The 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival is coming up fast, and organizers have now unveiled the full lineup of this year’s juries that decide the winners of the Pardo d’Oro, or Golden Leopard, and the Swiss festival’s other awards.
Presiding over the jury of the international competition, the Concorso Internazionale, will be Belgian filmmaker Fabrice Du Welz (Adoration, The Passion According to Béatrice. He is joined by Italian producer Marco Alessi, founder of Rome-based Dugong Films and one of the producers of Bertrand Mandico’s Roma Elastica, which is part of this year’s out-of-competition lineup, French actress Lolita Chammah (Copacabana, Barrage), the daughter of Isabelle Huppert, Chilean actress Paulina García (Gloria) and Olivier Père, the former artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival and now executive director of ARTE France Cinéma and head of its cinema unit since 2012.
The films in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente, or Filmmakers of the Present, program dedicated to emerging directors, will be judged by Tunisian actress, director, producer and director of the Gabès Cinéma Fen festival Afef Ben Mahmoud, Czech producer and director Radovan Síbrt, responsible for shepherding such international productions as the Oscar-winning Mr. Nobody Against Putin and Italian filmmaker Margherita Spampinato (Sweetheart).
Meanwhile, the Pardi di Domani section, focused on the filmmakers of the future, will be evaluated by a jury made up of Lebanese director, writer and actress Mounia Akl (Costa Brava, Lebanon; House of Guinness), South African producer Steven Markovitz (Rafiki, Omen) and Italian director Antonio Piazza (Sicilian Letters).
The First Feature jury, honoring the best debut in the festival’s lineup with the Swatch First Feature Award, is comprised of Matthieu Darras, director of Tatino, who has programmed for Cannes, Venice, San Sebastián and TorinoFilmLab; Sung Moon, the Jeonju International Film Festival programmer and former member of the Korean Film Council; and Swiss-Peruvian filmmaker Klaudia Reynicke (Queens).
The Pardo for Change honor “reflects Locarno’s commitment to cinema that engages with pressing environmental, ethical, social, and cultural questions of broad social relevance.” Its jury includes Gianluca Grossi, a freelance war reporter, writer and theater author; Somali-Austrian filmmaker Mo Harawe (The Village Next to Paradise) and Seta Thakur, head of communications and social innovation at the Wyss Academy for Nature.
Said Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director at Locarno: “Selecting those whose eyes will be watching the films in the competitive sections is a task that always brings out desires and emotions. The diversity of talent meets the diversity of perspectives. Ultimately, however, what matters most is a willingness to be surprised, to be amazed, and to embrace the unexpected.”
The 79th Locarno Film Festival will take place Aug. 5-15.
