There were no clear favorites for the Golden Leopard at this 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, which also did not feature already recognized names, except for the recurring Hong Sang-soo. The jury, presided over by Belgian Fabrice Du Welz, honored two films: the Romanian You don’t belong here by Florin Șerban, Golden Leopard winner, and the Brazilian The Riverbank (A margem do rio) by Matheus Farias and Enock Carvalho, Special Jury Prize, both of which address the worrying global increase in hate speech and violence against those considered different. It also excluded films that were more stimulating in terms of their stylistic risks, artistic concerns, or expository sobriety. This is the case of Lejos de los árboles, by Meritxell Colell, which, however, has thrilled critics: it has won, outside the official awards, the FIPRESCI prize awarded by the International Federation of Film Critics, and the Golden Boccalino for best film, presented by Swiss independent critics.

After rediscovering family roots in Con el viento (2018) and stirring the flames of passion in Dúo (2022), Meritxell Colell (Barcelona, 1983) explores the wounds of exile and the pain of loss in Lejos de los árboles, the film she premieres this Thursday in the competition of the prestigious Locarno Festival. Through the journey of a Mexican sound artist and her Peruvian guide, Colell mixes temporality and genre in an almost fractal narrative about absence; undoubtedly, her most well-rounded, ambitious, and complex film.

Few famous names in the international competition for the Golden Leopard at this 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, which allows for prominence to be given to less recognized filmmakers. Touch is key in Objet A, the second feature film by Ann Oren, a director who also made a name for herself in Locarno in 2022 with Piaffe, a film focused on the cinematic sound device and its ability to reveal unexpected erotic dimensions. In Objet A, the two protagonists, surgeons specializing in hands, maintain a relationship tied to domination-submission dynamics and are obsessed with objects: she is a kleptomaniac, and he allows himself to be objectified sexually.

Music has always played a key role in Albert Serra's cinema. Therefore, Seize moments de ma vie, the film-concert that premiered worldwide at the Locarno Festival, is not an exception but a coherent proposal in the career of a filmmaker with a special sensitivity for other literary, scenic, and sound disciplines. The film immerses us in a concert by Ingrid Caven in collaboration with the Molforts (Ferran Font, Enric Juncà, Joe Robinson, and Marc Verdaguer), which took place at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris last year. If in Tardes de soledad, the Banyoles-born filmmaker turned cinema into an space for intimate encounters between the bullfighter, the bull, and the audience in the hall, in Seize moments de ma vie he once again generates this shared space of filmic introspection in which Caven unravels sixteen musical themes inspired by her life, in a comforting sound and light atmosphere where her poignant verses about the traumatic experience of war, the connection with cinema, or the terrible anxieties that appear in the most mundane moments resonate with striking intensity.

It wasn't among the favorites in a program featuring prestigious names in the film world such as Radu Jude, Abdellatif Kechiche, or Naomi Kawase. But the jury of the 78th Locarno Film Festival, chaired by Cambodian Rithy Panh, opted to ignore the better-known directors and award it the Golden Leopard. Tabi to hibi (Two seasons, two strangers) by Sho Miyake. A Japanese director who is by no means a debutant (one of his previous films, Keiko's fight, premiered on Filmin), but had not yet established himself as one of the filmmakers to watch on the contemporary scene. In Two seasons, two strangers, Miyake adapts two independent stories from Yoshiharu Tsuge, a pioneer of alternative manga and a cult author who stopped drawing decades ago. The stories feature lonely male characters who eventually connect with a woman at a specific moment. And in both cases, the detailed and exquisite descriptions of the respective natural and atmospheric environments help convey a state of profound yet restrained sadness. Two seasons, two strangers represents this new Japanese cinema with special sensitivity and subtlety when it comes to portraying characters on the fringes or those hiding deep pain.

Why has Romania, the country where the Dracula myth originated, not spawned any vampire films? This seems to be the thought driving the debate. Dracula, the new film by Radu Jude, responsible for essential titles such as An Unfortunate Nail or Crazy Porn and Don't expect too much from the end of the world. But, far from proposing a new adaptation of Bram Stoker's classic novel or a story more in line with the character's historical basis, Jude pushes for a deconstruction of the commercial appropriations (vampirizations?) of Dracula and vindicates vampire tales with a local stamp in a film that is at the same time many films made from traditions. This three-hour feature includes a popular fable about a tree that grows penises; a tragic love story between rural workers in communist Romania; a revisiting of the figure of Dr. Aslan, the first medical star in the fight against aging who attracted celebrities from all over the world to her Romanian clinic; ironic reinterpretations of the Nosferatu by FW Murnau and by Film by Samuel Beckett; an erotic vampire cabaret for tourists in the heart of Transylvania; and a science fiction story about a workers' revolt, among others. The film is structured as a play. Frankenstein built from diverse stories, served up by a screenwriter who asks an artificial intelligence program to generate different narratives surrounding the famous vampire.

Perhaps because we mostly associate her with British period dramas, it's surprising to see in person that Emma Thompson is one of the funniest stars on the scene today. In the conversation she shared with the audience this Saturday on the occasion of receiving the Leopard Club Award from the Locarno Film Festival, she recalled her beginnings in the world of comedy. "When I was young, I didn't want to be an actress like my mother (Phyllida Law) because it seemed like a very precarious job. But I became a comedian. I did stand-up comedy at political demonstrations, full of jokes about Margaret Thatcher. And about herpes. It was a bit of a fluke to get work as an actress. I hadn't sought it out, and sometimes what turns out best is exactly what you don't look for," she says.

Why so much expectation before the world premiere at the Locarno Film Festival of Mektoub, my love: Canto dueA decade ago, Mektoub, my love It was to be the great project of Abdellatif Kechiche, then the French director with the greatest impact thanks to the success of Blue is the Warmest Color, Palme d'Or at the 2013 Cannes Film Festival. The filmmaker set out to adapt La blessure la vraie by François Bégaudeau (co-writer and star of another Palme d'Or, The class by Laurent Cantet), an autobiographical novel about a teenager's sexual awakening over the course of a summer in the 1980s. Kechiche moved the action to Seta in the 1990s and focused on a film student, Amin (Shain Boumédine), who returns from Paris to his hometown to enjoy a vacation with his gang. What was supposed to be a standalone film begins to look like a saga whose complexity frightens the producers. Lacking financing, Kechiche sells the Palme d'Or to finish the first installment. Soaked in the Occitan sun, shaken by the sensual hedonism of youth and with the salty taste of summers spent at the beach, Mektoub, my love: Canto one (2017) stands as a hymn to the Mediterranean as a way of understanding life and the experience of time.