65th Locarno Film Festival
The 65th Locarno Film Festival took place in Locarno, Switzerland from August 1 to August 11, 2012. The opening night featured the world premiere of The Sweeney, directed by Nick Love.
Highlights included tributes and retrospectives: filmmaker Souleymane Cissé was honored with a ceremony and retrospective, and he helped in the Open Doors section, which this year focused on African cinema. Leos Carax received the Leopard of Honor and attended with his film Holy Motors, with a retrospective of his work. There was also a retrospective for Otto Preminger. The festival’s Excellence Award went to Charlotte Rampling and Gael García Bernal.
Rains forced many night screenings at the Piazza Grande, the festival’s large outdoor theater, to be moved indoors to the smaller Favi theater. Standout screenings included the GoPro-shot documentary Leviathan and the docu-fiction Museum Hours directed by Jem Cohen. This was artistic director Olivier Père’s last year, as he stepped down to become head of the French network ARTE.
The Golden Leopard, the festival’s top prize, went to The Girl From Nowhere by Jean-Claude Brisseau. The film, made on a shoestring budget of about €62,000, became profitable by winning the €90,000 prize.
The festival featured several sections, including Piazza Grande, Shorts, the International Competition, Filmmakers of the Present (Concorso Cineasti del Presente), Open Doors focusing on African cinema, Leopards of Tomorrow (Pardi di Domani), Histoire(s) du Cinéma, and Semaine de la Critique.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 06:19 (CET).