The 78th Locarno Film Festival (August 6–16, 2025) invites international professionals and cinephiles into a competition that pulses with unease, sensuality, political urgency, and formal risk. The Concorso Internazionale and Concorso Cineasti del Presente reveal a cohort of films unafraid to confront existential disarray, social fracture, and the elusive desire for connection.
Among the most anticipated world premieres is Abdellatif Kechiche’s long-delayed Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due, a follow-up to Canto Une. After years of silence following the controversial Intermezzo, Kechiche returns to Locarno with the continuation of his sun-drenched, hyper-naturalistic opus exploring erotic longing and youth adrift. The film is likely to provoke critical debate and draw polarized reactions, consistent with his oeuvre.
After the award-winning Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World, Romanian provocateur Radu Jude will unveil one of the most anticipated entries of the year, Dracula (pictured above).The film sees the director taking on the vampire mythos with his signature mixture of satire and essay-film techniques.
Ben Rivers will compete with Mare’s Nest, which promises meditative textures, blurred nonfiction, and speculative elements in enigmatic, near-future girlhood tale.
Built around rediscovered miniDV tapes from 2001, Kamal Aljafari’s latest With Hasan in Gaza is a searing and intimate road movie through a Gaza that no longer exists. Both personal and political, the film combines memory, media archaeology, and speculative nonfiction. Following her co-direction of The Tsugua Diaries, Maureen Fazendeiro embarks on a solo journey into the landscapes and layered histories of Portugal’s Alentejo region in The Seasons. Fusing fiction, ethnography, and environmental storytelling, the film traces cyclical time, rooted communities, and the persistent echoes of colonial pasts, anchoring the program’s more poetic end.
The directing duo behind Space Dogs, Elsa Kremser and Levin Peter, shifts into fiction with a nocturnal love story between a morgue worker and an aspiring model in post-Soviet limbo in White Snail. Tactile, atmospheric, and steeped in outsider tenderness, White Snail signals a striking new direction for Kremser and Peter, combining realism with dreamy estrangement.
Julian Radlmaier of Bloodsuckers continues his Marxist absurdist trajectory with a dramedy split into three acts, Phantoms of July. Breezy yet allegorical, the film is a meditation on class, love, and ghosts, literal and metaphorical. Of note is Dry Leaf, directed by Alexandre Koberidze (What Do We See When We Look at the Sky?), likely offering a poetic infused with Koberidze’s characteristic whimsy and emotional undercurrents.
Balkan and Eastern European tensions are explored in Dane Komljen’s Desire Lines, Hana Jušić’s God Will Not Help, and Ivana Mladenović’s Sorella di clausura, while female perspectives shape works like Rosanne Pel’s Donkey Days and Janicke Askevold’s Solomamma. Finally, Godard protégé Fabrice Aragno brings sensorial flair to the couple-on-a-boat drama Le Lac, and Sho Miyake’s manga adaptation Two Seasons, Two Strangers adds Japanese introspection to the mix.
This year’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente leans into intercontinental dissonance and aesthetic diversity. Swiss duo Alexia Walther and Maxime Matray open with Affection Affection, a formally fluid narrative that echoes their earlier Tout est pardonné, navigating fractured relationships with surreal humor and melancholic detours.
Spanish director Ion de Sosa constructs a retro-futurist vision set against the party ruins of Mallorca in Balearic. Known for his vibrant visual provocations, de Sosa brings queer joy and post-capitalist satire to the fore. Kazakh-French director Zhannat Alshanova presents Becoming, a multinational production capturing the instability of womanhood across shifting cultural landscapes. Canadian-Hungarian entry Blue Heron by Sophy Romvari expands her intimate documentary-fiction hybrid style into feature length, diving deep into familial history and female inheritance.
Check the line-up below.
Concorso Internazionale
DESIRE LINES by Dane Komljen
Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Netherlands, Croatia, Germany – 2025 (World Premiere)
DONKEY DAYS by Rosanne Pel
Netherlands, Germany – 2025 (World Premiere)
DRACULA by Radu Jude
Romania, Austria, Luxembourg – 2025 (World Premiere)
DRY LEAF by Alexandre Koberidze
Germany, Georgia – 2025 (World Premiere)
GOD WILL NOT HELP by Hana Jušić
Croatia, Italy, Romania, Greece, France, Slovenia – 2025 (World Premiere)
LE LAC by Fabrice Aragno
Switzerland – 2025 (World Premiere)
MARE’S NEST by Ben Rivers
United Kingdom, France, Canada – 2025 (World Premiere)
MEKTOUB, MY LOVE: CANTO DUE by Abdellatif Kechiche
France – 2025 (World Premiere)
MOSQUITOES by Valentina Bertani, Nicole Bertani
Italy, Switzerland, France – 2025 (World Premiere)
PHANTOMS OF JULY by Julian Radlmaier
Germany – 2025 (World Premiere)
SOLOMAMMA by Janicke Askevold
Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Finland – 2025 (World Premiere)
SORELLA DI CLAUSURA by Ivana Mladenović
Romania, Serbia, Italy, Spain – 2025 (World Premiere)
TALES OF THE WOUNDED LAND by Abbas Fahdel
Lebanon – 2025 (World Premiere)
THE SEASONS by Maureen Fazendeiro
Portugal, France, Spain, Austria – 2025 (World Premiere)
TWO SEASONS, TWO STRANGERS by Sho Miyake
Japan – 2025 (World Premiere)
WHITE SNAIL by Elsa Kremser, Levin Peter
Austria, Germany – 2025 (World Premiere)
WITH HASAN IN GAZA by Kamal Aljafari
Palestine, Germany, France, Qatar – 2025 (World Premiere)
Concorso Cineasti del Presente
AFFECTION AFFECTION by Alexia Walther, Maxime Matray
France – 2025 (World Premiere)
A BALCONY IN LIMOGES by Jérôme Reybaud
France – 2025 (World Premiere)
BALEARIC by Ion de Sosa
Spain, France – 2025 (World Premiere)
BECOMING by Zhannat Alshanova
France, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Lithuania, Sweden – 2025 (World Premiere)
BLUE HERON by Sophy Romvari
Canada, Hungary – 2025 (World Premiere)
DON’T LET THE SUN by Jacqueline Zünd
Switzerland, Italy – 2025 (World Premiere)
DON’T LET ME DIE by Andrei Epure
Romania, Bulgaria, France – 2025 (World Premiere)
FANTASY by Kukla
Slovenia, North Macedonia – 2025 (World Premiere)
FOLLIES by Eric K. Boulianne
Canada – 2025 (World Premiere)
HAIR, PAPER, WATER by Nicolas Graux, Trương Minh Quý
Belgium, France, Vietnam – 2025 (World Premiere)
HIJO MAYOR by Cecilia Kang
Argentina, France – 2025 (World Premiere)
OLIVIA by Sofía Petersen
Argentina, United Kingdom, Spain – 2025 (World Premiere)
SWEETHEART by Margherita Spampinato
Italy – 2025 (World Premiere)
THE FIN by Park Syeyoung
South Korea, Germany, Qatar – 2025 (World Premiere)
THE PLANT FROM THE CANARIES by Ruan Lan-Xi
Germany – 2025 (World Premiere)
Fuori Concorso
BOBÒ by Pippo Delbono
Italy – 2025 (World Premiere)
DEATHSTALKER by Steven Kostanski
Canada – 2025 (World Premiere)
E by Anna Eriksson
Finland – 2025 (World Premiere)
EXILE by Mehdi Hmili
Tunisia, Luxembourg, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia – 2025 (World Premiere)
I LIVE HERE NOW by Julie Pacino
USA – 2025 (European Premiere)
JUDAS’ GOSPEL by Giulio Base
Italy, Poland – 2025 (World Premiere)
KEEP QUIET by Vincent Grashaw
USA – 2025 (World Premiere)
KEROUAC’S ROAD: THE BEAT OF A NATION by Ebs Burnough
United Kingdom, USA – 2025 (International Premiere)
LE CHANTIER by Jean-Stéphane Bron
France, Switzerland – 2025 (World Premiere)
LEGEND OF THE HAPPY WORKER by Duwayne Dunham
USA – 2025 (World Premiere)
NOVA ’78 by Aaron Brookner, Rodrigo Areias
United Kingdom, Portugal – 2025 (World Premiere)
SILENCE by Eduardo Casanova
Spain – 2025 (World Premiere)
SOME NOTES ON THE CURRENT SITUATION by Eran Kolirin
Israel – 2025 (World Premiere)
THE DEAL (Episodes 3–6) by Jean-Stéphane Bron
Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium – 2025 (World Premiere)
Piazza Grande
IN THE LAND OF ARTO by Tamara Stepanyan
France, Armenia – 2025 (World Premiere)
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY by Miguel Ángel Jiménez
Greece, Spain, Netherlands, United Kingdom – 2025 (World Premiere)
THE DEAD OF WINTER by Brian Kirk
USA, Germany – 2025 (World Premiere)
THE DEAL (Episodes 1–2) by Jean-Stéphane Bron
Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium – 2025 (Swiss Premiere)
HEADS OR TAILS? by Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis
Italy, USA – 2025 (Swiss Premiere)
IRKALA – GILGAMESH’S DREAM by Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji
Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, France, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia – 2025 (World Premiere)
IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT by Jafar Panahi
Iran, France, Luxembourg – 2025 (Swiss Premiere)
KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN by Bill Condon
USA, Uruguay – 2025 (International Premiere)
LA PETITE DERNIÈRE by Hafsia Herzi
France, Germany – 2025 (Swiss Premiere)
POLICE STORY by Jackie Chan
Hong Kong – 2025
ROSEMEAD by Eric Lin
USA – 2025 (International Premiere)
SENTIMENTAL VALUE by Joachim Trier
Norway, France, Denmark, Germany, Sweden – 2025 (Swiss Premiere)
THE SHINING by Stanley Kubrick
United Kingdom, USA – 2025
TOGETHER by Michael Shanks
Australia, USA – 2025 (Swiss Premiere)