Wednesday July 13, the official program for the 69° Festival del film Locarno was announced.

Download the full press kit.

The award to Bill Pullman (Excellence Award Moët & Chandon) was also announced today.

Those attending Locarno will include: Mario Adorf, Stefan Arndt, Dario Argento, Yuri Ancarani, Gemma Arterton, Lionel Baier, Nathalie Baye, Joel Basman, Jacob Berger, Paulo Branco, Mélanie Bernier, Júlio Bressane, João Botelho, Bastien Bouillon, Jean-Stéphane Bron, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Julie Corman, Roger Corman, Clotilde Courau, Tizza Covi, Emmanuelle Devos, Roxane Duran, Rainer Frimmel, Paz Alicia Garciadiego, Louis Garrel, Kiko Goifman, Douglas Gordon, Dominik Graf, Samir Guesmi, Josef Hader, Isabelle Huppert, Dain Iskandar Said, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Carla Juri, Dave Johns, David Linde, Giulia Lazzarini, Ken Loach, Jonas Mekas, Marie-Castille Mention-Schaar, Frédéric Mermoud, Kate Moran, Milagros Mumenthaler, Yousry Nasrallah, Bulle Ogier, Angeliki Papoulia, Antonin Peretjatko, Franco Piavoli, Matías Piñeiro, Nicola Piovani, Rafi Pitts, Bill Pullman, Edgar Reitz, Arturo Ripstein, João Pedro Rodrigues, Axelle Ropert, Nicholas Saputra, Angela Schanelec, Maria Schrader, Shahrbanoo Sadat, Cornelia Seitler, Howard Shore, Nicolas Steiner, Jean-François Stévenin, Barbara Sukowa, Rodrigo Teixeira, Jeremy Thomas, WANG Bing, Ruth Waldburger, Sean Price Williams and Midi Z.

The program, with the selection of films, guests and events can be consulted on the website PardoLive, under the following rubrics.

Piazza Grande: 16 features screened on the Piazza Grande, the open-air cinema that can host up to 8,000 viewers every night.

Concorso internazionale: 17 feature films, all of them as world premieres, competing for the Pardo d'oro.

Concorso Cineasti del presente: the competition dedicated to new discoveries, consists of 15 first or second films, 13 of them as world premieres.

Signs of Life: this new section explores cinema at the frontiers, with new narrative forms and formal innovations. 

Fuori concorso: for work from established masters and directors of international renown.

Pardi di domani: the competitions for short films.

Histoire(s) du cinéma: film history presented by its protagonists.

Retrospettiva: the retrospective is dedicated to Cinema in the young Federal Republic of Germany from 1949 to 1963.

Open Doors: a three year focus on eight countries in South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

During the press conference, Festival President Marco Solari announced an improvement in the Festival’s organization, intended to enhance the event's infrastructure. The Executive Board has appointed Nadia Dresti — currently Delegate of the Artistic Director and Head of International — to the post of Deputy Artistic Direction, and Raphaël Brunschwig, Head of Sponsorship, to that of Deputy COO. For the meantime they will maintain their current responsibilities. The appointments ratified by the Board on July 12 will take effect as of January 1, 2017. During the same meeting, the Board of Directors accepted the Presidency’s proposal to extend the contract of the Artistic Director Carlo Chatrian until 2020.

The 69th edition of the Festival del film Locarno takes place 3 – 13 August, 2016.