Swiss animator Marcel Barelli to receive Locarno Kids Award at 2025 festival

Acclaimed Swiss-born director and animator Marcel Barelli will be honored with the Locarno Kids Award la Mobiliare at the 78th Locarno Film Festival this August, festival organizers announced Tuesday.

The award will be presented on the evening of August 12 as part of the festival’s special programming for younger audiences. Barelli will also present the Swiss premiere of his latest animated short, Mary Anning, chasseuse de fossiles, a tribute to the pioneering British paleontologist who transformed fossil science in the 19th century.

The festival’s Locarno Kids section continues to grow in scope, with this year’s lineup including the French animated feature Arco, which explores climate change through an unlikely friendship. The film, which won best film at the 2024 Annecy Film Festival, is co-produced by Oscar-winner Natalie Portman.

Festival organizers praised Barelli for his continued contributions to the world of animated cinema.

“Barelli has established himself as one of the most promising and original voices in Swiss and international animation cinema,” Locarno organizers said in a statement. “In short films, such as Gypaetus helveticus (2011), Vigia (2013) – winner of the Pardino d’Argento at the 66th Locarno Film Festival, Lucens (2015), and Habitat (2016), Barelli has developed a unique poetic style sensitive to themes of environmental sustainability, exploring the deep relationship between humans, animals, and nature. In 2022, he received the Swiss Film Award for best animated film with Dans la nature (2021).”

Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, added: “Marcel Barelli represents an idea of resistance to the conformism of emotions, which becomes a light and dreamy trait to outline a world to rethink and rebuild, returning it to human beings of all ages. According to Barelli, cinema and animation are made of the same material as the most precious and generous dreams.”

The 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will take place from 6^–16 August.

Here is the lineup for the Locarno Kids Screenings 2025:

Arco by Ugo Bienvenu – Opening Film  
Swiss Premiere 

Fantastique by Marjolijn Prins 
World Premiere 
 
Grevlingene (The Badgers) by Paul M. Lundø – Closing Film 
World Premiere 
 
io non ti lascio solo by Fabrizio Cattani  
World PremiereL’Olívia i el terratrèmol invisible (Olivia and the Invisible Earthquake) by Irene Iborra Rizo  
International Premiere 

Skrzat. Nowy początek (Pixie. The New Beginning) by Krzysztof Komander  
International Premiere 

Tichá pošta (Secret Delivery) by Ján Sebechlebský  
International Premiere 

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