Heritage Online
The online year-round database for classics
The online year-round database for classics
Heritage Online offers film professionals a year-round database where streamers and other buyers are able to watch available titles from all over the world in a dedicated Online Screening Room, consult their detailed technical information including availability of films in the various territories, and get in touch directly with their rights holders.
Thanks to Heritage Online, rights holders such as international sales agents, film libraries, archives, institutes, and restorers’ associations among others are able to share their catalogues with potential clients, such as VOD broadcasters from all over the world, ranging from generalist to niche offerings, from established names to emerging start-ups.
At its second edition in 2024, the Heritage Online Restoration Contest is a yearly open call for applications for international classic and library films in need of complete or partial restoration.
The Contest is open to feature films from all over the world that premiered in or before 2009 and applicants must demonstrate that they are the rightful owners of the works in question.
A jury of three international industry professionals, who will be announced in May 2024, will evaluate the applications. The winning restoration project will then be announced during the Locarno Pro Award Ceremony on Sunday, 11 August 2024. Thanks to a collaboration with Zurich and Berlin based film lab Cinegrell, the winning film will receive complete restoration, which will begin shortly after the Festival. The restored title will then premiere at the Locarno Film Festival in 2025.
The Heritage Restoration Contest is open until 28 April 2024
More detailed information as well as the application form and regulations are available here.
Locarno Pro offers, in the framework of Heritage Online, a full day dedicated to Heritage Film industry, on Monday 12th of August, 2024. Panel discussions on the state of the heritage film distribution, case studies and presentations of brand-new restored films, as well as industry screenings of classics will be the core of this day.
Are you interested in taking part? For more information please contact: locarnopro@locarnofestival.ch
All Heritage Online subscriptions give 12 months of access to the database. The Heritage Online database is accessible at the following link: https://heritage.locarnofestival.ch/login
Rights holders can offer a selection from their catalogue on the platform alongside a file of their complete catalogue. Eligibility criteria for titles: feature length films of any genre that premiered no later than 2009. Each film added in the screening room will cost CHF 70.
Films featured in a past edition of the Locarno Film Festival can be featured in the Screening Room for free (contact us).
Heritage Online’s basic subscription is included in the Locarno Pro accreditation.
Join the one and only database for Worldwide Heritage Film distribution here: heritage.locarnofestival.ch
For more information, please contact the Heritage Online team: heritage@locarnofestival.ch.
Heritage Restoration Contest
Heritage Online Restoration Contest is a yearly open call for applications for international classic and library films in need of complete or partial restoration. The Restoration Contest, launched for the first time in February 2023, was open to feature films from all over the world that premiered in 2009 or before. This contest is possible thanks to a collaboration with Cinegrell, the winning film of the Heritage Online contest will then be the recipient of a complete, world-class restoration service. Call for application for 2023 is closed.
The winner
Mulher de verdade (1954) by Brazilian director Alberto Cavalcanti won the first ever Heritage Online Restoration Contest of the Locarno Film Festival. The film will enter a restoration process which will start right after the 76th Locarno Film Festival wraps and will end in the first semester of 2024. The restored film will then premiere at the next edition of the Festival in the Histoire(s) du cinéma: Heritage Online section.
Following an open call which lead to close to 30 submissions from 15 different countries, a jury composed of international film industry experts Paula Astorga (Locarno Open Doors Producers’ Lab Head of Studies), Frédéric Maire (Director at Cinémathèque Suisse), and K.J. Relth-Miller (Interim Director, Film Programs at Academy Museum) emphasized the relevance of the director in the LatAm and global cinematic heritage: “With this award we want to underline Alberto Cavalcanti’s importance and creative vision that shaped Brazilian filmmaking, leaving a lasting impact on the country’s cinematic heritage. We hope that the film will be rediscovered and widely diffused after Locarno77.”