The Locarno Film Festival will celebrate Italian-American actress, model and filmmaker Isabella Rossellini with the Excellence Award at its upcoming 79th edition.
Rossellini will be honoured on the opening night of the festival on Wednesday 5 August, in Piazza Grande.
“An icon of contemporary cinema, television, and fashion whose name is virtually synonymous with artistic daring and technical excellence, Isabella Rossellini has long fused the technical brilliance of Hollywood with the European spirit of artistic fearlessness across an extraordinary, multi-faceted, decades-long career,” said Locarno.
“After first making a major cultural impact as a model, Rossellini seared herself into the collective imagination as the haunting Dorothy Vallens in David Lynch’s masterpiece Blue Velvet (1986), a role that blended glamour, raw vulnerability, and unforgettable intensity.
“Born of cinema royalty, Rossellini has left her distinct mark on film history, forging a career featuring collaborations with filmmakers like Robert Zemeckis, David O. Russell, Taylor Hackford, Marjane Satrapi, Guy Maddin, the Taviani brothers, or, of course, most memorably of all, David Lynch, delivering remarkable performances that have given powerful but elusive voice to their diverse visions.
“From those classics to recent triumphs like Alice Rohrwacher’s La Chimera (2023) or Edward Berger’s Conclave (2024) – for which she received a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the 97th Academy Awards – Rossellini’s poised yet electric screen presence remains an indelible, undeniable part of contemporary cinema.”
As well as a public conversation, Rossellini – who holds a master’s degree in Animal Behaviour and Conservation from Hunter College in New York – will present her self-directed web series Green Porno (2008-09), in which she acted out animal mating rituals in costume and with “deadpan comic genius”, as well as My Dad Is 100 Years Old (Guy Maddin, 2005), Seduce Me (2010), Mammas (2013), Darwin, What? and Darwin, What? What? (co-directed with Paul David Magid, both 2020), and an excerpt from Animals Distract Me (2011).
Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director, said: “Isabella Rossellini is a true legend of contemporary cinema. A singular talent who has always fully embraced the thrill of artistic risk, reinvention, and fearless creative transformation.
“Joyfully unconventional, consistently brilliant in her characterisations and choices, Rossellini has made unpredictability her ultimate artistic signature.
“The Locarno Film Festival is proud and honoured to welcome Isabella Rossellini and award her the Excellence Award.
“She remains a visionary and incomparable performer and self-deprecating genius whose profound presence has left an indelible mark on contemporary cinema through her boundless talent and deep humanity.”
The Excellence Award lists among its laureates in recent years a line-up of “outstanding film personalities”, with names of the calibre of Susan Sarandon, John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Michel Piccoli, Anjelica Huston, Carmen Maura, Isabelle Huppert, Gael García Bernal, Charlotte Rampling, Giancarlo Giannini, Edward Norton, Bill Pullman, Mathieu Kassovitz, Ethan Hawke, Song Kang-Ho, Laetitia Casta, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Riz Ahmed, Mélanie Laurent, Guillaume Canet, and, in 2025, Golshifteh Farahani.
The 79th Locarno Film Festival will take place from 5 to 15 August 2026.
