The Locarno Film Festival has selected 103 world premieres for its 2026 edition (August 5-15), including new films by Hong Sangsoo, Denis Cote, Maria Back, Ann Oren and Basil Da Cunha.
The 17-strong Concorso Internazionale includes Nowhere To Lay My Eyes, the latest film from prolific, low-budget Korean filmmaker Hong. It is the director’s 12th feature film since 2020, with Hong having debuted features at the Berlinale in each of the last seven editions as well as By The Stream at Locarno in 2024.
Nobody’s Violence, by Canadian filmmaker Cote, is about a travelling girl offering euthanasia services in a dystopian world.
Brave New Love is a contemporary love story directed by Sweden’s Back, about a married hypnotherapist having a deeply romantic affair while trying to be a role model for her daughter. Kathrine Thorborg Johansen, Anders Danielsen Lie and Simon Sears lead the cast.
Oren, the co-director of Piaffe, is in competition with Objet a, following two hand surgeons with differing desires, before one suffers an accident that forces her to slow down.
Da Cunha’s O Jacaré, is a Switzerland-Portugal co-production set in a Lisbon suburb where a cast of colourful local characters dream of getting their hands on a robbery haul.
Additionally, the Concorso Cineasti del Presente competition is comprised of 15 world premieres, including Beatrice Gibson’s BBC Film-backed At Night, following six women roaming neon-lit Paris after dark. It is produced by Somesuch’s Scott O’Donnell, whose recent credits include Harris Dickinson’s Cannes 2025 selection Urchin. Somesuch was selected as one to watch on Screen’s Brit50 list of the top UK independent production companies last year.
Out of competition titles at Locarno include Albert Serra’s Sixteen Moments Of My Life, documenting German actress and singer Ingrid Caven.
The festival’s spectacular Piazza Grande screenings will include the world premiere of Dario Albertini’s Armony starring Valerio Mastandrea and Asia Argento, the European premiere of Petra Volpe’s Frank & Louis with Kingsley Ben-Adir and Rob Morgan, and Swiss premieres of Olivia Wilde’s The Invite and James Gray’s Paper Tiger.
As previously announced, the festival will present honorary awards to director Darren Aronofsky, and actresses Virginie Efira and Argento.
Locarno director Giona A. Nazzaro referenced ongoing global conflicts in his remarks about the 2026 programme.
“Here we are: tracing our steps back through the programme we assembled – bringing together perspectives and visions, stories and reflections, contemplations and breathless adventures, testing the limits of our reasoning and tirelessly questioning the present moment – we find ourselves faced with a magnificent world, majestic in its wounded beauty, complex and demanding, traversed by terrible conflicts and which, despite everything, still offers itself to our gaze,” wrote Nazzaro.
Full list of titles to follow.
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