LOCARNO, Switzerland — Unspooling in sweltering humidity, Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival, Europe’s biggest mid-Summer movie event, sometimes dazzled, led by an ebullient Emma Thompson.
More than anything else, in industry terms, it underscored how major festivals in the world just below the Big Five of Sundance, Berlin, Cannes, Venice and Toronto, are now realigning and surging as part of a global movie economy. That is as true of Locarno, best known as a bastion of high-art auteurs – as in different ways of San Sebastián, Karlovy Vary and Tallinn to name the smaller “A” list festivals in Europe.
Following, seven takeaways from Locarno – with more to come – including what Thompson, Jackie Chan, Alexander Payne and Lucy Liu said at the Swiss fest, Locarno’s global distribution dynamics, buzz titles and multifarious Locarno dealing.
The Stars
Emma Thompson dazzled and showed how stars can conquer an audience whether delivering her acceptance speech for a Locarno Leopard Club Award totally in Italian, or recounting how Donald Trump asked her out for a date on the set of “Primary Colors.” Jackie Chan reprised his famous fight scene moves. Another Locarno honoree, Alexander Payne explained what’s wrong with contemporary filmmaking: “Cut, Cut. I Get It. Cut.” Liu drilled down on the emotional suffering of her character in “Rosemead”: “How much can you endure?”
All were at Locarno. Thanks to the Internet, and streaming service focus on stars to mark out one film from another, stars are still hugely important, and their comments reverberated around the globe.
Locarno’s Jiving in a Global Film Economy
Why the stars are at Locarno is another question. Thompson brought “The Dead of Winter,” a Locarno world premiere; Liu heads “Rosemead,” a Locarno international premiere. “Locarno offers prestige, elegance and plenty of press attention at what is a much less crowded selection than most festivals in the awards season corridor,” said Stuart Ford, at AGC Intl. whose “Kiss of the Spider Woman” has its international premiere as Locarno’s closing night film on Saturday. “It also acts as a litmus test for international critical response that fuels our discussions with upscale distributors eyeing an early 2026 release,” Ford added.
“Prestige-driven releases are a global strategic exercise these days,” Ford told Variety. Locarno forms part of that strategy.
The Swiss Festival’s Broader Audience Proposition
Giona A. Nazzaro, Locarno artistic director from 2020, has broad tastes, in part because so does his audience at Locarno. Seating 6,500 Piazza Grande denizens love big upscale entertainment movies with, if possible, a star in attendance. Spectators near fought last Friday with ticket checkers to get into and grab a good seat in the Piazza Grande for “The Dead of Winter,” with Emma Thompson on hand to accept her Leopard Club Award. Equally, the market is moving ever more towards more commercial propositions. “This film fits in perfectly with our current focus, strong commercial titles with a social and human focus.,” said Ryan Kampe, president of Visit Films, explaining its pick up of “Keep Quiet,” starring Lou Diamond Phillips as a tribal cop battling a ruthless fugitive who returns to his rural Indigenous reservation. Just some years ago, Visit Films was best known for selling bigger auteur movies.
Locarno, Filmakers Embrace Genre
One of festivals’ biggest challenges, Berlinale director Tricia Tuttle observed on a high-caliber keynote panel Locarno’s StepIn think tank on AUG. 7 “has been increasingly since the ‘80s and ‘90s the disconnect between the commercial, the very commercial side of the industry and the side of the industry in festivals. There’s a chasm which has been getting broader and wider every year.” Appointed in part in 2020 to breach that chasm, Giona A. Nazzaro, Locarno artistic director from 2020 has not been afraid to program genre fare and genre producers are eager to take advantage of this opportunity, repositioning titles for broader than niche genre audiences. “It was a game changer when Giona programmed our trigger-warning gore-soaked film, “The Sadness” in 2021,” recalls Raven Banner’s Michael Paszt, who was back this year with Roger Corman reboot “Deathstalker, which played out of competition. “After the world premiere at Locarno, streamer Shudder/AMC+ acquired it and it became its most-watched foreign-language premiere in its history. When a genre film like ‘Deathstalker’ is selected, it gains a new kind of legitimacy and takes the work to an entirely new level,” Paszt adds.
Buzz Titles
That said, most of critics’ buzz this year turned on the auteurist titles which still packed out Locarno’s main International Competition and Filmmakers of the Present. Variety warmed to Craotian Hana Jušić’s “strikingly atmospheric” smoldering period drama “God Will Not Help” and in Filmmakers of the Present to Toronto-based Sophy Romvari’s “Blue Heron,” “imaginative, emotionally acute filmmaking that deserves to break out of the festival circuit.” Back in International Competition, Georgian Alexandre Koberidze’s “Dry Leaf” had its fans, as did “With Hasan in Gaza.” Radu Jude’s “Dracula” proved enormously divisive, but will spark sales. “Two Seasons, Two Strangers” (“Tabi to Hibi”) was also warmly received at Friday’s press screening.
The Biggest Critical Hit to Date at Locarno: Great Expectations: British Post-War Cinema, 1945-1960
Locarno is carving out a well-earned reputation for exquisitely crafted, addictive retrospectives. This year was no exception. Great Expectations proved “a total revelation,” says Variety critic Jessica Kiang. Alexander Payne went further, calling the retrospective “unbelievable.” ““I couldn’t be less interested in the new films. I’m only interested in the old ones. The star so far is ‘Hell Is a City’ from 1960. That’s an awesome film!”
The Deals
*In the biggest deal announcement made at Locarno, AGC International revealed it is closing a raft of international distribution deals, with multiple major markets, on “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” starring Jennifer Lopez.
*Making good on buzz among buyers at Locarno, the Steven Kostanski-directed and Raven Banner-sold “Deathstalker” scored major territory pre-sales at the Festival with Japan’s Klockworx and Lighthouse Home Entertainment (LHE) for German-speaking Europe before the sword and sorcery actioner’s Locarno world premiere. Just before the Festival, Shout! Studios announced it had acquired English-Language territories to “Deathstalker.”
*Visit Films, the prestigious New York-based sales agent, has come on board to handle international sales on “Keep Quiet,” directed by Vincent Grashaw (“Bang Bang”), starring Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Lou Diamond Phillips (“La Bamba”) and another Locarno world premiere.
*At the Swiss festival for Locarno Pro, Spain’s Latido Films revealed it had picked up sales to the Mariano Cohn and Gastón Duprat-directed anthology comedy “Homo Sapiens?” most likely the Argentine blockbuster of 2025.
*Greece’s go-getting Heretic announced sales on “The Birthday Party,” the earliest high-profile title at Locarno, starring Willem Dafoe. It also confirmed sales rights to Locarno buzz title “Dry Leaf.”
* Totem picked up buzzy sexually candid open relationship comedy “Follies,” the most open audience title in Locarno’s Filmmakers of the Present.
*Rediance swooped on sales rights to Ben River’s “Mare’s Nest,” a feature stemming from “an accumulative feeling of dread” about the world adults are leaving to children, Rivers told Variety.
*In the earliest of two Vincent Grashaw movie deals, Sunrise Films has acquired North American distribution rights to “Bang Bang,” the emotionally charged boxing drama starring Tim Blake Nelson, which screened at 2024’s Locarno.
*Spain’s Bendita Film Sales pounced on “Phantoms of July,” from German promise Julian Radlmaeir, which went on to spark excitement among some buyers.
*Prestigious Swiss distributor Frenetic Films boarded Playtime-sold Locarno buzz title “Solomamma,” one of the International Competition’s more commercial propositions.
*Brussels-based Best Friend Forever picked up sales rights on Geneviève Dulude-De Celles’ “Nina Roza,” which went on to win big at Locarno’s Canada pix-in-post First Look competition.”
*MoreThan Films swooped at Locarno on Ion de Sosa’s social thriller “Balearic.”
*Anna Alarcón, co-star of SXSW winner “Mamífera,” is set for the lead role in Liliana Torres’ follow-up “Climacteric,” revealed Barcelona’s Edna Cine, which brought the title onto the market at Locarno’s Match Me! networking forum.
*Italian sales co Fandango revealed multiple initial sales to Variety on Margherita Spampinato’s Locarno title “Sweetheart” (“Gioia mia”) taking in Brazil (Pandora), Benelux (Arti Film), Taiwan (Av-Jet), Argentina, Chile and Uruguay (Zeta Filmes) and Israel (Lev Cinema).
*Square Eyes picks up sales rights to Maureen Fazendeiro’s Locarno Competition entry “The Seasons,” which to date has now sparked interest in buyers from Switzerland and Japan, Square Eyes Woulter Jansen told Variety.
*The Yellow Affair confirmed to Variety that it had picked up for sales Locarno Kids pic “Pixie: The New Beginning.”
*MAD World scooped worldwide sales rights to highly regarded Tunisian filmmaker Mehdi Hmili’s revenge drama “Exile” ahead of its Locarno world premiere.
*New Paris-based sales and co-production outfit B-Rated International acquired sales rights to “Sorella di Clausura,” Ivana Mladenovic‘s parody of romantic melodrama with went on to play well with critics at Locarno.
*Paris-based MPM Premium acquired world sales rights to hyperrealistic drama “Irkalla: Gilgamesh’s Dream,” by Iraqi director-producer Mohamed Al-Daradji (“Son of Babylon”), which played Piazza Grande before segueing to Toronto’s Centerpiece selection.
*Intramovies swooped on two Locarno movies, “Mosquitoes,” and “White Snail,” now bound for Sarajevo.
*Locarno-bound “Hair, Paper, Water…,” the latest collaboration between Belgian filmmaker Nicolas Graux and Vietnamese director Truong Minh Quy, went to Italian sales agent Lights On.