Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner is to serve as jury president for the international competition at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, which takes place August 7-17.
Locarno was the first international festival at which Hausner’s work made an impression, taking home the main prize in the Pardi di Domani section for her short Flora in 1997.
Hausner’s first feature films Lovely Rita (2001) and Hotel (2004) both premiered in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, while Lourdes (2009) debuted in competition at the Venice Film Festival and took home the FIPRESCI prize. Her subsequent films include Un Certain Regard premiere Amour Fou (2014), and Cannes competition titles titles Little Joe (2019) and Club Zero (2023).
She is also a co-founder of production company coop99 which, besides Hausner’s own films and those of the other co-founders Barbara Albert, Antonin Svoboda, and Martin Gschlacht, has gone on to produce films such as Maren Ade’s Toni Erdmann (2016) and Jasmila Žbanić’s Quo Vadis, Aida? (2020).
Locarno’s international competition jury, chaired by Hausner, will award the Pardo d’Oro – the Golden Leopard - on the final day of the festival on August 17.
Hausner said: “For me, Locarno is a festival that values artistic and original approaches in filmmaking and thus reinforces the avant-garde of world cinema. I am happy to contribute to this agenda because filmmaking is, in my opinion, about challenging our perspectives and finding new and unusual ways to look at things”.
Giona A. Nazzaro, Locarno artistic director, said: “To have Jessica Hausner as jury president of the Locarno Film Festival’s Concorso Internazionale is an extraordinary honor and a guarantee that the films will be discussed by a jury led by one of the most extraordinary filmmakers working today”.
Earlier today, Locarno also confirmed that two freshly restored classics will screen as part of its 77th edition - Berlinale Silver Bear winner Samba Traoré (1992) by Burkinabé director Idrissa Ouédraogo and the Swiss-French classic Repérages (Faces of Love, 1977) by Michel Soutter and starring Delphine Seyrig and Jean-Louis Trintignant.
The full programme of the 77th edition of Locarno will be announced on July 10.
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