Locarno's Golden Leopard Goes to Florin Serban's 'You Don't Belong Here'; Kim Minhee and Monica Bellucci Share Best Performance
Florin Serban's You Don't Belong Here, a study of anti-Roma racism, has won the Golden Leopard for Best Film in the International Competition at the Locarno Film Festival, according to Variety.
The festival's top prize, named for the leopard that serves as Locarno's emblem, caps a competition season held each August in the Swiss town's Piazza Grande. You Don't Belong Here also earned Teodor Butanescu a Special Mention for Performance, Variety reports.
Hong Sangsoo took Best Director for Nowhere to Lay My Eyes, a film starring Kim Minhee — his longtime partner and muse. Kim won the festival's Best Performance award, a gender-neutral prize that replaces separate best-actor and best-actress categories. She shared it with Monica Bellucci, recognised for her supporting role in Giovanni Tortorici's coming-of-age film Ketticè.
This is Kim Minhee's second Locarno Best Performance win in two years. She received the same award in 2024 for Hong Sangsoo's By the Stream, Variety notes. The repeat win places her among a small group of performers to take the prize more than once at the festival.
For Bellucci, the award marks a prominent festival-season turn. Tortorici's Ketticè is an Italian coming-of-age story; Bellucci's supporting performance was singled out alongside Kim's lead work in Hong's film.
Locarno's International Competition is one of the older juried film competitions in Europe, running since 1946. The Golden Leopard is the festival's highest honour, awarded by a jury of industry professionals to a film selected from the official competition slate. A Special Mention, like the one given to Butanescu, signals jury recognition that falls short of a full award but carries equal festival prestige.
Serban, a Romanian director, has now won the Golden Leopard for a film that tackles anti-Roma prejudice directly — a subject that remains underexplored in European cinema. The festival's decision to place the prize with You Don't Belong Here brings the work to international distributor and buyer attention at a moment when the Locarno industry programme runs in parallel with the public competition.
