Alexander Payne to receive Pardo d’Onore

The Locarno Film Festival’s honorary leopard, presented by Manor, will be given to the internationally recognised and celebrated American filmmaker during Locarno78, on the night of Friday, August 15, 2025. Payne will also present his films The Descendants (2011) and Nebraska (2013) and participate in a public discussion with the festival audience.

The distinctive voice behind a slate of dryly funny modern classics, writer-director Alexander Payne has secured his place on the short list of filmmakers whose work can be said to define American cinema in the 21st century. His films have collectively won three Academy Awards, three BAFTAs, and eight Golden Globes in various categories, including for their memorable performances, and exemplify the pleasures of mid-budget filmmaking for grown-ups – a besieged artform ever in need of defense. He’s the writer and director behind beloved films like Election (1999), About Schmidt (2002), Sideways (2004), Nebraska (2013), and most recently the celebrated The Holdovers (2023).

Born in Nebraska in 1961, Payne studied filmmaking at UCLA, where his student work drew attention from Hollywood. By 1996, he had written and directed the ingenious politically charged comedy Citizen Ruth, starring Laura Dern, which received major acclaim after premiering at Sundance. From there, Payne went on to realize a remarkable series of seven more feature films, with each distinguished by their elegant construction, biting humor, and extraordinary tragicomic performances from an astounding range of revered actors. For these achievements, the Locarno Film Festival is honored to award its Pardo d’Onore to Alexander Payne.

Giona A.Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival: “Alexander Payne is an erudite auteur with an encyclopaedic cinephile knowledge. Gifted with an unerring sense for the bittersweet facets of human comedy, he is a filmmaker with sensibilities at once exquisitely classical and modern. An impeccable director of actors who has worked with such names as Jack Nicholson, George Clooney, Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern, Matt Damon, Bruce Dern, and Paul Giamatti, in Payne we find a knowledge of the savoir-faire of Hollywood cinema, its poetry, and its uniqueness. He’s the author of a unique filmography in which he has always addressed the complexities of the human condition with a smile in a constant dialogue with audiences worldwide.”

The Pardo d’Onore has, since 2017, been made possible thanks to the support of Manor, Event Partner of the Locarno Film Festival. Over the years, the Festival’s honorary leopard has been awarded to some of the most outstanding personalities in cinema. Previous recipients include Manoel de Oliveira, Bernardo Bertolucci, Ken Loach, Jean-Luc Godard, Abbas Kiarostami, Terry Gilliam, Alexander Sokurov, William Friedkin, Alain Tanner, Jia Zhang-ke, Leos Carax, Werner Herzog, Agnès Varda, Michael Cimino, Marco Bellocchio, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jean-Marie Straub, Todd Haynes, Bruno Dumont, John Waters, John Landis, Kelly Reichardt, Harmony Korine, and Jane Campion.

The 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will take place from 6-16 August 2025.