James Gray wins Locarno Film Festival lifetime achievement award

Locarno Film Festival: James Gray awarded the Pardo for Lifetime Achievement Keystone-SDA

American director James Gray will be presented with the Pardo alla Carriera lifettime achievement award at the Locarno Film Festival.

The director will receive the award in Piazza Grande on Sunday August 9, before presenting his new film, Paper Tiger (2026).

Furthermore, two films from his filmography will feature in the programme for Locarno79, which takes place from August5 to 15: We Own the Night (2007) and Two Lovers (2008).

+ Locarno Film Festival director refutes ‘elitist’ cinema label

Ever since winning the Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival at the age of just 25 for Little Odessa (1994), James Gray has built a unique career, deeply inspired by his childhood memories of New York’s Russian-Jewish community.

Films such as The Yards (2000), We Own the Night (2007), Two Lovers (2008) and The Immigrant (2013) have established him as one of the most distinctive voices in American cinema. The filmmaker explores the underworld with the same meticulous attention to detail as he does family dynamics.

Often set in Brighton Beach, the New York neighbourhood of his youth, his films engage in a constant dialogue with the great classics of American and European cinema.

+ The buried treasures of Swiss cinema

Over the past decade, whilst establishing himself alongside America’s greatest directors, Gray has broadened the scope of his exploration of the often illusory promise of the American dream, venturing into a wide variety of subjects, such as colonial exploration, space travel and racial prejudice.

Through The Lost City of Z (2016), starring Charlie Hunnam and Robert Pattinson in the lead roles, Ad Astra (2019), starring Brad Pitt, and Armageddon Time (2022), starring Anthony Hopkins, he has revealed new facets of his cinema to a wider audience, whilst retaining his inimitable style.

With Paper Tiger, presented this year in competition at Cannes and selected to open the New York Film Festival in September, Gray returns to the New York of his early days and to the 1980s of his youth. The story follows two brothers who, driven by the hope of a better life, end up being drawn into the orbit of the Russian mafia.

Knack for bringing out talent

Renowned for his ability to bring out the best in contemporary cinema’s greatest performers, the director offers Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller exceptional roles in a film that crowns a long-standing artistic vision.

For this film, Gray has once again brought together many of his regular collaborators, including director of photography Joaquín Baca-Asay, composer Christopher Spelman, production designer Happy Massee, casting director Douglas Aibel, editor Scott Morris and costume designer Amy Roth.

Paper Tiger is produced by James Gray, Rodrigo Teixeira, Anthony Katagas, Raffaella Leone, Andrea Leone, Marco Perego, Gary Farkas, Leonardo Maria del Vecchio, Carlo Salem and Andrea Bucko.

Giona A. Nazzaro, artistic director of the Locarno Film Festival, said: “James Gray is the last great novelist of American cinema. In his filmography, the individual films come together to form a vast body of work that reflects echoes of the Jewish diaspora and film noir, as well as Russian and North American literature.”

Speaks language of cinema

“Celebrating James Gray at the Locarno Film Festival means paying tribute to a unique and unmistakable artist; a filmmaker who speaks the language of cinema and knows how to pass it on to future generations.”

The Pardo alla Carriera has previously been awarded to Francesco Rosi, Claude Goretta, Bruno Ganz, Claudia Cardinale, Johnnie To, Harry Belafonte, Peter-Christian Fueter, Sergio Castellitto, Otar Iosseliani, Víctor Erice, Marlen Khutsiev, Bulle Ogier, Mario Adorf, Jane Birkin, Fredi M. Murer, Dante Spinotti, Costa-Gavras, Tsai Ming-liang, Shah Rukh Khan and, in 2025, to Jackie Chan.

+ How we produce English news
Translated from Italian, reviewed by an English Department journalist.