The Hollywood Left and the Blacklist: A Chat With the Curator of Locarno’s Timely Retrospective for the Age of Trump & Co.
Locarno Film Festival’s 2026 retrospective, *Red & Black – Hollywood Left and the Blacklist*, examines the Red Scare and Hollywood blacklist from 1947 to the early 1960s. Curator Ehsan Khoshbakht says the programme is especially timely because it draws parallels with contemporary political pressure on free speech and artistic freedom, while documenting how filmmakers resisted state and industry power.
Produced with the Cinémathèque Suisse and UCLA Film & Television Archive, the programme includes more than 50 fiction films, documentaries, shorts and newsreels. It features figures including Charlie Chaplin, Dalton Trumbo, Joseph Losey and Dorothy Parker, and films such as *High Noon*, *Force of Evil*, *A King in New York* and *The Front*; the 79th Locarno Film Festival runs from 5 to 15 August.
- Locarno examines Hollywood’s blacklist era through more than 50 films.
- The retrospective links past repression with current free-speech concerns.
- The festival takes place from 5 to 15 August.