Golshifteh Farahani will be feted at Locarno with the Excellence Award Davide Campari.
Farahani will be handed the award on August 6. She will also present her latest film, Julia Ducournau’s Alpha, at the festival.
Born in Tehran in 1983, Farahani’s breakthrough role was in Dariush Mehrjui’s The Pear Tree (1998), which won her the Best Actress award at the Fajr International Film Festival.
Since then, she has appeared in films like Abbas Kiarostami’s Shirin (2008), Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly (2009), Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson (2016), Ridley Scott’s spy thriller Body of Lies (2008), and Extraction (2020).
Previous honorees include Susan Sarandon, John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Michel Piccoli, Anjelica Huston, Carmen Maura, Isabelle Huppert, Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Rampling, Giancarlo Giannini, and Edward Norton. In 2024, Mélanie Laurent and Guillaume Canet were handed the gong.
“Golshifteh Farahani is a key figure in contemporary cinema,” Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival, said in a statement.
“Charismatic and multifaceted, she has been able to immerse herself in very different contexts and roles, guided by her extraordinary talent and generosity as an artist. Over the years, she has managed to alternate between arthouse films and blockbusters, infusing each film with a new aspect of her personality. Honoring Golshifteh Farahani means celebrating an extraordinary artist who has left a deep mark on the eyes and hearts of every film lover.”
Locarno runs from 6 to 16 August.
