Latin American Cinema Scores Major Wins at the Locarno Film Festival

Director Alessandra Sanguinetti and producer Julia Solomonoff, The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer. Photo credit: Davide Padovan © Locarno Film Festival

Latin American cinema took home several major awards at the 79th Locarno Film Festival, which concluded today in Switzerland, with films from Brazil and Argentina earning top honors in the festival’s two main competitions, alongside additional prizes for filmmakers and productions from Mexico, Peru, and Chile.

Brazilian filmmakers Matheus Farias and Enock Carvalho received the Special Jury Prize in the International Competition for their debut feature The Riverbank / A Margem do Rio. The Brazil-Germany coproduction had its world premiere at Locarno and was the only Brazilian-directed feature competing for the Golden Leopard this year. The festival’s top prize went to Romanian filmmaker Florin Șerban’s You Don’t Belong Here.

Argentine-American photographer and filmmaker Alessandra Sanguinetti emerged as one of the festival’s biggest winners, taking home two major awards for her feature directorial debut The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer / La ilusión de un verano sin fin. The Argentina-U.S. coproduction won the Pardo d’Oro for Best Film in the Concorso Cineasti del Presente, Locarno’s competition dedicated to emerging filmmakers, as well as the Swatch First Feature Award for Best First Feature across the festival.

Also competing in Cineasti del Presente, Argentine filmmaker Lucila Mariani received a Special Mention for her feature debut The Days Off / Los días libres, an Argentina-Brazil-Mexico-France coproduction. The film follows a 12-year-old girl navigating an endless summer in the near future as a solar eclipse approaches.

Franco-Brazilian filmmaker Ana Vaz also earned a Special Mention in Cineasti del Presente for Hanabi / Fire Flower. The France-Brazil coproduction had its world premiere at the festival, marking another significant recognition for the internationally acclaimed Brazilian filmmaker and artist.

Mexican filmmaker Rodrigo Plá was recognized with a Special Mention for the Pardo for Change for The Newcomers / Los nuevos, his new Mexico-Spain coproduction. The Pardo for Change recognizes films in the Locarno program for their engagement with environmental, social, ethical, and cultural issues.

Latin American cinema also figured prominently among Locarno’s independent awards. Far From the Trees / Lejos de los árboles, by Catalan filmmaker Meritxell Colell Aparicio, a Spain-Peru-Italy coproduction centered on a Mexican sound artist traveling through Peru, won the FIPRESCI Prize from the International Federation of Film Critics as well as the Boccalino d’Oro for Best Film, awarded by the Swiss Independent Critics Jury.

Chilean actor Camilo Arancibia was also honored by the independent critics with the Boccalino d’Oro for Best Acting Performance for his role in Sergio Castro-San Martín’s The Chilean / Il Cileno, a Chile-Italy-Switzerland coproduction that premiered in Locarno’s Piazza Grande section.

The 79th Locarno Film Festival took place August 5–15, 2026, in Locarno, Switzerland.

Carlos Reygadas’ New Film HEIL JUPITER! Sets World Premiere at New York Film Festival

Mexican filmmaker Carlos Reygadas will return to the New York Film Festival with the world premiere of his highly anticipated new feature, Heil Jupiter!, screening in the Currents section of the festival’s 64th edition, running September 25 through October 12.

The first feature from Reygadas since Our Time / Nuestro tiempo (2018), the 150-minute film is an international co-production between Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Norway, and Sweden. Heil Jupiter! marks the celebrated filmmaker’s return to NYFF, where his acclaimed Silent Light screened in 2007.

Set against a remote coastline of crashing waves and monumental rock formations, Heil Jupiter! follows two young couples who enter a realm of shifting realities, unaware that a mysterious entity is observing them from above with Godlike judgment. Moving between the modern and the primitive, the technological and the rural, and the corporeal and the mythic, the film explores a world suspended between elemental beauty and authoritarian violence.

The New York Film Festival describes Heil Jupiter! as a “dreamlike astonishment” and “a work of feral cinematic expression,” highlighting the profound contrast between its elemental pleasures and its depiction of authoritarian brutality. The film is presented in an invented language and Spanish with English subtitles.

One of the most distinctive figures in contemporary Mexican cinema, Reygadas made his feature debut with Japón in 2002, followed by Battle in Heaven / Batalla en el cielo, Silent Light, Post Tenebras Lux, and Our Time. His films have been celebrated at major international festivals, including Cannes, where Post Tenebras Lux earned him the Best Director prize in 2012 and Silent Light received the Jury Prize in 2007.

Film at Lincoln Center also announced the North American premiere of Hanabi by Brazilian director Ana Vaz and the U.S. premiere of Life of Jorge Luis Borges / Biografía de Jorge Luis Borges by Argentine filmmaker Mariano Llinás as part of this year’s Currents lineup.

The 64th New York Film Festival will take place at Film at Lincoln Center and four venues across the city: BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music), the Museum of the Moving Image (Queens), Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (Staten Island), and AMC Bay Plaza Cinema (Bronx). Screening dates and ticket information will be announced by the festival.