© Festival del film Locarno

This is to announce the composition of the official juries for the Concorso internazionale, Concorso Cineasti del presente, Pardi di domani and Best first film.

The jury for the Concorso internazionale will have as its President the Italian director Gianfranco Rosi, winner of last year’s Leone d’oro at Venice for Sacro GRA. He will be accompanied by German filmmaker Thomas Arslan (Dealer, 1999; Gold, 2013), Brazilian actress Alice Braga (Fernando Meirelles’ City of God, 2002; Neill Blomkamp’sElysium, 2013), Danish actress Connie Nielsen (Ridley Scott’s Gladiator, 2000; Lars Von Trier’s Nymphomaniac, 2013) and Chinese director Diao Yinan, winner of the Golden Bear at the last Berlin Festival for Black Coal, Thin Ice.

President of the jury for the Concorso Cineasti del presente, for first and second films, will be Syrian director Ossama Mohammed, whose Silvered Water, Syria Self-Portraitwas one of most widely acclaimed films at the last Cannes festival. Mohammed will be working with Thierry Jobin, the Swiss Artistic Director of the Fribourg Festival, Canadian writer director and actor Don McKellar (David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ, 1999; The Grand Seduction, 2013), French actress Clémence Poésy (co-starring with Michael Caine in Sandra Nettelbeck’s Last Love, shown on the Piazza Grande in 2013) and French/Hong Kong editor Mary Stephen (Éric Rohmer’s Conte d’automne, 1998; Lixin Fan’s Last Train Home, 2009).

The jury for the Pardi di domani, with its Swiss and international short film competitions, will be presided over by Dutch actor Rutger Hauer, unforgettable for his performances such as the replicant Roy in Blade Runner (Ridley Scott, 1982) and the homeless man in La leggenda del santo bevitore (Ermanno Olmi, 1988). His fellow jury members will be Brazilian director and programmer Helvécio Marins Jr. (Girimunho, 2011), Spanish filmmaker Lois Patiño (Best New Director in the Concorso Cineasti del presente 2013 for Costa da morte), Ukrainian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy (winner of the last Cannes’ Semaine de la critique with The Tribe) and Swiss director Nicole Vögele (Nebel, 2014).

The award for Best First Film, chosen from those screened in the sections Concorso internazionale, Concorso Cineasti del presente, Piazza Grande, Fuori concorso and Signs of Life, will be judged by critics and programmers Emmanuel Burdeau (France), Luciano Monteagudo (Argentina) and Andréa Picard (Canada).