Locarno review: Street of Resistance (2026)
Locarno Film Festival
Pardi di Domani
National Competition
Filmmaking sometimes seems like a simple process that could be done with the most modest of means. The same goes for journalism, and even art-creating, to a point. The reason is simple: the stories that should be told are all around us, and sometimes, it is enough to listen to them, watch them unfold and try to retell them.
Premiering at Locarno’s Pardi di domani National Competition section, the short documentary Street of Resistance is one such “simple” and straightforward project. Its director, filmmaker and producer Jan Ciallella pointed his camera from a balcony to the street to observe and record the events happening on it. The twist is that the balcony and the street are in Belgrade, Serbia, overlooking the anti-government protests that have been going on since November 2024.
Belgrade and Serbia have a long tradition of protests, from the period of the national liberation from the Ottomans in the beginning of the 19th century, through the period of Serbian and later Yugoslav monarchy, the communist period when most of the protests were silenced or directed from above, and the 90s against the wars in former Yugoslavia and the dictatorship of Slobodan Milošević, all the way to the contemporary period and the corrupt autocracy of Aleksandar Vučić. Most of the protests take place in the centre of Belgrade, so a balcony overlooking one of the main streets seems like a perfect vantage point for recording footage and drawing conclusions.
Up until the end, Ciallella’s approach seems strictly observational. His outsider’s perspective seems even highlighted this way. What we see is what we get, without explanation apart from the subtitling of the slogans written, chanted and carried by the demonstrators. Ciallella also gets some help from the insiders, including his co-editor Corina Schwingruber Ilić, who is a part-time Belgrade resident, and her cues, such as lifting the editing tempo in the mid-section, prove crucial in communicating the message.
The revelation of the potential trouble occurs at the end. Namely, Ciallella is not satisfied with simply observing and recording the events, so he has to interpret and comment on them through the closing textual card. By doing so with such a blunt instrument that invites generalisations and simplifications and that doesn’t leave much room for viewers to draw their own conclusions, he cements his position as an outsider and the spirit of his film as a product packaged for international (festival) audiences. Ciallella gets out of trouble with a nice dedication to “those who speak out for their right and better future”,; which made Street of Resistance feel like an imperfect, but still honest document of our time.
Year:
2026
Runtime:
9’
Country:
Switzerland
Language:
Serbian
Directed by:
Jan Ciallella
Cinematography by:
Jan Ciallella
Editing by:
Corina Schwingruber Ilić, Jan Ciallella
Sound
design by: Oswald Schwander
Colourist:
Moritz Hossli
Produced by:
Jan Ciallella
Support by:
Kanton Luzern, Stadt Luzern, FUKA-Fonds, Kultur
Filmförderung
Distribution by:
Mythenfilm
