James Gray to collect Locarno career honor in August
The Locarno Film Festival will give James Gray its Pardo alla Carriera during its 79th edition, with Paper Tiger screening in Piazza Grande.
By Bianca Rossi · Entertainment Editor
3 min read
James Gray is headed to Locarno for the first time, and the Swiss festival is rolling out one of its major honors for him.
The Locarno Film Festival said the U.S. filmmaker will receive its Pardo alla Carriera, an honorary career award, during the event’s 79th edition in August 2026. The presentation is set for August 9, before an open-air screening of Gray’s latest film, Paper Tiger, in Piazza Grande, the festival’s signature 8,000-capacity square.
Locarno will also screen two earlier Gray films, We Own the Night from 2007 and Two Lovers from 2008, as part of the festival lineup.
The award marks a new stop in a festival career that began early. Gray emerged internationally in 1994, when he was 25, with Little Odessa, a drama influenced by his upbringing in New York’s Russian-Jewish community. The film won the Silver Lion at Venice.
Gray went on to return often to New York stories, immigrant lives and crime worlds in films including The Yards, We Own the Night, Two Lovers and The Immigrant. His later work moved into other territory with The Lost City of Z, starring Charlie Hunnam and Robert Pattinson, Ad Astra, starring Brad Pitt, and Armageddon Time, starring Anthony Hopkins.
Locarno artistic director Giona A. Nazzaro praised Gray’s body of work, calling him “the last great novelist of American cinema.” Nazzaro said Gray’s films connect with “the Jewish diaspora, film noir, and Russian as well as North American literature.”
Nazzaro also described Gray as a filmmaker with “a humanist sensibility and profound cinephile knowledge,” adding that he has worked in genres including science fiction and adventure while keeping his own voice. Honoring Gray at Locarno, Nazzaro said, is a tribute to “a unique and unmistakable artist.”
Paper Tiger stars Adam Driver, Scarlett Johansson and Miles Teller. The film had its world premiere in competition at Cannes in May and is scheduled to open the 2026 New York Film Festival in September.
The drama follows two brothers whose search for a better life pulls them toward the Russian mafia. The film brings Gray back to the New York setting of his early movies and to the 1980s period of his childhood.
Gray produced Paper Tiger with Rodrigo Teixeira, Anthony Katagas, Raffaella Leone, Andrea Leone, Marco Perego, Gary Farkas, Leonardo Maria del Vecchio, Carlo Salem and Andrea Bucko. His returning collaborators on the film include cinematographer Joaquín Baca-Asay, composer Christopher Spelman, production designer Happy Massee, casting director Douglas Aibel, editor Scott Morris and costume designer Amy Roth.
The Pardo alla Carriera is sponsored by Ascona-Locarno Tourism. Past recipients include Bruno Ganz, Claudia Cardinale, Johnnie To, Harry Belafonte, Sergio Castellitto, Jane Birkin, Costa-Gavras, Tsai Ming-liang, Shah Rukh Khan and Jackie Chan, who received the honor in 2025.
The 79th Locarno Film Festival runs from August 5 to 15, 2026.
This story draws on original reporting from Deadline.