Stellan Skarsgard will receive the Locarno Lifetime Achievement Award

Legendary Swedish star Stellan Skarsgard (Hunting for goodwill, Oh mama!, Nymphomaniac) will be honored with the Leopard Club Award, a lifetime achievement award, at this year’s Locarno International Film Festival.

Skarsgard will receive the award on August 4 at a ceremony in Locarno’s Piazza Grande and will participate in a question and answer session with the public on August 5. In honor of him, Locarno will screen Good evening, Mr. Wallenberg (1990), the costume drama by Kjell Grede in which Skarsgard plays Raoul Wallenberg, the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Hungarian Jews during the last months of the Second World War. The festival will also be screened What remainsRan Huang’s crime drama, co-written by his partner Megan Everett-Skarsgard, with Skarsgard and one of his actor sons, Gustaf (Vikings, Oppenheimer). Huang and Skarsgard will be present at the Locarno screenings.

The 72-year-old has successfully balanced a career as a European art house star. He has made five films with Lars von Trier, including Breaking The Waves (1996), Dancer in the dark (2000), Dogville (2003) and Meloncholy (2011) — and five with Norwegian author Hans Petter Moland, as In order of disappearance (2014) e Out stealing horses (2019). Skarsgard has also had supporting roles in Hollywood blockbusters, such as Pirates of the Caribbean, Oh mama!, Thor and the avengers movie. He played Baron Vladimir Harkonnen in Denis Villeneuve Dunea role he will reprise in the next film Dune: second part. On the small screen, Skarsgard won the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in a Miniseries in 2019 for his portrayal in the HBO drama Chernobyl and recently starred Tony Gilroy Star Wars spin off Andor for Disney+.

“Stellan Skarsgard belongs to the tradition of European actors who distinguished themselves between auteur cinema and Hollywood,” said Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro. “Endowed with a very powerful stage charisma, he has been able to make every role he has played unforgettable. Able to reinvent his character according to the needs of the director and the script, he knew how to inject his personality into extremely different films ”.

The Leopard Club of Locarno prize is awarded each year to an individual “whose work in the film industry has left its mark on the collective imagination”. Previous winners include Faye Dunaway, Mia Farrow, Adrien Brody, Meg Ryan, Hilary Swank and Daisy Edgar-Jones.

The 76th Locarno Film Festival takes place from 2 to 12 August.