Erin Vassilopoulos's 'Destroy All Girls' World-Premieres at Locarno
A film born from a clothing care label has its world premiere this weekend at the 79th Locarno Film Festival. "Destroy All Girls," directed by Erin Vassilopoulos, screens on 9 and 10 August at 18:00 in PalaCinema 1 as part of the festival's Concorso Cineasti del Presente — the international competition strand devoted to emerging filmmakers (The Hollywood Reporter; Locarno Film Festival).
The title comes from a joke. A Californian skatewear company wove the words "destroy all girls" into the care labels of its clothing line — and the phrase stuck, travelling from garment tag to screenplay (The Hollywood Reporter).
The film follows Alex, a young woman from New Jersey who runs away with a group of in-line skaters. Ani Mesa-Perez stars in the lead role and co-wrote the screenplay alongside Gil Perez-Abraham, Flo Baumann, and Vassilopoulos herself (The Hollywood Reporter).
The cast runs deep: Gil Perez-Abraham, Dominic Bruce, Alfredo Narcisco, Florencia Lozano, John Bolino, Malcolm Heard, Anthony Marchione, Parker Richardson, and Silvia Kambouridis round out the ensemble (The Hollywood Reporter). The 2026 US production runs 87 minutes, presented in DCP 2K — a standard digital cinema format — in its original English, with French and Italian subtitles for the Locarno screenings (Locarno Film Festival).
Locarno, running 5–15 August on the shores of Lake Maggiore in southern Switzerland, is one of the world's oldest film festivals and a long-standing showcase for first and second features. The Concorso Cineasti del Presente section — "cinema of the present" — puts fifteen debut or early-career films in competition for festival prizes (Locarno Film Festival; Locarno Film Festival, Instagram).
For Vassilopoulos, the premiere places her work in front of the festival's industry audience of programmers, sales agents, and distributors — the people who decide which independent films reach cinemas beyond the festival circuit. A strong Locarno reception can open that door; a world premiere here is the first step.
