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©Agnete Brun
From his work in groundbreaking European cinema working with directors such as Lars von Trier – they have done 5 films together including Breaking The Waves (1996) which won the Jury Prize at Cannes – and Hans Petter Moland – also 5 films together including Kraftidioten (In Order of Disappearance, 2014) – to his starring work in Hollywood blockbusters such as Pirates of the Caribbean films (2006 - 2007), to the Mamma Mia! films (2008 - 2018), Marvel’s Thor (2011-2013) and Avengers (2012-2015) series to Dune (2021) by Denis Villeneuve (the second part of which will be released this fall), Stellan Skarsgård has established himself as one of the most popular actors in contemporary cinema, able to leave his unmistakable mark of taste and formal precision. Also active in television, in 2019 he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a miniseries in the HBO drama Chernobyl (2019). He recently starred in Tony Gilroy’s hit spin off Star Wars show Andor (2022) for Disney+, the second series of which he has just finished shooting.
The Locarno Film Festival will give him the Leopard Club Award 2023, named after the Festival’s official supporting association.
Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival: “Stellan Skarsgård belongs to the tradition of European actors who have distinguished themselves between auteur cinema and Hollywood. Endowed with a very powerful stage charisma, he has been able to make every role he has played unforgettable. Capable of reinventing his character according to the needs of the director and the script, he was able to inject his personality into films that were extremely different from each other. A central figure in the cinema of recent decades, the Locarno Film Festival is proud to present the Leopard Club Award to an actor of such absolute value and with such an extremely important filmography as Stellan Skarsgård.”
On Friday, August 4th, at the PalaCinema 1, Stellan Skarsgård and Gustaf Skarsgård, together with director Ran Huang and co-writer Megan Everett-Skarsgård, will present What Remains, selected in the Fuori concorso section. In the same evening the Festival will award him with the Leopard Club Award, during a ceremony in the Piazza Grande. On Saturday, August 5th, Stellan Skarsgård will also meet the audience at the Forum @Spazio Cinema for a talk on his artistic journey.
On August 3rd, the GranRex Cinema will screen a film personally chosen by the actor to represent his career:
God afton, herr Wallenberg (Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg) by Kjell Grede – Sweden – 1990
Click here to find out more about the full official selection of the Locarno76.
The day-by-day screening time will be available by mid-July.
The Leopard Club, the official supporting association of the Locarno Film Festival, presents the Leopard Club Award each year to an individual whose work in the film industry has left its mark on the collective imagination. Among the stars who have received this prestigious award are Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, Andy Garcia, Stefania Sandrelli, Adrien Brody, Meg Ryan, Hilary Swank, Kasia Smutniak and, in 2022, Daisy Edgar-Jones.
For more information about becoming a member of the exclusive club, visit www.leopardclub.ch
Stellan Skarsgård began acting at an early age and became a Swedish television star as the lead in the children's series Bombi Bitt (1968). He joined the Royal Dramatic Theatre in 1972 and after more than a decade of leading theatre roles in Sweden, in 1982 he won the Silver Bear for Best Actor Award at the Berlin Film Festival for his role in Den Enfaldige mördaren (The Simple Minded Murderer, Hans Alfredson, 1982), which brought him international attention.
He then began his Hollywood career starring in films and working with top directors such as Steven Spielberg’s Amistad (1997), Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting (1997), Gore Verbinski’s Pirates of the Caribbean (2006-2007) films, both Mamma Mia! (2008-2018) films for Universal, Miloš Forman’s Goya’s Ghosts (2006), Antoine Fuqua’s King Arthur (2004), Ron Howard’s Angels and Demons (2009), The 2 Thor and 2 Avenger’s films for Marvel, David Fincher’s The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011), Kenneth Branagh’s Cinderella (2015), Terry Gilliam’s The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018) and, most recently, Denis Villeneuve’s Dune (2021), the sequel which is coming out this Autumn.
During this time he constantly returned to Europe to continue his work starring in films with leading independent filmmakers – such as Lars von Trier with whom he has worked with 5 times in Breaking the Waves (1996), which won the Grand Jury Prize at Cannes, Dancer in the Dark (2000), Dogville (2003), Melancholia (2011) and Nymphomaniac (2013) and Hans Petter Moland in 5 films they have made together – Kjærlighetens kjøtere (Zero Kelvin, 1995), Aberdeen (2000), En ganske snill mann (A Somewhat Gentle Man, 2010), Kraftidioten (In Order of Disappearance, 2014) and Ut og stjæle hester (Out Stealing Horses, 2019). Other films of note are Maria Sodahl’s Håp (Hope, 2019), Vaclav Varhoul’s Nabarvené ptáče (The Painted Bird, 2019), Volker Schlöndorff’s Rückkehr nach Montauk (Return to Montauk, 2017) and Marius Holst’s Kongen av Bastøy (King of the Devil’s Island, 2010). In 2019, he won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a miniseries in the HBO drama Chernobyl. He recently starred in Tony Gilroy’s hit spin off Star Wars show Andor (2022) for Disney+, the second series of which he has just finished shooting.