Tim Blake Nelson and Payal Kapadia join Locarno Film Festival 2024 jury

Tim Blake Nelson, actor, writer, director, producer and regular collaborator of the Coen brothers, Indian filmmaker Payal Kapadia (Everything we imagine as light), Italian actor Luca Marinelli (Old Guard), and Belgian producer Diana Elbaum (She, Green border) will join Austrian director Jessica Hausner on the jury for the main competition of the Locarno Film Festival.

They will decide the winner of the Pardo d’Oro — the Golden Leopard — of the Concorso Internazionale (international competition) of the 77th edition of the Swiss film festival, which will take place from August 7 to 17.

Locarno organisers praised the composition of the jury, which included “some of the most characteristic voices of contemporary cinema”.

Nelson also stars in Vincent Grashaw’s film Bang Bangwhich is scheduled to premiere in the Fuori Concorso (Out of Competition) section of Locarno77.

The jury that will decide the winner of the Pardo d’Oro — Concorso Cineasti del Presente (Filmmakers of the Present), the section reserved for emerging directors with their first or second feature film, will be Nigerian filmmaker CJ “Fiery” Obasi, whose film was produced by Juju Stories (2021) screened at Locarno74, the French-Palestinian-Algerian filmmaker and actress Lina Soualem (Goodbye Tiberias), and old Cinema Notebooks editor, researcher and artistic director of Cannes Critics’ Week Charles Tesson.

The jury in charge of honoring the best short films at Locarno is composed of the Italian screenwriter, director and programmer Licia Eminenti, the curator, filmmaker, fashion designer and founder of the Madagascourt Film Festival from Madagascar Laza Razanajatovo, and the French producer Juliette Schrameck (Eating at night, The worst person in the world, Cold War).

Meanwhile, the winner of the Swatch First Feature Award in Locarno will be decided by Moroccan producer-director Khalil Benkirane and Finnish rising star Alma Pöysti (Dead leaves) and the Italian-Swiss makeup artist Esmé Sciaroni (The Chimera).

Finally, the Pardo Verde Prize, which rewards films that contribute to raising awareness and decisive action on climate change, will be awarded by a jury composed of Swiss-Rwandan artist, screenwriter and director Kantarama Gahigiri, French programmer and film critic Cédric Succivalli and Swiss sustainability advisor, journalist and artistic manager Daniel Wiener.

“It is a great privilege to welcome these talented artists and programmers to Locarno and to entrust them with the films that our selection committees have carefully selected from the thousands that have been submitted to us,” said Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival. “It is through their creative eyes that this year’s Official Selection will be presented to the world.”