Radu Jude & Abdellatif Kechiche Set For Competition

Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival will debut 17 features, including new works by Radu Jude and Abdellatif Kechiche, as part of its 2025 competition. This year’s event runs from August 6 to 16. 

The festival announced its competition lineups this morning. The Radu Jude feature is his much-talked-about Dracula. The film was shot in Transylvania and is said to blend several takes on the Dracula story. Teasing the project as last year’s Locarno Film Festival, Jude said: “I am from Romania. My father is actually from Transylvania. It’s time that someone from Romania does a Dracula film. It’s only Hollywood that has done it 1,000 times. We shouldn’t let Hollywood dominate our Dracula.” 

The Abdellatif Kechiche feature is Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due, the third edition in his controversial Mektoub series. Ben Rivers, a Locarno regular, will debut his latest feature, Mare’s Nest. Scroll down for the full Loarno lineup. 

Elsewhere, Vietnamese filmmaker Trương Minh Quý, best known for his buzzy feature Viet and Nam, will debut Hair, Paper, Water…, a new feature co-directed with Nicolas Graux. Thomas Hakim and Julien Graff, the duo behind Payal Kapadia’s groundbreaking feature debut All We Imagine As Light, are producers on the film, which will screen in Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente section. 

Locarno’s separate Piazza Grande lineup features 14 titles, including Cannes titles Sentimental Value by Joachim Trier, It Was Just an Accident by Jafar Panahi, and Bill Condon’s Kiss of the Spider Woman, starring Jennifer Lopez.

Discussing this year’s edition, Locarno head Giona A. Nazzaro described his competition lineup as the best representation of “what is alive, necessary, and daring in contemporary cinema today.”

“These are films designed for the cinema and for the collective experience in front of the screen. Once again, cinema is now – and facing into the future,” Nazzaro added. 

As previously announced, cinema legend Jackie Chan, Alexander Payne, and Ang Lee are among the filmmakers set to receive honorary awards. 

Check out the lineup below. 

Piazza Grande 
  
06.08.2025 
LE PAYS D’ARTO (IN THE LAND OF ARTO)* by Tamara Stepanyan  
France, Armenia – 2025  
World premiere 
 
07.08.2025 
THE BIRTHDAY PARTY* by Miguel Ángel Jiménez  
Greece, Spain, Netherlands, United Kingdom – 2025  
World premiere 
 
08.08.2025 
THE DEAD OF WINTER* by Brian Kirk  
USA, Germany – 2025 
World premiere 
 
TOGETHER* by Michael Shanks  
Australia, USA – 2025 
Swiss premiere 
 
09.08.2025 
AFFEKSJONSVERDI (SENTIMENTAL VALUE)* by Joachim Trier 
Norway, France, Denmark, Germany, Sweden – 2025 
Swiss premiere 
 
POLICE STORY by Jackie Chan  
Hong Kong – 1985  
 
 
10.08.2025  
TESTA O CROCE? (HEADS OR TAILS?)* By Alessio Rigo de Righi, Matteo Zoppis 
Italy, USA – 2025 
Swiss premiere 
 
THE SHINING by Stanley Kubrick 
United Kingdom, USA – 1980 
 
11.08.2025  
THE DEAL* by Jean-Stéphane Bron  
Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium – 2025  
Swiss premiere  
Episodes 1&2  
 
12.08.2025 
IRKALLA HULM JIJILJAMISH (IRKALA – GILGAMESH’S DREAM)* by Mohamed Jabarah Al-Daradji 
Iraq, United Arab Emirates, Qatar, France, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia – 2025  
World premiere 
 
13.08.2025 
LA PETITE DERNIÈRE* by Hafsia Herzi  
France, Germany – 2025  
Swiss premiere 
 
14.08.2025 
ROSEMEAD* by Eric Lin 
USA – 2025  
International premiere 
 
15.08.2025 
UN SIMPLE ACCIDENT (IT WAS JUST AN ACCIDENT)* by Jafar Panahi 
Iran, France, Luxembourg – 2025  
Swiss premiere 
 
16.08.2025 
KISS OF THE SPIDER WOMAN by Bill Condon 
USA, Uruguay – 2025  
International premiere 

Concorso Internazionale 
 
AS ESTAÇÕES (THE SEASONS) by Maureen Fazendeiro – Portugal, France, Spain, Austria – 2025 
World premiere  
 
BOG NEĆE POMOĆI (GOD WILL NOT HELP) by Hana Jušić – Croatia, Italy, Romania, Greece, France, Slovenia – 2025 
World premiere  
 
DONKEY DAYS by Rosanne Pel – Netherlands, Germany – 2025  
World premiere 
 
DRACULA by Radu Jude – Romania, Austria, Luxembourg – 2025  
World premiere  
 
DRY LEAF by Alexandre Koberidze – Germany, Georgia – 2025 
World premiere  
 
LE BAMBINE (MOSQUITOES) by Valentina Bertani, Nicole Bertani – Italy, Switzerland, France – 2025 
World premiere  
 
LE LAC by Fabrice Aragno – Switzerland – 2025  
World premiere  
 
LINIJE ŽELJE (DESIRE LINES) by Dane Komljen – Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Netherlands, Croatia, Germany – 2025  
World premiere  
 
MARE’S NEST by Ben Rivers – United Kingdom, France, Canada – 2025  
World premiere  
 
MEKTOUB, MY LOVE: CANTO DUE by Abdellatif Kechiche – France – 2025 
World premiere 
 
SEHNSUCHT IN SANGERHAUSEN (PHANTOMS OF JULY) by Julian Radlmaier – Germany – 2025 
World premiere 
 
SOLOMAMMA by Janicke Askevold – Norway, Latvia, Lithuania, Denmark, Finland – 2025  
World premiere  
 
SORELLA DI CLAUSURA by Ivana Mladenović – Romania, Serbia, Italy, Spain – 2025 
World premiere 
 
TABI TO HIBI (TWO SEASONS, TWO STRANGERS) by Sho Miyake – Japan – 2025  
World premiere  
 
TALES OF THE WOUNDED LAND by Abbas Fahdel – Lebanon – 2025  
World premiere 
 
WHITE SNAIL by Elsa Kremser, Levin Peter – Austria, Germany – 2025  
World premiere  
 
WITH HASAN IN GAZA by Kamal Aljafari – Palestine, Germany, France, Qatar – 2025 
World premiere  

Concorso Cineasti del Presente 
 
AFFECTION AFFECTION by Alexia Walther, Maxime Matray – France – 2025  
World premiere  
 
BALEARIC by Ion de Sosa – Spain, France – 2025  
World premiere  
 
BECOMING by Zhannat Alshanova – France, Kazakhstan, Netherlands, Lithuania, Sweden – 2025 
World premiere  
 
BLUE HERON by Sophy Romvari – Canada, Hungary – 2025  
World premiere  
 
DON’T LET THE SUN by Jacqueline Zünd – Switzerland, Italy – 2025  
World premiere  
 
FANTASY by Kukla – Slovenia, North Macedonia – 2025  
World premiere  
 
FOLICHONNERIES (FOLLIES) by Eric K. Boulianne – Canada – 2025 
World premiere  
 
GIOIA MIA (SWEETHEART) by Margherita Spampinato – Italy – 2025  
World premiere  
 
HIJO MAYOR by Cecilia Kang – Argentina, France – 2025  
World premiere  
 
NU MĂ LĂSA SĂ MOR (DON’T LET ME DIE) by Andrei Epure – Romania, Bulgaria, France – 2025  
World premiere  
 
OLIVIA by Sofía Petersen – Argentina, United Kingdom, Spain – 2025  
World premiere  
 
THE FIN by Park Syeyoung – South Korea, Germany, Qatar – 2025 
World premiere  
 
THE PLANT FROM THE CANARIES by Ruan Lan-Xi – Germany – 2025  
World premiere  
 
TÓC, GIẤY VÀ NƯỚC… (HAIR, PAPER, WATER…) by Nicolas Graux, Trương Minh Quý – Belgium, France, Vietnam – 2025 
World premiere  
 
UN BALCON À LIMOGES (A BALCONY IN LIMOGES) by Jérôme Reybaud – France – 2025  
World premiere