The Hollywood Left and the Blacklist: A Chat With the Curator of Locarno’s Timely Retrospective for the Age of Trump & Co.
By Georg Szalai
Published on July 31, 2026.
The Curator of the Locarno Film Festival, Ehsan Khoshbakht, has curated a retrospective called Red & Black – Hollywood Left and the Blacklist, which will focus on the period from 1947 to the early 1960s when Hollywood professionals suspected of communist ties faced a crackdown. The Swiss festival's look back will provide a portrait of an era when creatives faced unprecedented abuse of state and industry power and faced fierce artistic resistance. The retrospective, produced in partnership with the Cinémathèque Suisse and with the support of UCLA Film & Television Archive, features over 50 films and newsreels featuring directors, writers, and stars such as John Garfield, Joseph Losey, Dalton Trumbo, Dorothy Parker, Richard Wright, and Charlie Chaplin.
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