MUBI and Locarno Film Festival Partner on a New Award Given to A Promising First Feature

MUBI, the global film distributor, production company, and streaming service, was founded in 2007 by Efe Çakarel and creates, curates, acquires, and champions visionary films, bringing them to audiences all over the world. The Locarno Film Festival, now in its 77th edition, is one of the oldest and most prestigious A-list film festivals in the world, continuing through the decades to be a space for the talents of the future while shedding new light on the history of cinema.

Past and upcoming debut features released by MUBI across multiple countries include the  BAFTA-winning Aftersun directed by Charlotte Wells (a member of the Concorso Internazionale Jury last year at Locarno), Molly Manning Walker’s multi award winning How to Have Sex, Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s Hot Milk starring Emma Mackey, Vicky Krieps, and Fiona Shaw, Thomas Hardiman’s Medusa Deluxe (which world premiered on the Locarno Piazza Grande in 2022), Ben Sharrock’s Limbo, and MUBI Productions’ Bring Them Down by Christopher Andrews, starring Christopher Abbott and Barry Keoghan, and My First Film by Zia Anger, starring Odessa Young and Devon Ross.

With a shared interest in fostering the great filmmakers of tomorrow, the Locarno Film Festival is pleased to team up with MUBI on a new prize, the MUBI Award – Debut Feature (CHF 10.000 to be shared equally between the director and the producer), given to an outstanding debut feature in Locarno’s official program. The award celebrates boldly distinctive visions for storytelling and the aesthetic possibilities of the medium, spotlighting the new films that will shape the future of cinema.

The award will be given by the Locarno Film Festival’s First Feature jury, composed of Moroccan director-producer Khalil Benkirane (Doha Film Institute), Finnish actor Alma Pöysti (star of Aki Kaurismäki’s MUBI-distributed hit Fallen Leaves [2023]), and prominent make-up designer Esmé Sciaroni (most recently on La Chimera [2023] by Alice Rohrwacher).

Efe Çakarel, Founder and CEO, MUBI: “Elevating great cinema, and the filmmakers that create it, really is why MUBI exists. We truly hope that this prize helps a new generation of storytellers bring their visions and voices to life. We can’t wait to see their future-masterpieces, and to share them with the world on MUBI.”

Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director, Locarno Film Festival: “A new and prestigious collaboration to support emerging cinema even more incisively and convincingly than before. We’re very glad to be collaborating with MUBI on a new award capable of opening unprecedented avenues and potentialities for young and auteur cinema, thus defending artistic freedom and creativity. This is a new partnership but a longstanding mission: an award for the cinema today that sets the foundations for the cinema of tomorrow.”

The award ceremony at which the MUBI Award – Debut Feature will be given, together with the other awards, will take place in the GranRex on Saturday, August 17 at 2.30 p.m, and be livestreamed on the Locarno Film Festival website.

The 77th Locarno Film Festival will take place from 7 to 17 August 2024.