The oeuvre of Denis Côté is uncomfortable, answerless. His multiple works approach the mundane, the psyche, leaning towards complicated places. Paul, his latest film, is a documentary on a simp, a man who pleasures himself through humiliation from women. Now, he returns to the Locarno Film Festival with an intriguing …
In 2018, the Chilean duo Cristóbal León & Joaquín Cociña made a splash with their creepy animated film, La Casa Lobo (The Wolf House). It became a sensation, especially during the pandemic, even leading to their invitation to contribute to Ari Aster’s Beau is Afraid. Two years ago, their sophomore …
Following the trend of selecting young filmmakers in the competition, as with Nelson Yeo’s The House on the Moon, Locarno also presented Lê Bảo’s Hearing (Thính Giác) in the main section. The project is a continuation of his works involving the senses; he released Scent (Mùi) in 2014, and Taste …
In 2018, the Spanish director Meritxell Colell Aparicio presented Con el viento (Facing the Wind), which played at the Berlinale Forum section. Four years later, she presented Dúo at the Málaga Film Festival. Now, she has been upgraded to the Locarno Film Festival competition with her latest work, Far From …
The Brazilian experimental filmmaker Ana Vaz is probably best known for her 2022 project É Noite na América (It is Night in America). The project premiered at the Locarno Film Festival, and she has now returned to it with Fire Flower (Hanabi). Shot over the last ten years, her latest …
The Singaporean director Nelson Yeo is a fascinating new name in the country’s younger generation. In 2023, he presented Dreaming & Dying (Hao jiu bu jian) at the Cineasti del Presente in Locarno. Two years later, he took his shorts Durian, Durian to the International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Through …
The French filmmaker Sarah Leonor returns to the Locarno competition after seventeen years, when her A Real Life (Au voleur) was in the running for the Golden Leopard. Now, she presents D’ici là, a contemplative film about three different individuals living in the Vosges valley, in France. Firstly, Lucien (Frank …
In her sophomore feature, Luise Donschen attended the Locarno Film Festival’s Cineasti del Presente section to present Tomorrow a Long Time Ago, Morgen vor langer Zeit. After Casanova Gene, which screened at the Berlinale Forum, the German filmmaker introduces her second film to audiences. Set in 1990, in the middle of …
The director Nikias Chryssos presents in his Bloody Tennis a tale of competitive sports. Sophie (Sandra Guldberg Kampp), an American tennis player, is offered the opportunity to attend a camp in Europe. It is a highly exclusive club, where six players practice at a high level. Mary (Elina Löwensohn) is …
Beatrice Gibson has been a fascinating voice in the film community for a while. Her work has been featured at major events worldwide, including I Hope I’m Loud When I’m Dead and Someplace In Your Mouth, both of which were screened at TIFF. Those works blur the line between autofiction …
The location is Reboleira, in the suburbs of Lisbon, Portugal. In the outskirts of the Portuguese capital, a robbery goes wrong. A car crashes, the police arrest the driver, and almost two hundred thousand Euros vanish. Which of the criminal groups took the money? In O Jacaré by Basil da …
In the festival circuit, with each announcement of a major festival, there is a name that people expect to hear: Hong Sang-soo. In February, he premiered The Day She Returns , which played at the Berlinale’s Panorama. Six months later, the Korean master is back with his latest, Nowhere to …
In the first seconds of Rehmat by Gurvinder Singh, a black screen explains the political context of the film. During the forced migration in the Indian subcontinent, the Punjab was partitioned. Independence in 1947 divided the country along religious lines: Hindus and Sikh east in India, Muslims in the west …
In a small Romanian town, Marius (Adrian Văncică) is the medical chief at the local hospital. He just lost his wife, and his son, Ioan (Teodor Butănescu), is almost finished with high school. This is the setting of You Don’t Belong Here (Nu e locul tau aici) by Florin Şerban. …
Originally titled Sehnsucht in Sangerhausen, which translates as “Longing in Sangerhausen,” Julian Radlmaier’s latest feature and Locarno 2025 in-competition entry Phantoms of July unfolds as a spirited absurdist dramedy set in the titular mining town that formed part of East Germany prior to reunification. It is the kind of movie …
Romanian writer-director Andrei Epure already tested the premise of his feature debut Don’t Let Me Die, which premiered in the Filmmakers of the Present section of the 2025 Locarno Film Festival, in his 2021 short film Intercom 15, an entry in Cannes’ Critics’ Week. In fact, exactly seven minutes into …
Following his 2021 Filmmakers of the Present debut Streams, Tunisian director and screenwriter Mehdi Hmili made his return at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, with the out-of-competition title Exile, which functions as part revenge thriller and part grief and social drama stylized in a way that evokes visual poetry and …
The Iraqi-French director Abbas Fahdel is known for studying war and conflicts in the Middle East. His debut feature, Back to Babylon, is a return home after an immense exile, and analyzes the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq and Gulf wars in the country. His most celebrated film, Homeland: Iraq Year …
There are only so many ways a film like Sweetheart, originally titled Gioia Mia, pans out. Special Jury Prize winner at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival’s Filmmakers of the Present competition, Margherita Spampinato’s debut feature is a predictably compelling take on the coming-of-age genre: a schmaltzy drama about grief and …
It’s summertime. The glowing sun is out, and the air is calm. It’s the perfect excuse to take a swim or lie still on the grass and wonder about what’s next in your life. It’s certainly the case, or at least initially, for a group of working-class teenagers in Ion …