THE Locarno Film Festival, one of the world's oldest and most prestigious film events, kicks off on Wednesday (7) with a star-studded lineup that includes Shah Rukh Khan, Jane Campion, Alfonso Cuaron, and Irene Jacob, all set to receive special honours.
Founded in 1946, the festival is renowned for its focus on auteur cinema and is held in the picturesque town of Locarno, nestled on the shores of Lake Maggiore in Switzerland's Italian-speaking Ticino region.
The festival’s unique open-air screenings take place in Locarno's Piazza Grande, a central square that can accommodate up to 8,000 moviegoers, and features one of the world's largest outdoor screens.
This year, Bollywood icon Shah Rukh Khan, at 58, will be honoured with the Pardo alla Carriera award, recognising his significant contributions to Indian cinema.
"Khan is a king who has never lost touch with his audience," said the festival's artistic director, Giona A Nazzaro, highlighting the actor’s enduring appeal and willingness to challenge himself artistically.
"Khan is a king who has never lost touch with the audience that crowned him. This brave and daring artist has always been willing to challenge himself."
The 77th festival, which runs until August 17, features 225 films, including 104 world premieres and 15 debut movies.
Locarno's top prize is the Golden Leopard. Previous winning directors include Roberto Rossellini, John Ford, Stanley Kubrick, Milos Forman, Mike Leigh and Jim Jarmusch.
Seventeen films – all world or international premieres – are vying for the award, including movies from Lithuania, France, Austria, Italy and South Korea.
The Golden Leopard comes with a prize fund of 75,000 Swiss francs ($87,400 or £68,507.62), shared between the director and the producer.
Switzerland's largest film event will feature a retrospective dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures.
New Zealand's Campion will be recognised with the Leopard of Honour, given to outstanding personalities of world cinema.
She was the first woman to be nominated twice for the best director Oscar: first for The Piano (1993) and then for The Power of the Dog (2021), which secured her the Academy Award.
"Her work, peopled with tortured, fascinating characters and marked by an astonishing skill in grappling with the more disturbing side of the human condition, represents one of the undisputed pinnacles of contemporary filmmaking," Nazzaro said.
Previous recipients include Ennio Morricone, Jean-Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, Paul Verhoeven, Terry Gilliam and Werner Herzog.
Mexican filmmaker Cuaron, who won the best director Oscars for Gravity (2013) and Roma (2018), will receive the lifetime achievement award.
"Cuaron has reinvented himself as an artist with each new film," said Nazzaro.
French-Swiss actress Jacob, who starred in The Double Life of Veronique (1991) and Three Colours: Red (1994), will receive the Leopard Club Award, given for film work touching the collective imagination.
Stacey Sher – the US film producer behind Pulp Fiction, Get Shorty, Gattaca, Erin Brockovich, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight – will receive the Raimondo Rezzonico Award for major achievements in international movie production.
Nearly 150,000 people attended last year's festival. (AFP)
Zia Yusuf
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Former prime minister Rishi Sunak with his wife Akshata Murty (left), their children Anoushka and Krishna and his mother-in-law Sudha Murty (second from left) are pictured during their visit to the Taj Mahal in Agra last month