At the 2026 Locarno Film Festival, the Ecumenical Jury awarded its Prize, worth 10,000 CHF and donated by the Catholic Church and the Reformed Church in Switzerland, to the film “Nun Dul Dega Eomne” (Nowhere to Lay My Eyes, South Korea 2026) by Hong Sangsoo. The film also won the awards for Best Director and Best Leading Actress (Kim Minhee). The Golden Leopard, awarded by the festival jury, went to “Nu e locul tau aici” (You Don’t Belong Here, Romania 2026) by Florin Șerban. The International Film Critics’ (Fipresci) Prize was awarded to “Lejos de los árboles” (Far From the Trees, Spain, Peru, Italy 2026).
On 5 August, the 79th Locarno Film Festival opened with the film *Les yeux verts* by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Troulin (France, Belgium, Sweden 2026). The Ecumenical Jury will awards a prize to a film from the International Competition.
The festival’s main attraction is the open-air screenings on the Piazza Grande, where also the opening film is shown. Alongside the international competition, there are other competition sections such as the Concorso Cineasti del Presente, dedicated to the ‘cinema of the future’, and the Pardi di Domani, featuring three competitions (international, national and short film) for emerging filmmakers. The retrospective, entitled “Red & Black – Hollywood Left and the Blacklist”, is dedicated to the American filmmakers who were suspected of communism during the paranoid McCarthy era and were either unable to work at all or could only continue under a pseudonym. The Histoire(s) du Cinéma section also showcases film history with newly restored classics. The festival’s honorary awards go to Isabella Rossellini (Excellence Award), Darren Aronovsky (Parda d’Onore), James Gray (Pardo alla Carriera) and Asia Argento (Life Achievement Award).