Khan will receive the Pardo alla Carriera award in recognition of his artistic contributions to cinema.
Switzerland’s Locarno Film Festival kicks off on Wednesday, set to honor Shah Rukh Khan, Jane Campion, Alfonso Cuaron, and Irene Jacob with special awards.
Established in 1946, Locarno is among the world’s oldest annual film festivals, celebrating auteur cinema.
Nestled along the shores of Lake Maggiore in the Italian-speaking Ticino region of southern Switzerland, the festival screens films in the central square, a notable feature depicted on the country’s 20-franc banknotes. The open-air Piazza Grande accommodates up to 8,000 moviegoers and boasts one of the largest screens in the world.
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan, 58, will receive the Pardo alla Carriera award on Saturday for his significant contributions to redefining cinema. “The wealth and breadth of his contribution to Indian cinema is unprecedented,” said festival artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro. “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 runs until August 17 and showcases 225 films, including 104 world premieres and 15 debut features. The top prize, the Golden Leopard, has previously been awarded to acclaimed directors such as Roberto Rossellini, John Ford, Stanley Kubrick, Milos Forman, Mike Leigh, and Jim Jarmusch. Seventeen films—comprising world or international premieres—are competing for the award, representing countries including Lithuania, France, Austria, Italy, and South Korea. The Golden Leopard comes with a prize fund of 75,000 Swiss francs ($87,400), which is shared between the director and producer.
As Switzerland’s largest film event, Locarno will also host a retrospective to celebrate the 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures.
New Zealand’s Jane Campion will receive the Leopard of Honour for her outstanding contributions to world cinema. She was the first woman to be nominated twice for the Best Director Oscar, first for “The Piano” (1993) and later for “The Power of the Dog” (2021), which won her the Academy Award. Nazzaro described her work as featuring “tortured, fascinating characters” and demonstrating “astonishing skill in grappling with the more disturbing side of the human condition.” Past recipients include Ennio Morricone, Jean-Luc Godard, Bernardo Bertolucci, Paul Verhoeven, Terry Gilliam, and Werner Herzog.
Mexican filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron, a two-time Best Director Oscar winner for “Gravity” (2013) and “Roma” (2018), will be honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award. “Cuaron has reinvented himself as an artist with each new film,” noted Nazzaro.
French-Swiss actress Irene Jacob, known for her roles in “The Double Life of Veronique” (1991) and “Three Colours: Red” (1994), will receive the Leopard Club Award, recognizing her impactful contributions to cinema.
Stacey Sher, the US film producer behind classics such as “Pulp Fiction,” “Get Shorty,” “Gattaca,” “Erin Brockovich,” “Django Unchained,” and “The Hateful Eight,” will be awarded the Raimondo Rezzonico Award for her significant achievements in international film production.
Last year, the festival attracted nearly 150,000 attendees.
