Festivals: Locarno
Locarno 2025 Review: THE SEASONS Unearths Memory Through Layers of Land and Myth
Maureen Fazendeiro excavates landscape as living archive, fusing archaeology, oral history, and local myth into a layered docu-fictional portrait of southern Portugal's cultural memory.
Locarno 2025 Review: MOSQUITOES Turns 1990s Nostalgia Into a Punk-Tinted Coming of Age
Valentina and Nicole Bertani's 'Mosquitoes' blends punk energy with coming-of-age intimacy to explore childhood as both refuge and rebellion in a world of distracted adults and dysfunction.
Locarno 2025 Review: LAKE Immerses the Audience in a Sensorial Drift Between Body and Landscape
Fabrice Aragno abandons conventional storytelling in favor of a meditative, sensory experience where the human body, light, and landscape become the film's primary narrative elements.
Locarno 2025 Review: THE FIN, Dystopian Sci-Fi Turns Environmental Collapse into Political Allegory
Syeyoung Park's sophomore film is a dystopian sci-fi grounded in political allegory, using environmental mutation and social exclusion to reflect on ideology, historical amnesia, and state control.
Locarno 2025 Interview: DON'T LET THE SUN Director Jacqueline Zünd Discusses Heat, Humanity, and the Poetics of Minimalism
Swiss filmmaker Jacqueline Zünd discusses the visual language, thematic layering, and hybrid process behind her fiction debut, offering insights into a future world shaped as much by emotional estrangement as by climate collapse.
Locarno 2025 Interview: Jury President Rithy Panh Talks the Urgent Politics of Cinema, Totalitarianism and Algorithms
This year´s Locarno Jury President Rithy Panh reflects on the evolving role of cinema in an age of digital distraction, reaffirming his uncompromising commitment to artistic freedom, memory, and the political responsibility of filmmakers today.
Locarno 2025 Interview: FANTASY Director Kukla and Cast Talk Gender, Motherhood in the Film Industry, Reimagining Balkan Youth on Screen
Slovenian director Kukla and cast members Sarah Al Saleh, Alina Juhart, and Mina Milovanović discuss the development of the film, a multi-year project shaped by collaborative rehearsal, regional identity, and a visually driven approach to storytelling.
Locarno 2025 Interview: SOLOMAMMA Director Janicke Askevold on Redefining Family, Donor Anonymity, Building Intimacy Through Genre
Norwegian director director Janicke Askevold offers an in-depth look at the creative process behind the film, unpacking its real-life inspirations, thematic complexity, and the collaborative choices that shaped its distinctive tone and performances.
Locarno 2025 Interview: PHANTOMS OF JULY Director Julian Radlmeier on Quiet Politics, Surreal Humor, Psychogeographic Origins
Julian Radlmeier reflects on shifting away from overt satire toward a more lyrical and layered mode of storytelling in his latest film, born from a single photograph and shaped by the strange, revealing textures of a forgotten East German town.
Locarno 2025 Interview: IRKALLA: GILGAMESH'S DREAM Director Mohamed Al-Daradji on Casting Real Orphans, Filming Amidst Baghdad's Unrest
Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji reflects on the wounds that shape his cinema, the ethical complexities of working with traumatized children, and the quiet defiance of making films in a country where storytelling can still be an act of survival.
Locarno 2025 Industry: Canadian Projects, African Voices, and European Co-Productions Take Key Awards
Locarno Pro 2025 highlighted a diverse range of international projects, with industry awards recognizing emerging talent, cross-border collaborations, and new developments in independent cinema.
Locarno 2025 Interview: FOLLIES Director Éric K. Boulianne Talks Non-Monogamy, Fake Bushes, and That EYES WIDE SHUT Orgy Scene
Canadian writer-director Éric K. Boulianne reflects on the artistic, ethical, and production risks of 'Follies,' charting a course from DIY filmmaking to on-screen intimacy.
Locarno 2025 Review: SOLOMAMMA Fuses Arthouse Intimacy with Genre-Inflected Reflections on Single Motherhood
Norwegian director Janicke Askevold offers a restrained yet layered exploration of solo motherhood, merging Scandinavian arthouse sensibilities with subtle genre elements to examine shifting family dynamics in contemporary society.
Locarno 2025 Review: PHANTOMS OF JULY Excavates Local Mythology Through Soft Melancholy and Mundane Surrealism
German director Julian Radlmaier shifts from overt satire to a more lyrical mode, delivering a psychogeographic portrait of precarious lives and fleeting solidarities in a post-socialist landscape.
Locarno 2025 Review: IRKALLA: GILGAMESH'S DREAM Confronts Iraq's Haunted Present Through Myth, Memory and Children as Collateral Damage
Director Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji constructs a fragmented, myth-infused portrait of post-ISIS Baghdad, where the traumas of a lost generation unfold through the eyes of a silent child wandering between memory, violence, and ancient legend.
Locarno 2025 Awards: Japanese Drama TABI TO HIBI Wins Top Honors at 78th Locarno Film Festival
The 78th Locarno Film Festival spotlighted a new wave of global cinema, with Sho Miyake's 'Tabi to Hibi' claiming the Golden Leopard.
Locarno 2025 Review: FANTASY Merges Coming of Age and Social Drama on Identity Through a Music Video Aesthetics
Slovenian director Kukla creates an intimate exploration of gender fluidity and self-discovery within the framework of a coming-of-age tale set in the contemporary Balkans in her fiction debut.
Locarno 2025 Review: Lyrical MARE'S NEST Maps a Post-Adult World Through the Eyes of a Child
Ben Rivers' film envisions a quietly unsettling world shaped by children, offering a reflective counterpoint to conventional post-apocalyptic stories.
Locarno 2025 Review: DON'T LET THE SUN Envisions a Sociological Dystopia of Emotional Surrogacy and Climatic Disconnection
Jacqueline Zünd´s fiction debut, set in a nocturnal world rendered uninhabitable by climate collapse, follows a professional emotional surrogate whose carefully managed detachment begins to unravel when he's hired to play the father of a withdrawn young girl.
Locarno 2025 Industry: Locarno's First Look Turns Spotlight on Canadian Cinema
Locarno's First Look industry showcase turned its 14th edition spotlight on Canadian cinema, unveiling six diverse works in progress that underline the country's growing ambition and international reach.
