Marco Perego Tells Locarno Pro: If You Want Money, "Go Work for a Bank"
Marco Perego had a blunt message for independent film producers at the Locarno Film Festival's industry strand on 10 August 2026: do not do it for the money. "Go work for a bank," he told attendees at Locarno Pro, the festival's programme for more than 1,000 industry professionals (Deadline).
His wife, Zoe Saldaña, was in the audience (The Hollywood Reporter). Perego, who took Saldaña's last name when they married (The Hollywood Reporter), made his feature directorial debut with the 2023 film The Absence of Eden, starring Saldaña.
Perego's producing career, though, is what brought him to Locarno. He arrived with no track record when he launched Leaf Entertainment with Michael Cerenzie (The Hollywood Reporter). By this year's Cannes, he had become the first producer to land three films in the festival's Competition section: Cristian Mungiu's Fjord, Andrey Zvyagintsev's Minotaur, and James Gray's Paper Tiger (Deadline).
At Locarno, Perego shared the stage with Gray, who received the festival's Career Leopard award at a ceremony on the Piazza Grande on 9 August (Locarno Film Festival). The 79th edition of the festival runs 5–15 August.
Perego's philosophy as a producer, as he laid it out at Locarno Pro, centres on protecting the director. Independent film, he said, is for people who take risk. "The vision is not yours," he told the room, urging producers to step back and let directors do what they want. Producers, he stressed, need to ensure they really protect the filmmaker (The Hollywood Reporter).
He described himself as "a disruptor" and "a radical," saying he expects to fail many times but will stand up each time. On the question of how much he puts into projects, he said he invests quite a lot and has no strict rules for the size of investments (The Hollywood Reporter).
Perego is a conceptual artist whose work has been displayed around the world, grew up on world cinema, and watches a film nearly every day (The Hollywood Reporter). That sensibility shapes his producing approach. He is also set to share his perspective on industry consolidation, streaming platforms swallowing local markets, and machines creeping into creative processes (Instagram).
The throughline is clear enough. A producer with no background in producing now has three Cannes Competition titles to his name, a debut feature as a director, and a stage at one of Europe's oldest film festivals where he is telling the industry to stop chasing money and start chasing vision. Whether the industry listens is another matter. Perego seems unconcerned about that part.
