The women won this year’s 77th Locarno Festival in Switzerland’s Lake Maggiore. Her Golden Leopard the Lithuanian film Akiplesa (Toxic) by the thirty-year-old Saule Blouvaite took off. A film that presents the everyday life of two teenage women, their journey towards adulthood but also the pressure they face from social standards and the idealization of beauty. The film also received the second Swatch First Feature Award Prize.

The awarding of the Golden Leopard, the top prize of the historic Swiss festival, which is renowned for its freshness and daring to screen films that break out of the mainstream, confirms its tradition of giving a platform to young, unknown directors and actors and highlighting new talents.

And his second major award Locarno Festivalthe Special Jury Prize, was also awarded to a woman. Specifically in the feature film Mond by the young director, Kurdvin Ayoub, who was born in Iraq in 1990 and lives in Austria. Another film that focuses the cinematic lens on young women, a martial arts athlete from Austria and the four daughters of a wealthy Jordanian family. The Austrian-produced drama analyzes through a cinematic lens different established female standards in the modern world.

A vote of confidence in the female gaze

The Director Award went to the young Lithuanian director Laurinas Bareisa, born in 1988, for the film Seses (Drowning Dry). Another drama about two sisters dealing with a sudden family tragedy, which shockingly changes their lives. Performance awards were also won by four of the protagonists of the film Drowning Dry, shining all the lights on contemporary Lithuanian cinema. Kim Minhe from South Korea also received an acting award for her performance in the film Am Bach.

The choice to award the top prizes to films that thematize aspects of the everyday life and challenges of modern women is no accident. In this way, the president of this year’s committee, the famous Austrian director Jessica Hausner, wanted to make her mark.

The committee’s statement on the selection of the award-winning films speaks of strengthening women’s self-confidence in and through cinema. It is interesting that out of the seventeen films in the international competition section, eight have a female signature. The committee’s choices could be described as a vote of confidence in the female cinematic gaze. However, we encountered a similar trend and issues this year at the more political Berlinale in the German capital.

Two Greek women in Locarno

For years, Greece has been represented at the Locarno Festival with special film productions that gather positive reviews and awards. This year she participated in the Pardo di Domani section with two Greek female directors, Konstantina Kotzamani, also known for her successful entries at the Berlinale, with the film What Mary didn’t know and Thelgia Petraki with the film 400 Cassettes.

Both have received awards at international film festivals in the past and are two of the most consistent representatives of contemporary Greek cinema abroad.

A total of 225 short and feature films, documentaries and films from the field of experimental cinema were screened at the Locarno Festival, which ran from 7 to 17 August.

Sources: dpa, DLF, SFR, Locarno Festival