Isabella Rossellini will be feted at this year’s Locarno Film Festival, which runs from August 5 to 15. 

The festival will give Rossellini its Excellence Award. Previous recipients of Locarno’s Excellence Award include Susan Sarandon, John Malkovich, Willem Dafoe, Michel Piccoli, Anjelica Huston, Carmen Maura, Isabelle Huppert, and, in 2025, Golshifteh Farahani.

Locarno Artistic Director Giona A. Nazzaro described Rossellini as a “true legend of contemporary cinema” in a statement announcing her honor. 

“A singular talent who has always fully embraced the thrill of artistic risk, reinvention, and fearless creative transformation,” Nazzaro said. “Joyfully unconventional, consistently brilliant in her characterisations and choices, Rossellini has made unpredictability her ultimate artistic signature.” 

Nazzaro added: “The Locarno Film Festival is proud and honoured to welcome Isabella Rossellini and award her the Excellence Award. She remains a visionary and incomparable performer and self-deprecating genius whose profound presence has left an indelible mark on contemporary cinema through her boundless talent and deep humanity.”

Rossellini will screen her self-directed web series Green Porno (2008-09) at the festival alongside a selection of her other credits, including My Dad is 100 Years Old (2005), Seduce Me (2010), Mammas (2013), abd Darwin, What? and Darwin, What? What?, which she co-directed with Paul David Magid in 2020.