Get ready for Dracula, a movie made with the participation of the late filmmaking legend David Lynch, Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, this year’s Cannes winner It Was Just an Accident, and much more, as the Locarno International Film Festival on Tuesday unveiled the lineup for its 78th edition. Dracula by Romanian director Radu Jude will get its world premiere as part of the Swiss fest’s competition program, while Duwayne Dunham (Return of the Jedi, Twin Peaks, Blue Velvet) will bring the debut of Legend of the Happy Worker, executive produced by Lynch, to the out-of-competition lineup.

Locarno, taking place Aug. 6-16, will also present the latest works from the likes of Abdelletif Kechiche, Vincent Grashaw, Sho Miyake, Ben Rivers, and Rosanne Pel, among others.

Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente sidebar, which puts the spotlight on first and second features, will include the likes of coming-of-drama Fantasy by music video and short film director Kukla, as well as drama Olivia by Sofía Petersen.

Meanwhile, some of this season’s film festival favorites and classics will screen in Locarno’s main Piazza Grande section, taking place on the town’s main square set up with 8,000 seats. Films that can be seen there include Jafar Panahi‘s Cannes 2025 winner and Testa O Croce? (Heads or Tails?) by Alessio Rigo de Righi and Matteo Zoppis, featuring John C. Reilly as Buffalo Bill.

Overall, the fest will screen 221 films, including 99 world premieres. “The films of the 78th edition represent what is alive, necessary, and daring in contemporary cinema today,” Locarno’s artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro said. “A cinema entirely in the present tense, devoid of any nostalgia and projected forward towards an open, dynamic, inclusive future that is to be imagined together, once again. A playful and dangerous cinema that takes many risks, but also a cinema that does not forget to laugh and smile, and to question history in all its aspects.”

In a press kit for the lineup announcement, Nazarro wrote: “Let’s regain the world one film at a time.” He added: “Building the program of the Locarno Film Festival means engaging with the living matter of contemporary cinema. A cinema that unfolds while the world is undergoing violent upheavals, while we witness – in real time – horrors that we had only read about in history books or studied in archival footage. The question is simple, and brutal in its inevitability: what is the place of cinema when the proliferation of images is unstoppable and continuous?”

His answer: “We regain the world (and perhaps peace) one film at a time. … The cinema that presents itself at the crossroads with history for the 78th edition of the festival is a cinema that, on the one hand, does not turn its gaze away from reality, and, on the other, explores the still possible forms of the image without forgetting to smile at the absurdities of our lives. A cinema that is playful, takes risks, dreams, and provokes; a cinema that stubbornly remains in the world.”

Jackie Chan will be honored with a lifetime achievement award at Locarno next month, Emma Thompson will get the Leopard Club Award, and Lucy Liu will receive a career honor.

Check out the Locarno film festival’s lineup for its main feature competition and other key sections unveiled on Tuesday below:

Concorso Internazionale Program (competition lineup)

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

Fuori Concorso Program (out-of-competition lineup)

Bobò by Pippo Delbono – Italy – 2025
World premiere

Deathstalker by Steven Kostanski – Canada – 2025
World premiere

E by Anna Eriksson – Finland – 2025
World premiere

Exile by Mehdi Hmili – Tunisia, Luxembourg, France, Qatar, Saudi Arabia – 2025
World premiere

I Live Here Now by Julie Pacino – USA – 2025
European premiere

Il Vangelo die Giuda (Judas’ Gospel) by Giulio Base – Italy, Poland – 2025
World premiere

Keep Quiet by Vincent Grashaw – USA – 2025
World premiere

Kerouac’s road: the beat of a nation by Ebs Burnough – United Kingdom, USA
– 2025
International premiere

Le Chantier by Jean-Stéphane Bron – France, Switzerland – 2025
World premiere

Legend of the Happy Worker by Duwayne Dunham – USA – 2025
World premiere

Nova ’78 by Aaron Brookner, Rodrigo Areias – United Kingdom, Portugal – 2025
World premiere

Silence by Eduardo Casanova – Spain – 2025
World premiere

Some Notes on the Current Situation by Eran Kolirin – Israel – 2025
World premiere

The Deal by Jean-Stéphane Bron – Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium –
2025
World premiere
Episodes 3-6

Concorso Cineasti Del Presente Program

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

Piazza Grande Program

Le Pays D’arto (In the Land of Arto) by Tamara Stepanyan
France, Armenia – 2025
World premiere

The Birthday Party by Miguel Ángel Jiménez
Greece, Spain, Netherlands, United Kingdom – 2025
World premiere

The Dead of Winter by Brian Kirk
USA, Germany – 2025
World premiere

Together by Michael Shanks
Australia, USA – 2025
Swiss premiere

Affeksjonsverdi (Sentimental Value) by Joachim Trier
Norway, France, Denmark, Germany, Sweden – 2025
Swiss premiere

Police Story by Jackie Chan
Hong Kong – 1985

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

The Deal by Jean-Stéphane Bron
Switzerland, France, Luxembourg, Belgium – 2025
Swiss premiere
Episodes 1&2

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

La Petite Dernière by Hafsia Herzi
France, Germany – 2025
Swiss premiere

Rosemead by Eric Lin
USA – 2025
International premiere

Un Simple Accident (It Was Just an Accident) by Jafar Panahi
Iran, France, Luxembourg – 2025
Swiss premiere

Kiss of the Spider Woman by Bill Condon
USA, Uruguay – 2025
International premiere