The international film industry is paying tribute to Lili Hinstin, the former artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, who has died at the age of 48 following a long illness.
Hinstin was head of Locarno for the 2019 and 2020 editions, succeeding Carlo Chatrian.
“A passionate cinephile, scholar, and curator, she guided the artistic direction of the Locarno Film Festival from 2018 to 2020 with an audacious and curious vision, attentive to filmmakers premiering their work across every section of the Festival,” said the festival in a statement.
“From an historic Locarno 72 and its extraordinary retrospective of Black cinema from around the world to the pioneering ‘Films After Tomorrow’ initiative that provided material support to filmmakers during the pandemic, her tenure left an indelible mark on our Festival.
”The entire Locarno family joins in mourning with her family, friends, and loved ones.”
Following a successful first edition in 2019, Hinstin met the challenges presented by the Covid pandemic by reinventing the occasion as ‘Locarno 2020 - For the Future of Films’ and launching The Films After Tomorrow initiative.
This initiative redirected special funds from the festival into support for 20 Swiss and international film projects whose film shoots had been disrupted by pandemic restrictions.
Among the projects that were completed thanks to Hinstin’s initiative were Argentinian director Lucrecia Martel’s documentary film Nuestra Tierra and Argentinian-born, Swiss-based filmmaker Mari Alessandrini’s Zahorí, and Vérńa Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor’s debut feature documentary De Humani Corporis Fabrica, which premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight in 2022.
Bulgarian filmmaker Vesela Kazakova recalled the impact Hinstin had on her career when she selected her feature Cat In The Wall for Locarno’s main competition. “We keep a fond memory of Locarno 72 and her tender and supportive energy,” she wrote in a social media post.
Egyptian director Yousry Nasrallah described Hinstin as “a remarkable woman”, remembering the retrospective of his work curated by Hinstin during her time as artistic director of the festival in Belfort.
Born in France, Hinstin studied foreign languages, literatures and civilisations with a specialisation in philosophy at the universities of Paris and Padua before setting up her production company Les Films du Saut du Tigre in 2001. She produced films by directors such as Christophe Clavert and Franssou Prenant, and directed Le Zombie about her grandfather Charles Hinstin.
Hinstin was subsequently responsible for film-related activities at the Academy of France in Rome and served as the deputy artistic director of Cinéma du Réel in Paris before being appointed the artistic director of the Entrevues Belfort – Festival International du Film in 2013.
She served as programme director for the Biarritz International Film Festival Nouvelles Vagues since it was founded in 2023.
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