Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival has unveiled the lineup for its 79th edition with new films from Hong Sang-soo, Basil Da Cunha, Gurvinder Singh and Denis Côté in the main International Competition.
The festival, running from August 5 to 15, will open with a Piazza Grande world premiere for Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh’s The Green Eyes.
Following two children whose lives are turned upside down when their father abandons the family home to escape deportation, it is the directorial duo’s second feature after their 2020 breakout Gagarine.
Other Piazza Grande highlights include The Invite, with director and co-star Olivia Wilde due to attend the screening, as well as Cannes 2026 contender Paper Tiger and a newly restored copy of Kevin Costner’s Dancing With Wolves.
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In the main International Competition, prolific Korean filmmaker Hong Sang-soo, who was at Berlin this year with The Day She Returns, is back on the festival circuit with Nowhere To Lay My Eyes; Canadian director Denis Côté will unveil 17th feature Nobody’s Violence, while Swiss-Portuguese director Basil Da Cunha is in the mix with Lisbon-set gangland tale O Jacaré.
Singaporean director Yeo, who made Locarno history in 2023 with first Southeast Asian film to win both the Golden Leopard in the Filmmakers of the Present competition and the festival’s Best First Feature award with his debut feature Dreaming & Dying, returns with The House On The Moon.
Featuring an ensemble Taiwanese and Singaporean cast, it combines science fiction and Wu Xia, the Chinese tradition of martial-arts hero stories.
Summing up this year’s lineup and Locarno’s selection ethos in general, festival director Giona A. Nazzaro described it as “curated diversity”.
Ahead of unveiling the 2026 lineup, Nazzaro noted 2025 breakouts Blue Heron by Sophy Romvari and Gioia Mia (Sweetheart) by Margherita Spampinato as well as a 21.75% uptick in the number of works submitted this year to 7,759 against 6,373 in 2025.
Overall, the lineup will showcase 233 works, split between 51 features 81 shorts and 1 series.
Locarno 2026 Lineup
Piazza Grande
THE GREEN EYES (opening film)
By Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh
France, Belgium, Sweden
ARMONY
By Dario Albertini
Italy
WILD AT HEART
By David Lynch
U.S.
I IS ANOTHER
By Felix Randau
Germany, Austria
DANCES WITH WOLVES
By Kevin Costner
USA, United Kingdom
THE INVITE
By Olivia Wilde
U.S.
TAXI DRIVER
By Martin Scorsese
U.S.
PAPER TIGER
By James Gray
U.S.
FRANK & LOUIS by Petra Volpe
Switzerland, U.K.
CONGO BOY
By Rafiki Fariala
Central African Republic, France, Democratic Republic of Congo,
DOWN THE ARM OF GOD
By Peter Brunner
France, U.S.
THE CHILEAN
By Sergio Castro-San Martín
Italy, Chile, Switzerland
LOVE LESSONS
By Martin Provost
France, Belgium
ALL ABOUT CORINNE
By Marc Fitoussi
France, Belgium
International Competition
RIVERBANK
By Matheus Farias, Enock Carvalho
Brazil, Germany
WANDERING TREES
By Salvatore Mereu
Italy
BRAVE NEW LOVE
By Maria Bäck
Denmark, Sweden, Greece
D’ICI LÀ
By Sarah Leonor
France
I RARELY WAKE UP DREAMING
By Isabelle Stever
Germany, Ukraine
KETTICÈ
By Giovanni Tortorici
Italy
FAR FROM THE TREES
By Meritxell Colell Aparicio
Spain, Peru, Italy
MANHUNT
By Wayne Wapeemukwa
Canada
YOU DON’T BELONG HERE
By Florin Șerban
Romania
NOWHERE TO LAY MY EYES
By Hong Sangsoo
South Korea
O JACARÉ
By Basil Da Cunh
Switzerland, Portugal
OBJET A
By Ann Oren
Germany, Luxembourg, Greece
DONKEY PRINCESS
By Cristóbal León, Joaquín Cociña
Chile, France, Uruguay, Netherlands, Germany
World premiere
REHMAT
By Gurvinder Singh
India, France
THE HOUSE ON THE MOON
By Nelson Yeo
Singapore, Taiwan, Germany, Indonesia
THÍNH GIÁC (HEARING) by Lê Bảo
Vietnam, Singapore, Norway, France, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Cambodia, Thailand, Taiwan
NOBODY’S VIOLENCE
By Denis Côté
Canada
Concorso Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present)
AT NIGHT
By Beatrice Gibson
U.K., France
DEMONS
By Natalka Vorozhbyt
Ukraine, Poland
DESTROY ALL GIRLS
By Erin Vassilopoulos
U.S.
EGO REACH WE ALL (OUR TIME WILL COME)
By Amartei Armar
Ghana, France
HANABI (FIRE FLOWER)
By Ana Vaz
France, Brazil
THE ILLUSION OF AN EVERLASTING SUMMER
By Alessandra Sanguinetti
Argentina, U.S.
SUMMER MEADOW
By Naël Khleifi
Belgium, France
THE DAYS OFF
By Lucila Mariani
Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, France
MAGIC ATLAS
By SUN Xun
Singapore
TOMORROW A LONG TIME AGO
By Luise Donschen
Germany
REVOLUTIONARIES NEVER DIE
By Mohanad Yaqubi
Palestine, Belgium, Qatar
SEPTEMBER AFTERNOON
By Nicolaas Schmidt
Germany
SMALL TALK
By Mateo Ybarra
Switzerland
TEAR GAS
By Uta Beria
Georgia, France, Germany
IN ALL MY JOURNEYS I AM RETURNING
By Manuel Ponce de León
Colombia
