This year’s Locarno Film Festival lineup brings together bold voices from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, with films that move between mythology, animation, poetry and experimental cinema. Here are our top Chinese-language and China-related festival picks:
The House on the Moon《明月共此时》 — Nelson Yeo (99 min): International Competition, competing for the Golden Leopard
A dazzling blend of wuxia, science fiction and Chinese mythology inspired by the legend of Chang’e and Hou Yi. Co-produced by Singapore, Taiwan, Germany and Indonesia, it is also notable as Singapore’s first virtual-production feature film. Starring arthouse icon Lee Kang-sheng 李康生, alongside Akira Huang and Harry Chang.
Magic Atlas《魔法星图》 — Sun Xun (@sun__xun) 孙逊 (85 min): The acclaimed Chinese artist and animator transforms his surreal visual universe into cinema, following a magician whose arrival in the isolated coal empire of Luosha sparks fear, myth and rebellion. Developed over more than a decade, the film extends Sun’s signature woodcut-animation style and East Asian allegorical imagery.
The Wind, One Brilliant Day《风,在明媚的一天》 — Ben Rivers (7 min): A poetic miniature featuring Tang Wei 汤唯, whose luminous screen presence makes this one of the standout China-related events of Locarno 2026.
Already Happened《事后》— Hao Zhou (@_haozhou_) 周豪 (18 min): A US–China co-production that moves between Chinese and English while exploring identity and memory through a sharply observed short-film form.
As a Cure《砂之歌》 — Dorothea Sing Zhang (@dorotheasingzhang) 张馨文 (22 min): A China–UK co-production introducing an exciting new voice in contemporary Chinese-language cinema and international collaboration.
The Human Surge 3 — Eduardo Williams (121 min): An adventurous international experiment involving collaborators from Taiwan and Hong Kong, expanding the festival’s conversation around contemporary Sinophone and transnational cinema.
From ancient myth and woodcut animation to poetic shorts and radical experimentation, this selection offers a vivid snapshot of today’s Chinese-language cinema: restless, imaginative and impossible to confine to a single category.
Locarno Film Festival, 5–15 August 2026