The Locarno Film Festival is collaborating with film producers, distributors and streaming service Mubi to create a new award, the Mubi Premiere Award, which will be awarded to the world’s first film to be presented at the 77th edition of the festival. or an official selection of the International Premiere Directors Film Festival.
The partners announced the new honor on Tuesday.
Mubi was founded in 2007 by Efe Çakarel, who will tell the company’s history at the Swiss Festival this August.
“The Locarno Film Festival is delighted to partner with Mubi in the mutual interest of nurturing great filmmakers of the future,” said the partners. The prize carries a prize of 10,000 Swiss francs ($11,285), “shared equally between the director and producer” and will celebrate “bold and unique storytelling visions and the aesthetic possibilities of the medium, with a focus on new films that will shape the future of cinema.”
“Elevating great cinema and the filmmakers who create it is truly the reason Mubi exists,” said Cakarel. “We can’t wait to see their future masterpieces.”
Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of Locarno, said the new honor will “support emerging cinema more deeply and more convincingly,” adding that it will “be able to provide Films by young people and directors open up unprecedented avenues and potential”.
