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The Locarno Film Festival (August 6-16) has unveiled the line-up for the 2025 edition, with world premieres including Radu Jude’s Dracula.
Romanian filmmaker and Berlinale Golden Bear winner Jude’s Romania-Austria-Luxembourg co-production, which competes in the international competition, is a comedy drama shot and set in Transylvania that explores the legend of Dracula through multiple lenses. Luxbox represents sales. Jude returns to Locarno after two films played out of competition last year – Eight Postcards From Utopia, co-directed with Christian Ferencz-Flatz, and Sleep #2.
Locarno’s international competition comprises of 17 world premieres, which will vie for the Golden Leopard awards. Among them is UK artist-filmmaker Ben Rivers’ Mare’s Nest, a UK-France-Canada co-production, that’s set in a world where adults no longer exist. Rivers’ documentary Bogancloch world premiered at Locarno in 2024.
Blue Is The Warmest Colour director Abdellatif Kechiche also appears with the third instalment in his Mektoub, My Love series, titled Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due.
Scroll down for full line-up
There’s also feature documentary With Hasan In Gaza, directed by Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari. The doc draws on rediscovered footage of Aljafari’s from Gaza in 2001. The film was backed by the Doha Film Institute.
Israeli Let It Be Morning filmmaker Eran Kolirin world premieres out of competition with his latest, Some Notes On The Current Situation.
Taking part in Locarno’s famed Piazza Grande screenings will be Miguel Ángel Jiménez’s Heretic-produced The Birthday Party, a drama set in the late 1970s starring Willem Dafoe, Vic Carmen Sonne, Emma Suarez and Joe Cole, sold by Bankside and Heretic.
As previously announced, Lebanon’s Abboutt Productions, Alexander Payne, Emma Thompson and Jackie Chan will receive honours at the festival. Cambodian filmmaker Rithy Panh is jury president of the international competition.
Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, said: “The films of the 78th edition represent what is alive, necessary, and daring in contemporary cinema today. A cinema entirely in the present tense, devoid of any nostalgia and projected forward towards an open, dynamic, inclusive future that is to be imagined together, once again.
“A playful and dangerous cinema that takes many risks, but also a cinema that does not forget to laugh and smile, and to question history in all its aspects. A necessary cinema, therefore, to be discovered in the darkness of the screening hall, where we rediscover the profound sense of aesthetic pleasure and feel part of a community. These are films designed for the cinema and for the collective experience in front of the screen. Once again, cinema is now – and facing into the future.”
Locarno 2025 line-up
*denotes world premiere
International Competition
The Seasons (Port-Fr-Sp)*
Dir. Maureen Fazendeiro
God Will Not Help (Cro-It-Rom)*
Dir. Hana Jušić
Donkey Days (Neth-Ger)*
Dir. Rosanne Pel
Dracula (Romania-Austria-Lux)*
Dir. Radu Jude
Dry Leaf (Ger-Geo)*
Dir. Alexandre Koberidze
Mosquitoes (It-Swiz-Fr)
Dirs. Valentina Bertani, Nicole Bertani
Le Lac (Switz)*
Dir. Fabrice Aragno
Desire Lines (Ser-Bos & Her-Neth-Cro-Ger)*
Dir. Dane Komljen
Mare’s Nest (UK-Fr-Can)*
Dir. Ben Rivers
Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due (Fr)*
Dir. Abdellatif Kechiche
Phantoms Of July (Ger)*
Dir. Julian Radlmaier
Solomamma (Nor-Latvia-Lithuania-Den-Fin)*
Dir. Janicke Askevold
Sorella Di Clausura (Rom-Ser-It-Sp)*
Dir. Ivana Mladenović
Two Seasons, Two Strangers (Japan)*
Dir. Sho Miyake
Tales Of The Wounded Land (Leb)*
Dir. Abbas Fahdel
White Snail (Austria-Ger)*
Dirs. Elsa Kremser, Levin Peter
With Hasan In Gaza (Palestine-Ger-Fr-Qat)*
Dir. Kamal Aljafari
Cinema Of The Present
Affection Affection (Fr)*
Dirs. Alexia Walther, Maxime Matray
Balearic (Sp-Fr)*
Dir. Ion de Sosa
Becoming (Fr-Kazakhstan-Neth-Lithuania)*
Dir. Zhannat Alshanova
Blue Heron (Canada-Hun)*
Dir. Sophy Romvari
Don’t Let The Sun (Switz-It)*
Dir. Jacqueline Zünd
Fantasy (Slovenia-North Macedonia)*
Dir. Kukla
Follies (Can)*
Dir. Eric K. Boulianne
Sweetheart (It)*
Dir. Margherita Spampinato
Hijo Mayor (Arg-Fr)*
Dir. Cecilia Kang
Don’t Let Me Die (Rom-Bul-Fr)*
Dir. Andrei Epure
Olivia (Arg-UK-Sp)*
Dir. Sofía Petersen
The Fin (S Kor-Ger-Qat)*
Dir. Park Syeyoung
The Plant From The Canaries (Ger)*
Dir. Ruan Lan-Xi
Hair, Paper, Water (Belg-Fr-Viet)*
Dirs. Nicolas Graux, Trương Minh Quý
A Balcony In Limoges (Fr)*
Dir. Jérôme Reybaud
Out Of Competition
Bobò (It)*
Dir. Pippo Delbono
Deathstalker (Can)*
Dir. Steven Kostanski
E (Fin)*
Dir. Anna Eriksson
Exile (Tunisia-Lux-Fr-Qat-Saudi)*
Dir. Mehdi Hmili
I Live Here Now (US)
Dir. Julie Pacino
Judas’ Gospel (It-Pol)*
Dir. Giulio Base
Keep Quiet (US)*
Dir. Vincent Grashaw
Kerouac’s Road: The Beat Of A Nation (UK-US)
Dir. Ebs Burnough
Le Chantier (Fr-Switz)*
Dir. Jean-Stéphane Bron
Legend Of The Happy Worker (US)*
Dir. Duwayne Dunham
Nova ’78 (UK-Port)*
Dirs. Aaron Brookner, Rodrigo Areias
Silence (Sp)*
Dir. Eduardo Casanova
Some Notes On The Current Situation (Isr)*
Dir. Eran Kolirin
The Deal (Switz-Fr-Lux-Belg)* - eps 3-6
Dir. Jean-Stéphane Bron
Piazza Grande
In The Land Of Arto (Fr-Armenia)*
Dir. Tamara Stepanyan
The Birthday Party (Greece-Sp-Neth-UK)*
Dir. Miguel Ángel Jiménez
The Dead Of Winter (US-Ger)*
Dir. Brian Kirk
Together (Aus-US)
Dir. Michael Shanks
Sentimental Value (Nor-Fr-Den-Ger-Swe)
Dir. Joachim Trier
Police Story (HK)
Dir. Jackie Chan
Heads Or Tails (It-US)*
Dirs. Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis
The Shining (UK-US)
Dir. Stanley Kubrick
The Deal (Switz-Fr-Lux-Belg)* - eps 1-2
Dir. Jean-Stéphane Bron
Irkala - Gilgamesh’s Dream (Iraq-UAE-Qat-Fr-UK-Saudi)*
Dir. Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji
La Petite Dernière (Fr-Ger)
Dir. Hafsia Herzi
Rosemead (US)
Dir. Eric Lin
It Was Just An Accident (Iran-Fr-Lux)
Dir. Jafar Panahi
Kiss Of The Spider Woman (US-Uru)
Dir. Bill Condon
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