Monica Bellucci walked the photocall at the 79th Locarno Film Festival on Saturday, August 8, 2026, as the Swiss festival's International Competition section turned its attention to Ketticè, a coming-of-age drama from writer-director Giovanni Tortorici (The Hollywood Reporter).

Tortorici, a former assistant to Luca Guadagnino, is on his sophomore feature after Diciannove. Guadagnino is listed among the film's producers. The 107-minute film is set in Palermo, Sicily, in 2012 — the Berlusconi era — and centres on Giulio, a listless 16-year-old who forms an exclusive bond with a more self-assured peer named Ketty. The title itself comes from Ketty's nickname in the Sicilian dialect (The Hollywood Reporter; Locarno Film Festival).

Bellucci plays Giulio's mother, the matriarch of an aristocratic Sicilian family. PiperFilm, the film's Italian distributor, billed her role as a partecipazione speciale — a special participation (PiperFilm on Facebook). The two teenage leads, Salvatore Gallina and Rachele Testagrossa, were discovered through extensive street casting (The Hollywood Reporter).

At a press conference alongside Tortorici and his three stars, Bellucci described her character as a wife and mother trapped by the perfection of her social role — a woman who has forgotten her femininity, does not take care of herself, and yells when she talks. She counterbalances her frustration by eating snacks. The relationship with her son, she said, creates constant tension: a mutual humiliation that reveals an impossibility of exchange between generations (The Hollywood Reporter).

Tortorici drew on his own life for at least one scene. He told the press conference that a moment in which a girl admires Benito Mussolini was based on a girlfriend he had, and reflected the youth culture of the Berlusconi years. Bellucci praised the young director as self-confident, saying he had made a personal and unique film (The Hollywood Reporter).

Behind the camera, Camilla Cattabriga handled cinematography and Marco Costa edited. PiperPlay, the international sales arm, boarded the project to handle rights outside Italy — the mechanism by which a film sold at a festival reaches distributors in other territories (The Hollywood Reporter).

The Locarno premiere drew its share of star power. Virginie Efira, Olivia Wilde, and Sigurjón Jóni Sighvatsson were among the awaited faces on the red carpet (La Prealpina). A public Q&A with the director and cast was scheduled the same afternoon at the festival's Forum @Spazio Cinema (Locarno Film Festival).

Italian audiences will not have long to wait. PiperFilm releases Ketticè in Italian cinemas on September 3, 2026 (Hotcorn).