The Locarno Film Festival is a major international film festival, held annually in Locarno, Switzerland. Founded in 1946, the festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative, documentary, short, avant-garde, and retrospective programs. The Piazza Grande section is held in an open-air venue that seats 8,000 spectators.[1][2][3]
The top prize of the festival is the Golden Leopard, awarded to the best film in the International Competition. Other awards include the Leopard of Honour for career achievement, and the Prix du Public, the public choice award.
The 73rd edition, scheduled from 5 to 15 August 2020, was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was cancelled for the first time since World War II; in its place, the special edition called "Locarno 2020 – For the Future of Films" was held. The festival had asked high-profile directors including Lucrecia Martel and Lav Diaz to select films from the festival's 74-year history for a retrospective that was screened online and in physical locations.[4][5]
The 76th Locarno Film Festival took place from 2 to 12 August 2023. For this year edition, the acting categories (Best Actor/Best Actress) became gender-neutral after the creation of the Best Performance category.
The 77th Locarno Film Festival will take place from 7 to 17 August 2024. This year, the festival announced the launch of a new award in collaboration with social media site Letterboxd.[8]
Awards
Competitive Awards
Concorso internazionale (international competition) – Awards
Pardo d'oro (Golden Leopard). Grand Prize of the festival, awarded by the city and region of Locarno, for the best film in the concorso internazionale (international competition).
Special Jury Prize. Prize, awarded by cities of Ascona and Losone, for the second best film in the concorso internazionale (international competition).
Leopard for Best Direction. Prize, awarded by the city and region of Locarno, for the best directed film in the concorso internazionale (international competition).
Swatch First Feature Awards. Prize awarded by a jury of international critics to the first works presented in the sections concorso internazionale, concorso Cineasti del presente, Fuori concorso, Moving ahead (ex Signs of Life) and Piazza Grande.
Concorso Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present) – Awards
Pardo d'oro Cineasti del presente (Golden Leopard - Filmmakers of the Present). Prize awarded to the best film of this competition, which is dedicated to first or second features.
Ciné+ Special Jury Prize – Cineasti del presente. The French television channel Ciné+ Club offers the broadcast rights to the winning film and guarantees the broadcast on their channel.
Pardo per il miglior regista emergente (Leopard for Best New Director): Prize for the best new director.
Pardo per la migliore opera prima (Leopard for the Best First Feature). Prize which has been awarded from 2006 to 2009 to the best first work screened in the competition concorso internazionale or concorso Cineasti del presente.
Pardi di domani (Leopards of Tomorrow) – Awards
Pardino d'oro for the Best International Short Film – SRG SSR Prize. Prize awarded to the best short film in the international short film competition Pardi di domani.
Pardino d'oro for the Best Swiss Short Film – Swiss Life Prize. Prize awarded to the best short film in the national short film competition Pardi di domani.
Pardino d'argento SSR SRG for the international competition. Prize awarded to a film in the international competition Pardi di domani.
Pardino d'argento Swiss Life for the national competition. Prize awarded to a film in the national competition Pardi di domani.
Locarno short film nominee for the European Film Awards – Pianifica Prize. The prize, which is offered by the studio Pianifica, goes to a short film made by a European director, presented in one of the two competitions. The award includes an automatic nomination in the short film category of the European Film Awards.
Prize for Best Swiss Newcomer. The prize provides equipment offered by Cinegrell, Visuals SA, Freestudios SA, Taurus Studio e Avant-première SA/Film Demnächst AG.
Premio Medien Patent Verwaltung AG. The winning film will be subtitled in three central European languages. This subtitling can be inserted on film, video or DVD format.
Green Pardo WWF In collaboration with WWF, the Green Pardo WWF is the prize that aims to find the film which best reflects the environmental theme in any of the Festival's competition sections. The award constitutes a Green statue and SFr 20,000 to the director.
Direction and management
Artistic Directors:
1946–1958: Riccardo Bolla
1960–1965: Vinicio Beretta
1966: Sandro Bianconi
1967–1970: Sandro Bianconi, Freddy Buache
1971: Commission of direction, composed of seven members from Ticino
