Welsh actor Anthony Hopkins was the main attraction when he appeared at the Locarno Film Festival on Friday to present his film "Slipstream".

Hopkins, aged 69, who has entered his work in the international competition, presents a virtuoso film with an experimental structure in which there is no shortage of irony.

The actor, his wife Stella Arroyave and actor Christian Slater formed the "glamour factor" at the festival but Hopkins was there not as an actor but as a director.

"We were invited to Rome and other festivals," said Arroyave who produced the film. "But we chose Locarno because of its genuine spirit of independence."

Presented for the first time internationally, "Slipstream" is typical of United States independent cinema both in its form and content. It's also a success.

Reality and illusion

The film is about reality and the illusion of life. As Hopkins once said: "Life to me, as I get older, is so illusion-like, so dream-like, that I think it's all a dream."

In a nutshell, Hopkins plays a screenwriter who is losing his mind. Between dreams and thoughts, his brain upsets him as he works on a crime screenplay.

If "Slipstream" is also an action film and a satire on the current state of the film industry, it equally offers an insight into the way Hopkins' brain works.

"My wife suggested I write the film. I said to myself that if I failed, I would not be thrown into prison.

"I got stuck in and the scenes followed one after the other... It's a metaphor of life, which has a beginning and an end and that's it," he said.

Hopkins had to dig into his pocket to produce "Slipstream" and find finances privately. There was only one producer.

Freedom

"Producers tend to take control of films and I didn't want that. I summoned up as much courage as I could and that gives you an enormous sense of freedom."

Actor Slater, who carries the film from the beginning, said he had been "immediately inspired by Hopkins' script.

"I was very excited with my part, which left me a lot of room to experiment and have fun. It also inspired me to be as free as possible creatively," he said.

But what is the difference between acting and directing? "I cannot really say," Hopkins told swissinfo.

"I just had fun and I don't put things into categories. To direct is just another experience. I'm sometimes asked how I go about acting. I don't know. It's something I just do."

swissinfo, Pierre-François Besson, Locarno

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