The Locarno International Film Festival will dedicate its 2026 retrospective to one of the most turbulent and politically charged periods in the history of American cinema, with a program focused on the so-called “Red Scare” and the Hollywood blacklist during the McCarthy era. Under the title Red & Black – Hollywood Left and the Blacklist, the section—once again curated by programmer Ehsan Khoshbakht—will examine the impact of the ideological persecution that shaped the industry between 1947 and the early 1960s.

The initiative, organized in collaboration with the Cinémathèque Suisse and with the support of the UCLA Film & Television Archive, aims to reconstruct a complex portrait of a time in which artists and film professionals faced an unprecedented use of state power as well as pressure from within the industry itself. During those years, at the height of the Cold War, conservative sectors of the American political system alleged communist infiltration in Hollywood, leading to hearings driven by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) that, in many cases, functioned as de facto judicial proceedings.

The result was the establishment of a blacklist that derailed careers, forced numerous creators to work under pseudonyms or go into exile, and curtailed freedom of expression. The so-called “guilt by association” also affected entire families, while projects with perceived leftist leanings were censored or outright canceled.

The retrospective will include nearly 50 films and audiovisual works by figures such as John Garfield, Joseph Losey, Dalton Trumbo, Dorothy Parker, Richard Wright, and Charles Chaplin, spanning fiction, documentaries, newsreels, and short films from the United States, the United Kingdom, Spain, Italy, France, Mexico, and Argentina. The program will combine digital restorations with archival prints and will be accompanied by a publication featuring essays by international scholars, as well as a podcast written by Khoshbakht that will provide historical context for the period.

Khoshbakht himself noted that the selection seeks to show how Hollywood’s imagery—often described as a “dream factory”—was challenged by politically committed filmmakers, whose work reflected both creative innovation and the consequences of that stance. According to him, the program offers new perspectives on the McCarthy-era “witch hunts” and resonates with contemporary debates on artistic freedom.

For his part, the festival’s artistic director, Giona A. Nazzaro, emphasized that the retrospective represents a critical and historical effort aimed at shedding new light on a dark chapter in American cinema, while also allowing for a broader and more contextualized reassessment of the conflicts of the time.

Among the titles already announced are The Sound of Fury (1950) by Cy Endfield; The North Star (1943) by Lewis Milestone, written by Lillian Hellman; Ruthless (1948) by Edgar Ulmer; Intruder in the Dust (1949) by Clarence Brown; and Crossfire (1947) by Edward Dmytryk, among others.