Naomi Kawase’s latest feature, Yakushima’s Illusion, starring Vicky Krieps, has been added to this year’s international competition at Locarno.
A French, Japanese, Luxembourgish, and Belgian co-production, the film will have its world premiere in Locarno on August 15.
Very little is known about the film’s plot, but it will mark Kawase’s first feature since True Mothers (2020). That film debuted in Competition at Cannes before screening at the Toronto, San Sebastian, and Chicago film festivals.
Since then, Kawase directed the official film of the Tokyo Olympic Games. Kawase began her career in documentary and short films, and in 1997 became the youngest director to receive Cannes’ Camera d’Or for her first feature, Suzaku. Her other credits include Radiance, Sweet Bean, Still The Water, and Hanezu.
This year’s Locarno Competition features 18 world premieres, including new works by Radu Jude and Abdellatif Kechiche. The Radu Jude feature is his much-talked-about Dracula. The film was shot in Transylvania and is said to blend several takes on the Dracula story. The Abdellatif Kechiche feature is Mektoub, My Love: Canto Due, the third edition in his controversial Mektoub series. Ben Rivers, a Locarno regular, will debut his latest feature, Mare’s Nest.
Elsewhere, Vietnamese filmmaker Trương Minh Quý, best known for his buzzy feature Viet and Nam, will debut Hair, Paper, Water…, a new feature co-directed with Nicolas Graux. Thomas Hakim and Julien Graff of Petit Chaos, the company behind Payal Kapadia’s groundbreaking feature debut All We Imagine As Light, are producers on the film, which will screen in Locarno’s Concorso Cineasti del Presente section.
The 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival will take place from 6-16 August 2025.
