Naseer at Locarno. Not a drill.
Gurvinder Singh’s Punjabi film Rehmat, led by Naseeruddin Shah, is in Locarno’s main Golden Leopard race — a real competition slot, not a PR ‘gala’. The world premiere was slated for August 6.
Gurvinder Singh’s Rehmat is in Locarno’s main competition.
Rehmat, directed by Gurvinder Singh and led by Naseeruddin Shah, has been selected for Locarno’s Concorso Internazionale — the main competition for the Pardo d’Oro (Golden Leopard). The 79th Locarno Film Festival runs August 5–15, 2026, with the film’s world premiere scheduled for August 6, according to multiple reports.
Reports also describe Rehmat as the only Indian feature in this year’s Golden Leopard race, placed alongside filmmakers like Hong Sang-soo and Denis Côté. That line is widely relayed; the festival’s full 2026 list wasn’t accessible in the material we reviewed, so we’re attributing it as reported rather than declaring it official.
The Punjabi-language film adapts four stories by Ajeet Cour and weaves three present-day Punjab threads: a young woman hiding an injured stranger from the police; a family living with a disappearance; and an elderly returnee from England who claims to be God. Naseeruddin Shah heads a cast that includes Suvinder Vicky, Mita Vashisht, Navjot Randhawa, Diya Kamboj, Harwinder Aujla and Jaswant Zafar.
One more note lost in the weekly slogan wars: this is the sort of quiet Indian film that earns a seat in a top-tier European competition without a government hashtag. The BJP-led Centre didn’t make it, the Congress didn’t market it, and the TDP didn’t discover it on a stage. Filmmakers did the work; Locarno did the selection.