At the 64th edition of the Festival del film Locarno, the Pardo d’onore Swisscom (Leopard of Honour) to go to the american filmaker Abel Ferrara.

Every year the Locarno Festival’s Pardo d'onore celebrates one or more major contemporary filmmakers. Previous recipients include Manoel de Oliveira, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Loach, Jean-Luc Godard, Ermanno Olmi, Abbas Kiarostami, Wim Wenders, Aleksandr Sokurov, Hou Hsiao-hsien, Amos Gitai, William Friedkin and, in 2010, Alain Tanner and JIA Zhang-ke. A main sponsor of the Festival del film Locarno since 1998, Swisscom supports the Pardo d'onore for the third consecutive year.

Abel Ferrara

The award ceremony will take place on Friday August 5, at 9.30 pm on the Piazza Grande, when Abel Ferrara will introduce, for the occasion, an exclusive preview of extracts from his latest film, still in production, 4:44 Last Day on Earth, starring Willem Dafoe and Shanyn Leigh and co-produced by Fabula, Funny Balloons and Wild Bunch.

The following day, Saturday August 6, the Festival audience will have an opportunity to attend a masterclass given by Abel Ferrara.

For this career award Locarno will screen a selection of the major films by this New York director, Ms. 45 (1981), King of New York (1990), Bad Lieutenant, (1992) and Mary (2005).

Olivier Père, Artistic Director of the Festival, comments that he is «proud to welcome Abel Ferrara to Locarno, a maestro with the soul of a rock rebel and a distinctive spirituality, whose focus on suffering is reflected in his films. From Ms. 45 to King of New York, as well as Bad Lieutenant and The Blackout, most of Abel Ferrara’s major works deal with sin and redemption, love and violence, and the conflict between faith and behaviour within the individual».