Debutantes are big winners at Locarno Film Festival

The Locarno Film Festival this year confirmed its long tradition as a showcase of new global talent: most of the main awards went to young women, Lithuania stole the show and Swiss cinema awed critics. In 2018 Locarno was the first Swiss film festival to sign a pledge for gender equality and diversity in its programme. Despite the festival’s best intentions, statistics defy this commitment since only 27.4% of all feature submissions, and 35% of the films selected, were directed by women. The awards, though, inverted the odds. The Lithuanian Akiplėša (Toxic), director Saulė Bliuvaitė’s first feature, took the Pardo d’Oro (Golden Leopard) while the Special Jury Prize went to the Jordanian-born Austrian film maker Kurdwin Ayub for Mond (Moon), her second feature. Another youthful Lithuanian (a man), Laurynas Bareiša, took the prize for best director for Seses (Drowning Dry), his second feature. The Pardo d’Oro was a real surprise – for the specialist press, at least. In a poll ...