Virginie Efira will be awarded Locarno’s honorary Leopard Club Award during this year’s festival, which runs from August 5-15. 

Efira will receive the award at the festival’s Piazza Grande stage on August 7 and will also present, as part of the Festival programme, Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, the film for which she won the Best Actress award at Cannes.

Locarno’s Leopard Club Award is handed out to individuals “whose work in the film industry has left its mark on the collective imagination.” Previous winners include Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, Andy García, Stefania Sandrelli, Adrien Brody, Meg Ryan, Hilary Swank, Kasia Smutniak, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Irène Jacob, and Emma Thompson.

Locarno Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro described Efira as a performer with “a unique sensibility to her roles.” 

“Bold yet thoughtful, instinctive yet ironic, she offers contemporary cinema a fresh perspective that continually reinvents itself,” Nazzaro said of Efira. 

“From working with Verhoeven to Hamaguchi and beyond, she has consistently explored her artistic potential, revealing a talent that evolves with freedom and vitality. Efira captures the beauty of what it means to be an actress in today’s cinema.”

All Of A Sudden is Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s follow-up to Evil Does Not Exist, which won the Silver Lion Grand Jury Prize at the 2023 Venice Film Festival.

Hamaguchi wrote the script in collaboration with Léa Le Dimna, which is loosely inspired by a collection of real-life exchanged letters published in the book When Life Suddenly Takes a Turn: Twenty Letters Between a Philosopher with Terminal Cancer and Medical Anthropologist by Makiko Miyano and Maho Isono.

The film is produced by David Gauquié, Julien Deris, Jean-Luc Ormières, Renan Artukmaç for Paris-based Cinefrance Studios; Hiroko Matsuda, Kosuke Oshida, Yuji Sadai for Japan’s Office Shirous & Bitters End; Bettina Brokemper for Germany’s Heimatfilm; and Joseph Rouschop for Belgium’s Tarantula. 

Neon has acquired North American rights to the film.