Meet the Juries of the 76th Locarno Film Festival

The juries will involve voices from around the world, representing some of the most exciting and creative visionaries on the contemporary scene, as this year’s jurors set about deciding the outcomes of the 76th Locarno Film Festival (2-12 August).

Attending Locarno to decide the prestigious Pardo d’oro for the winner of the Concorso internazionale, alongside Jury president Lambert Wilson, will be Scottish filmmaker Charlotte Wells, director of the acclaimed Aftersun (2022); Matthijs Wouter Knol, CEO and Director of the European Film Academy; Lesli Klainberg, President of Film at Lincoln Center; and Iranian actress Zar Amir Ebrahimi, winner of the best actress award at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival for Holy Spider (2022) and also the female lead in the closing film at Locarno76, Shayda (2023).

The jury for the Concorso Cineasti del presente will be made up of the General Delegate of the Film Critics’ Week at the Venice Film Festival, Beatrice Fiorentino, French-Tunisian director Erige Sehiri and German filmmaker Helena Wittmann.

The short films in the Pardi di domani section will be judged by Canadian filmmaker Matthew Rankin, Ticino film director and production designer Amos Sussigan and Polish producer Ewa Puszczyńska (fresh from her recent success in Cannes with Jonathan Glazer’s The Zone of Interest, 2023).

Serving on the First Feature jury assessing debut features at the Festival will be Indian-born, U.S.-based film critic and programmer Devika Girish, Egyptian film director Omar El Zohairy and Filipina filmmaker Isabel Sandoval.

Finally, the jury for the Pardo Verde Ricola, the new “Green Leopard” award introduced last year, will comprise of Iranian filmmaker Firouzeh Khosrovani, Swiss-Paraguayan director, screenwriter and producer Arami Ullón, and Senegalese filmmaker and painter Moussa Sene Absa. Together they will decide on the film competing at the Festival which best conveys an ecological theme.

The full list of candidate films for the Swatch First Feature Award (p.46) and Pardo Verde Ricola (p.48) can be consulted in the Press kit

Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director: “It’s an honor to welcome to Locarno such a rich and diversified line-up of filmmaking gazes, talents and professions to perform the task of judging the films competing at the Festival. Their brief, as always, is to stimulate the kind of conversation and debate that will provide the most proactive launch possible for films taking part, with both audience and industry.”

The Pardo d’oro, together with all the other prizes to be decided by the juries, will be revealed at the award ceremony on 12th August at 2.30 pm in the Cinema GranRex, Locarno. For detailed profiles of jurors serving at Locarno76 on the official and independent juries – Ecumenical Jury, FIPRESCI Jury, Europa Cinemas Label, Junior Jury Awards and Semaine de la critique – visit the Festival website.

Click here to find out more about the full official selection of the Locarno76. The day-by-day screening time will be available by mid-July.

To learn more about the program and how to purchase tickets and season tickets, visit here.

The 2023 selection

The Piazza Grande will welcome personalities such as Sandra Hüller (Anatomie d’une chute), Ken Loach (The Old Oak), Deva Cassel, daughter of Monica Bellucci and Vincent Cassel, in her big screen debut (La bella estate), Edoardo Leo (Non sono quello che sono - The tragedy of Othello by W. Shakespeare), the cult film Theater Camp from Sundance, and Cate Blanchett as executive producer of the film Shayda by Noora Niasari starring Zar Amir Ebrahimi.

Directors such as Quentin Dupieux, Lav Diaz, Radu Jude, Sylvain George, Eduardo Williams, Annarita Zambrano and Laura Ferrés will be competing for the Pardo d'oro in a competition that covers all the colors of cinema, from comedy to documentary. Switzerland will be represented by Basil Da Cunha, one of the most original voices leading the renewal of Swiss cinema.

The Fuori concorso, on the other hand, is dedicated to the great masters: from Paul Vecchiali – whose film will be presented posthumously – to Barbet Schroeder, Franco Maresco, Bertrand Mandico and Denis Côté.