Venice Lagoon Fable 'Mutrion' Wins Best Director at Locarno's Leopards of Tomorrow
A 20-minute short film shot on the islands of the Venice lagoon has won the best director prize in the Pardi di Domani — Leopards of Tomorrow — competition at the 79th Locarno Film Festival. The director is Marco Cavazzin, a 26-year-old Italian, and his film 'Mutrion' was the only Italian entry in the international short-film section this year (Variety, 2026; Deadline, 2026).
The Pardi di Domani section — named after Locarno's Leopard award, with "tomorrow" signalling emerging talent — featured 20 works from countries including France, the U.K., Iran, Qatar, China, Taiwan, the U.S. and Ukraine. The 2026 jury panel comprised Lebanese director Mounia Akl, South African producer Steven Markovitz and Italian director Antonio Piazza (Variety, 2026). The broader Locarno 2026 award winners were led by the film 'You Don't Belong Here', with director Hong Sangsoo and actress Monica Bellucci also honoured at the festival (The Hollywood Reporter, 2026).
'Mutrion' takes its name from a childhood nickname meaning "sulky," given to the protagonist Marco. The plot turns on a lagoon legend: sooner or later, every inhabitant loses the toenail of their right big toe. Marco, played by Manfredi Marini, left the lagoon at twenty and returns four years later — the odd man out, having never lost his nail, facing the community's tacit expectations and a sense of structural isolation. The film co-stars Giulio Maroncelli. Marini previously appeared in Giovanni Tortorici's film 'Nineteen' (Variety, 2026).
Cavazzin has said the film "stems from a desire to tell a story of return and reconnect with a place that has become both familiar and distant" (Variety, 2026). The short was shot entirely on the Venetian lagoon islands, produced by the independent studio Etimo, and supported by the Veneto Film Commission. Distribution in Italy is handled by Cattive Produzioni. The Locarno programme lists it as a DCP 4K colour film with English and French subtitles, and carries a warning that visual effects may trigger seizures in viewers with photosensitive epilepsy (Locarno Film Festival programme page).
What makes the win striking is the scale of the achievement against the running time. Twenty minutes of lagoon-set folklore, a first-time Italian director not yet thirty, and the only home-country film in the section — and the Locarno jury singled out the direction above a field that, per the festival's own July 2026 press release, included established names such as Ben Rivers and Caroline Poggi (Locarno Film Festival press release, July 2026; The Hollywood Reporter, July 2026).
For Cavazzin, the Pardino for Best Direction is the kind of early festival recognition that sales agents and programmers track closely — a signal that a young director's next project, longer and more resourced, may already be circulating in conversations at markets and labs. The Veneto Film Commission's backing of 'Mutrion' is a footnote in the credits but a real line item in the production chain: regional funds like these are often what make a first short possible at all.
'Mutrion' had its world premiere at the festival on 8 August 2026 at 17:30 in Locarno (Locarno Film Festival programme page).
