Riz Ahmed to receive this year’s Excellence Award for lifetime achievement.
Oscar-nominated British actor Riz Ahmed (Sound of Metal), will be honoured this year with Locarno’s Excellence Award Davide Campari. Ahmed will receive the lifetime achievement honour on the festival’s opening night, August 2. The festival will also screen Bassam Tariq’s 2020 feature Mogul Mowgli, in which Ahmed stars and co-produces. – Hollywood Reporter
The 2023 Locarno International Film Festival runs from August 2 to 12. The festival’s main feature competition lineup is below:
Piazza Grande Programme
Locarno’s main Piazza Grande section will include several of this season’s festival favourites, among them Cannes Palme d’Or winner Anatomy of a Fallfrom French director Justine Triet starring Sandra Hüller; Ken Loach’s latest (and possibly last) feature, The Old Oak; Noora Niasari’s Sundance audience award winner Shayda, featuring Holy Spider star Zar Amir Ebrahimi; and Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman’s comedy Theater Camp, which won a special jury prize at Sundance. Other highlights include US horror feature Falling Stars by directors Richard Karpala and Gabriel Bienczycki; Dammi from 71? and White Boy Rick-helmer Yann Demange; and Magnetic Continent, the new nature documentary from March of the Penguins‘ filmmaker Luc Jacquet about the continent of Antarctica. – Hollywood Reporter
Anatomy of a Fall, director: Justine Triet
Magnetic Continent, director: Luc Jacquet
Guardians of the Formula, director: Dragan Bjelogrlic
Dammi, director: Yann Mounir Demange
Falling Stars, directors: Richard Karpala, Gabriel Bienczycki
The Falling Star, directors: Fiona Gordon, Dominique Abel
La Bella Estate, director: Laura Luchetti
City of Women (1980), director: Federico Fellini
La Paloma (1974) director: Daniel Schmid
La Voie Royale, director: Frédéric Mermoud
Smugglers, director: RYOO Seung-wan
The Tragedy of Othello by W. Shakespeare, director: Edoardo Leo
Première Affaire, director: Victoria Musiedlak
Shayda, director: Noora Niasari
The Old Oak, director: Ken Loach
Theater Camp, directors: Molly Gordon, Nick Lieberman
Concorso Internazionale Programme
In its Concorso internazionale section of films from emerging cinema nations, Lorcarno’s 2023 line-up will include sardonic Romanian drama Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World from Radu Jude (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn), the comedy Yannik from French avant-gardist Quentin Dupieux (Réalité, Smoking Causes Coughing), and Essential Truths of the Lake, the latest slice of edgy surrealism from Filipino art house star Lav Diaz (The Woman Who Left, Season of the Devil). – Hollywood Reporter
Animal, director: Sofia Exarchou
Home, director: Leonor Teles
El Auge del Humano 3, director: Eduardo Williams
Essential Truths of the Lake, director: Lav Diaz
The Permanent Picture, director: Laura Ferrés
Lousy Carter, director: Bob Byington
Manga D’Terra, director: Basil Da Cunha
Critical Zone, director: Ali Ahmadzadeh
The Invisible Fight, director: Rainer Sarnet
Do Not Expect Too Much of the End of the World, director: Radu Jude
Nuit Obscure – Au Revoir Ici, N’importe Où, director: Sylvain George
Patagonia, director: Simone Bozzelli
Rossosperanza, director: Annarita Zambrano
Stepne, director: Maryna Vroda
Sweet Dreams, director: Ena Sendijarevic
The Vanishing Soldier, director: Dani Rosenberg
Yannick, director: Quentin Dupieux
Eight of the 15 films in Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del presente sidebar, highlighting first and second features, are from female directors. Among them is the erotic comedy On the Go from Spanish directors María Gisèle Royo and Julia de Castro, Eléonore Saintagnan’s philosophical French drama Camping du Lacand Family Portrait from American filmmaker Lucy Kerr. – Hollywood Reporter
