Unverzichtbares Tessin

Why is Ticino the way it is? If anyone knows, it's Marco Solari. As the tourism director and president of the Locarno Film Festival, he has always advocated for a better understanding of the southern canton in German-speaking Switzerland. Through rich anecdotes and personal experiences, he narrates the transformation process of Ticino, which has shed its Boccalino and Zoccoli image, gained a new self-confidence, and thus become an indispensable part of Switzerland. Marco Solari is regarded as Mr. Ticino par excellence in German-speaking Switzerland. As the tourism director, delegate for the 700th anniversary of the Swiss Confederation, and president of the Locarno Film Festival, he has shaped the transformation of Italian Switzerland on many levels: once romanticized as an exotic sunlit retreat, the southern canton is now an essential political, economic, and cultural bridgehead between the North and South. True to the motto "Without roots, no future," Marco Solari and his companions reflect on this development with many anecdotes, always connected to a visionary outlook toward the future. Readers will thus gain a picture of Ticino beyond the clichés, narrated by the man who, for his contributions to Italian culture, is the only Swiss to have received one of Italy's highest honors.