Mia Hansen-Love’s third feature Goodbye First Love [pictured] will have its international premiere.

The Locarno Film Festival has announced the first two titles in this year’s international competition. They are Mia Hansen-Love’s third feature Goodbye First Love (Un amour de jeunesse). That film will screen in Locarno as an international premiere.

The second competitor is Sette opere di misericordia, the first fiction feature from brothers Gianluca and Massimiliano De Serio. They have previously made shorts, installations and documentaries. This film is being presented as a world premiere.

Meanwhile, two new initiatives are being launched at this year’s 64th Locarno Film Festival which will run from Aug 3-13.

The festival’s Summer Academy, which was held for the first time last year, is organising the Locarno Critics’ Academy in concert with the Swiss Film Journalists Association (ASGC) and coordinated by the Neue Zürcher Zeitung’s film critic Christian Jungen.

The organisers of the Critics’ Academy - which is similar to the Berlinale Talent Press initiative - will select six promising film journalists living in Switzerland who are at the beginning of their careers in journalism.

The successful applicants will be required to set up and run a collective daily blog on the films in Locarno’s programme for the festival’s duration, following an editorial line set by a member of the ASGC.

The second edition of the Locarno Summer Academy – running from August 8-13 – is open to 30 international participants and is aimed at young professionals and film students who are taking the first steps into the world of cinema.

Last year, the Summer Academy featured workshops with producer Janine Jackowski, director Maren Ade, Cinefondation’s director Georges Goldenstern and documentary filmmaker Christian Frei.

Meanwhile, the Swiss filmmakers umbrella organisation Cinesuisse and the Swiss Publishers Association SBVV will be in Locarno with a “Book & Film” workshop event on Aug 9 to promote greater collaboration between the film and publishing industries.

Representatives of the Swiss production house C-Films and publishing houses will speak about concrete experiences of adapting literary properties for cinema and television. This will be followed by a two-hour pitching forum when publishers from Switzerland and neighbouring countries having the opportunity to present new and back-catalogue book titles with potential for the cinema to an audience of directors, producers, and screenwriters.