The Locarno Film Festival (which takes place between August 2-12) will pay homage to Todd Haynes with its Pardo d’Onore Manor lifetime achievement award. The Oscar-nominated U.S. director will also be celebrated with screenings of his latest film Wonderstruck and also his first feature which competed in Locarno in 1991, titled Poison.
Poison, a triptych of stories about transgression and persecution inspired by late French writer Jean Genet, will be part of a sidebar called Locarno70, celebrating the festival’s 70th anniversary through a selection of 11 first features presented at the event, which has always championed international indie cinema.
Other directors expected to be on hand in Locarno as part of this celebratory sidebar include Russia’s Aleksandr Sokurov, France’s Catherine Breillat, Pakistan’s Sabiha Sumar, Switzerland’s Villi Hermann and Italy’s Alina Marazzi.
Haynes is expected to make an appearance at Locarno on August 7. The festival’s artistic director Carlo Chatrian said in a statement: “In his seven feature films to date Todd Haynes has shaped out an original universe in which his familiarity with U.S. and European cinema, his passion for the films of Sirk and Fassbinder, go hand in glove with a modern sensibility”.
Chatrian added that, “His characters – often with extraordinary performances by the female leads – bring back the magic of great cinema, of art that achieves the sublimation of reality without lapsing into disenchantment”.
#Peace.Love.ToddHaynes
