Overview
- Locarno announced Monday that U.S. director James Gray will receive the Pardo alla Carriera career-achievement award at the 79th festival in Switzerland.
- The award will be presented on Aug. 9 on Locarno’s 8,000-seat Piazza Grande immediately before an open-air screening of Gray’s Paper Tiger.
- Paper Tiger, which had its world premiere in competition at Cannes in May, is scheduled to have its North American premiere as the opening-night film of the 2026 New York Film Festival.
- The Locarno tribute includes screenings of two earlier Gray films, We Own the Night (2007) and Two Lovers (2008), to highlight recurring themes in his work such as New York’s immigrant communities and crime drama.
- Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro described Gray as 'the last great novelist of American cinema,' saying the festival’s honor recognizes his humanist sensibility, cinephile knowledge and genre-spanning career.