Albert Serra and Ingrid Caven Premiere 'Sixteen Moments of My Life' at Locarno
Albert Serra's new film Seize moments de ma vie (Sixteen Moments of My Life) has had its world premiere at the 79th Locarno Film Festival, screening out of competition. The 85-minute film documents a one-off performance by singer and actress Ingrid Caven at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris. Variety
Caven, now in her eighth decade, is best known as the muse and frequent collaborator of Rainer Werner Fassbinder, her sometime husband and one of the defining figures of 1960s and 1970s European cinema. She has also maintained a career as a recording artist. The film captures her performing with Molforts, the Catalan musicians who have provided the soundtracks for Serra's work. Together, Caven and the band wrote sixteen songs for the film, communicating only through the music and never speaking directly to one another. Variety
The project is the culmination of a six-year collaboration between Caven, Serra and the Molforts, according to ARA English. Caven and Serra have been friends for more than fifteen years. The film, a France-Spain co-production, is presented in colour on DCP in its original German and French, per the Locarno festival programme.
Serra's previous film was Afternoons of Solitude, a documentary about a bullfighter. Looking ahead, the Catalan director told Variety he would like to make a Brigadoon-style musical comedy as his next performance project. Variety
The Locarno Film Festival, held annually in the Swiss lakeside town, is one of the longest-running film festivals in the world. The festival confirmed the premiere on its Facebook page. The Out of Competition section, where Serra's film screens, sits outside the festival's main prize race and typically showcases work by established names or distinctive projects that don't fit the competition's format constraints. The Hollywood Reporter listed the film among its 2026 Locarno preview on 27 July.
For a festival that prides itself on championing cinema at its most unclassifiable, a film built around a singer who refuses to speak to her band — and lets the songs do all the talking — fits the Locarno bill rather neatly.
