Best Direction Award (Locarno International Film Festival)

The Best Direction Award is an award given at the Locarno International Film Festival. It is awarded to the best directed film in the international competition section.

Best Direction Award
Awarded for	Best directed film
Country	Switzerland
Presented by	Locarno International Film Festival
First award	1946
Currently held by	Laurynas Bareiša for Drowning Dry (2024)

Winners

Abel Ferrara has won the award for Zeros and Ones in 2021

1940s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country
1946	And Then There Were None		René Clair	United States
1947	Man About Town	Le Silence est d'or		France
1948	Fort Apache (1st prize)		John Ford	United States
	Germany, Year Zero (2nd prize)	Germania anno zero	Roberto Rossellini	Italy
1949 - 1959: No Award Given

1960s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country
1960	Foma Gordeev [1]	Фома Гордеев	Mark Donskoy	Soviet Union
1961- 2005: No Award Given

2000s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country
2006	The Last of the Crazy People	Le Dernier des fous	Laurent Achard	France, Belgium
2007	Capitaine Achab[2]		Philippe Ramos	France
2008	All That She Wants[3]	Elle veut le chaos	Denis Côté	Canada
2009	Tambourine, Drum[4]	Бубен, барабан	Aleksei Mizgiryov	Russia

2010s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country
2010	Curling[5]		Denis Côté	Canada
2011	Best Intentions[6]	Din dragoste cu cele mai bune intentii	Adrian Sitaru	Romania
2012	When Night Falls[7]	我还有话要说	Ying Liang	China, South Korea
2013	Our Sunhi	우리 선희	Hong Sang-soo	South Korea
2014	Horse Money	Cavalo Dinheiro	Pedro Costa	Portugal
2015	Cosmos[8]		Andrzej Żuławski	France, Portugal
2016	The Ornithologist[9]	O Ornitólogo	João Pedro Rodrigues	Portugal, France, Brazil
2017	9 Fingers  [fr][10][11]	9 Doigts	F. J. Ossang [fr]	France, Portugal
2018	Too Late to Die Young[12][13]	Tarde para morir joven	Dominga Sotomayor Castillo	Chile
2019	Isadora's Children	Les Enfants d'Isadora	Damien Manivel	France/South Korea

2020s

Year	English Title	Original Title	Director(s)	Production Country
2021	Zeros and Ones		Abel Ferrara	United States, Italy
2022	I Have Electric Dreams[14]	Tengo sueños eléctricos	Valentina Maurel	Belgium, France, Costa Rica
2023	Stepne		Maryna Vroda	Ukraine, Germany, Poland, Slovakia
2024	Drowning Dry	Seses	Laurynas Bareiša	Lithuania, Latvia
2025	Tales of the Wounded Land		Abbas Fahdel	Lebanon