Actress Virginie Efira will be honored at the 79th Locarno Film Festival with the Leopard Club Award, and present Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s All of a Sudden, the film for which she won the Palme for Best Actress in Cannes.
Giona A. Nazzaro, Artistic Director, commented, “Virginie Efira brings a unique sensibility to her roles as a performer. Bold yet thoughtful, instinctive yet ironic, she offers contemporary cinema a fresh perspective that continually reinvents itself. 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.”
Virginie Efira is known for Alice Winocour’s Paris Memories (Revoir Paris, 2022), for which she earned the César for Best Actress,
She plays the lead role in Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s new feature, Soudain (All of a Sudden), his first French-language film and his first primarily set outside his native country, a role for which Efira learned to act in part in Japanese. She plays the role of director of a care facility for the elderly, who is rolling out a new care philosophy based on listening and respecting residents’ dignity, despite resistance from some of her staff. Her encounter with Mari, a Japanese theater director battling cancer, will profoundly reshape her path. By forming a deep, supportive friendship, the two women join forces in a shared struggle to “make the impossible possible.”
Efira also starred in Asghar Farhadi’s Parallel Tales (Histoires parallèles, 2026), another Cannes competition title, in which she starred opposite Isabelle Huppert and Vincent Cassel.
The 79th Locarno Film Festival will take place from August 5 to 15, 2026.
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