Lithuanian films shine at Locarno Film Festival, dominating top awards

Two films from the Baltic nation stole the spotlight at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, winning several most prestigious awards. “Toxic,” the debut film from writer-director Saulė Bliuvaitė, won the coveted Golden Leopard for Best Film in the festival’s International Competition, where the jury was chaired by Austrian filmmaker Jessica Hausner. In a rare double victory, “Toxic” also took home the top prize in the First Feature Competition, solidifying Bliuvaitė’s arrival as a major new talent in international cinema.

Meanwhile, Laurynas Bareiša, another Lithuanian filmmaker, was honored with the Best Director award for his second feature, “Drowning Dry”. The film’s ensemble cast also received one of the festival’s gender-neutral acting prizes, recognizing their collective performance.

“Toxic” offers a raw and unflinching look at the lives of teenage girls in a small-town Lithuanian modeling school, exploring themes of financial and sexual exploitation, as well as the pressures of body image. Variety praised the film, noting its “sobering but not without glimmers of tenderness and humor as female friendship takes root in a hopeless place,” and commended its “alternation between chilly composure and kinetic movement roughly corresponds with [the protagonist’s] wavering sense of self.”

Before presenting Bareiša with his award, Hausner lauded “Drowning Dry” for its “artistic visual style including its very powerful actresses and actors, original and unusual story structure. Bareiša, reflecting on his journey, expressed gratitude for the opportunity to create and share films, said, “I want to use this platform to acknowledge this privilege that we have now, that we can celebrate cinema and make films … in a lot of parts of the world, people don’t have this privilege to feel safe, they have to fight just to exist.”

In addition to its Golden Leopard and First Feature awards, “Toxic” also received the Ecumenical Jury Prize, while “Drowning Dry” marked a bold step forward for Bareiša, whose earlier film Pilgrims won the Horizons competition at Venice in 2021. The jury, which included actors Tim Blake Nelson and Luca Marinelli, producer Diana Elbaum, and Cannes-winning filmmaker Payal Kapadia, found themselves unable to choose a single recipient for the performance award. They jointly honored “Drowning Dry’s” four leads—Gelminė Glemžaitė, Agnė Kaktaitė, Giedrius Kiela, and Paulius Markevičius—alongside South Korean actress Kim Minhee, for her role in Hong Sangsoo’s latest film By the Stream.

The Special Jury Prize, effectively the runner-up to the Golden Leopard, was awarded to Iraqi-Austrian director Kurdwin Ayub for her second feature Moon, an enigmatic thriller centered on a martial artist hired to train three Jordanian sisters under mysterious circumstances. Ayub, who previously won the Best First Feature award at the 2022 Berlinale for Sonne, expressed her thanks to producer Ulrich Seidl, humorously adding that her cats would appreciate the feline-shaped trophy. Moon also won the Europe Cinemas Label prize and received a special mention from the Ecumenical Jury.

Spanish director Mar Coll’s Salve Maria, a haunting psychodrama, and Chinese documentarian Wang Bing’s Youth (Hard Times), a nearly four-hour depiction of textile workers’ lives in Huzhou City, received special mentions from the jury. Bing’s film is part of an epic nonfiction trilogy, with its final installment set to premiere at Venice next month.

In the festival’s secondary competition, Filmmakers of the Present, Georgian director Tato Kotetishvili won the top prize for his debut feature Holy Electricity, a quirky tale about two cousins in Tbilisi scamming locals with fake neon crucifixes. Other winners in the festival’s Pardi di Domani shorts competition included Maha Haj for Upshot, Mickey Lai for Washhh, and Samuel Patthey for Sans Voix. The audience award, the UBS Prix du Public, was scheduled to be presented later at the festival’s central outdoor venue, the Piazza Grande, prior to the closing film, Laetitia Dosch’s Dog on Trial.

Locarno’s artistic director, Giona A. Nazzaro, praised the festival’s ability to spotlight emerging talent, stating, “Creativity and hope for a better tomorrow were the elements that ran through all the sections. Cinema is a driving force and Locarno is a flagship for it. We are truly proud of this edition and grateful for the tremendous team effort behind its success.” He also highlighted the prominence of female filmmakers in this year’s awards, noting that *Locarno77 has affirmed even more strongly the centrality of women’s voices in contemporary cinema.”

Check out the complete list of winners here:

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION

Golden Leopard for Best Film: “Toxic,” Saulė Bliuvaitė
Special Jury Prize: “Moon,” Kurdwin Ayub
Best Director: Laurynas Bareiša, “Drowning Dry”
Best Performance: (ex aequo) Gelminė Glemžaitė, Agnė Kaktaitė, Giedrius Kiela and Paulius Markevičius, “Drowning Dry”; Kim Minhee, “By the Stream”
Special Mentions: “Youth (Hard Times),” Wang Bing; “Salve Maria,” Mar Coll

CINEASTI DEL PRESENTE (FILMMAKERS OF THE PRESENT) COMPETITION

Best Film: “Holy Electricity,” Tato Kotetishvili
Best Emerging Director: Denise Fernandes, “Hanami”
Special Jury Prize: “Listen to the Voices,” Maxime Jean-Baptiste
Best Performance: (ex aequo) Callie Hernandez, “Invention”; Anna Mészöly, “Lesson Learned”
Special Mentions: “Lesson Learned,” Bálint Szimler; “When the Phone Rang,” Iva Radivojević

FIRST FEATURE COMPETITION

Swatch First Feature Award: “Toxic,” Saulė Bliuvaitė
MUBI Award for Debut Feature: “Green Line,” Sylvie Ballyotr
Special Mentions: “Hanami,” Denise Fernandes; “Listen to the Voices,” Maxime Jean-Baptiste

PARDI DI DOMANI SHORT FILM COMPETITION

Auteur Short Competition
Best Auteur Short Film: “Upshot,” Maha Haj
Special Mention: “The Masked Monster,” Syeyoung Park
Locarno Film Festival Short Film Candidate – European Film Awards: “The Exploding Girl,” Caroline Poggi and Jonathan Vinel

International Competition
Best International Short Film: “Washhh,” Mickey Lai
Pardino d’Argento: “Hymn of the Plague,” Ataka51
Best Director: “Que te Vaya Bonito, Rico,” Joel Alfonso Vargas
Medien Patent Verwaltung AG Award: “The Form,” Melika Pazouki
Special Mention: “Freak,” Claire Barnett

National Competition
Best Swiss Short Film: “Sans Voix,” Samuel Patthey
Pardino d’Argento: “Better Not Kill the Groove,” Jonathan Leggett
Best Swiss Newcomer Award: Gabriel Grosclaude, “Lux Carne”
Special Mention: “Progress Mining,” Gabriel Böhmer

PARDO VERDE COMPETITION

Pardo Verde: “Agora,” Ala Eddine Slim
Special Mentions: “Der Fleck,” Willy Hans; “Revolving Rounds,” Johann Lurf and Christina Jauernik

INDEPENDENT JURY AWARDS

Ecumenical Jury Award: “Toxic,” Saulė Bliuvaitė
Special Mention: “Moon,” Kurdwin Ayub
FIPRESCI Prize: “Youth (Hard Times),” Wang Bing
Europa Cinemas Label: “Moon,” Kurdwin Ayub

JUNIOR JURY AWARDS

International Competition
First Prize: “Green Line,” Sylvie Ballyot
Second Prize: “Toxic,” Saulė Bliuvaitė
Third Prize: “Salve Maria,” Mar Coll
Environment is Quality of Life Prize: “Youth (Hard Times),” Wang Bing

Cineasti del Presente Competition
First Prize: “Holy Electricity,” Tato Kotetishvili
Special Mention: “Olivia & Las Nubes,” Tomás Pichardo-Espaillat

Short Film Competition
International Competition Award: “Razeh-Del,” Maryam Tafakory
Special Mention: “Punter,” Jason Adam Maselle
National Competition Award: “Sans Voix,” Samuel Patthey
Special Mention: “Lux Carne,” Gabriel Grosclaude
Auteur Short Award: “Upshot,” Maha Haj
Environment is Quality of Life Prize: “Three Leaves,” Eléonore Coyette and Sephora Monteau

CRITICS’ WEEK AWARDS

Grand Prix: “Wir Erben,” Simon Baumann
Marco Zucchi Award (for most aesthetically and formally innovative documentary): “La Déposition,” Claudia Marschal

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