki, Christoph Schaub, Catherine Breillat, Abbas Kiarostami, Gus Van Sant, Pedro Costa, Fatih Akin, Claire Denis and Kim Ki-Duk.

[5] 2020 was marked with a major change in top positions: after Hinstin's resignation, sales exec Valentina Merli and Industry Days chief Nadia Dresti both stepped down.