Piazza Grande

Piazza Grande is what Locarno is all about. 8,000 seats. One of the largest screens in the world. Pristine projection. Booming sound. All of it outdoors, under the stars. Throughout the Festival, awards are given to special guests onstage at Piazza Grande: some of the most prominent directors, stars, producers, or technical wizards from the world of cinema take a bow before the audience. Then there’s the program itself, which consists of some of the year’s most anticipated movies, coming to Locarno mostly in their world or international premieres. These are films everybody can enjoy, cinephiles, genre fans and the general audience alike. But it doesn’t stop there. On certain nights a second screening takes place just before midnight, giving space to either the films of the honorees, masterpieces from out of the past, or the true genre-bending oddities.