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US film stars to shine on Swiss film festival of Locarno

Cinema screen and three people on podium
The president and the two directors have announced the line-up for this year's Locarno film festival with its trademark open-air screen on the Piazza Grande. © Keystone/Anthony Anex

An action thriller with Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock is to kick off this year’s Locarno Film Festival.

Bullet Train by David Leitch is one of 17 films to be screened on Locarno’s 8,000-seat open air Piazza Grande arena in the southern Swiss town.

Other world premieres are the Belgian-Swiss production Last Dance by Delphine Lehericey and Olivia Newman’s Where the Crawdads Sing, based on a novel by US author Delia Owens.

Presenting the line-up for the festival on Wednesday, artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro said the 75th edition of the Locarno film event remained true to its vocation of freedom and wanted to offer a place to discover and debate film in all its forms.

“With a gaze always looking firmly to the future,” he said.

A special retrospective honours Douglas Sirk, the German director best known for his Hollywood melodramas from the 1950s. 

Laurie Anderson, an American avant-garde artist, composer and musician, will receive a special award in Locarno.

The ten-day festivalExternal link gets underway on August 3 in the Italian-speaking part of Switzerland. It’s among the top four film events in Europe.

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