Years before they were onscreen buds in The Wrong Girls, Alia Shawkat and Kristen Stewart were jamming together as the titular rock “Queens of Noise” in 2010’s The Runaways.

At a recent screening for their upcoming Dylan Meyer-written/directed Neon stoner comedy, which premieres Aug. 14 in theaters, Shawkat recalled they “were children” on the set of the Floria Sigismondi-helmed musical drama, which starred Stewart as Joan Jett.

“You barely talked on that movie,” Stewart recalled to Shawkat in a video from the Q&A.

Shawkt explained, “Yeah, I literally was not allowed to speak in that movie, because the character I was playing became an entertainment lawyer and was like, ‘I don’t want to be involved in the film.’ And I found that out my first day on set, after I’d learned all the songs. They were like, ‘You can’t speak for legal reasons.’ And I was like, ‘OK, cool. So, just like holding a guitar in the background?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, just stand to the left a little bit.’”

Tracing the roots of the 1970s “Cherry Bomb” rock group, The Runaways also starred Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie, Stella Maeve as Sandy West and Scout Taylor-Compton as Lita Ford. While Shawkat is credited as Robin Robins in the movie, her character is a stand-in for bass guitarist Jacqueline Fuchs (aka Jackie Fox).

“Anyways, it was still a cool project. And we hit it off, but we weren’t hanging all the time,” said Shawkat, as Stewart recalled she thought her co-star was “so fucking cool.”

In The Wrong Girls, Shawkat and Stewart play codependent stoner best friends Molly and Frankie, who are one day away from being evicted when they discover a mind-altering drug that gets them caught up in a chaotic case of mistaken identity.

“This was the first time we actually got to hang out properly and play friends,” explained Shawkat. “We hadn’t reunited until we made this movie, and it felt like it was a moment where we were able to capture something that was always there, that luckily enough, we got to play best friends in this rad movie.”

Stewart added, “We wanted to kick it forever, and then we got to make a movie, which is like the best way to kick it with anyone.”

The pair stars alongside LaKeith Stanfield, Zack Fox, Tony Hale, Seth Rogen, Kumail Nanjiani, Geena Davis, Kate McKinnon and Cate Blanchett.

Alex (Ani Mesa-Perez, also the film’s co-writer), a young woman from New Jersey, tries to escape a claustrophobic home life by running away with a rowdy band of hard-partying in-line skaters in Erin Vassilopoulos’ freeform but engaging drama, Destroy All Girls. The film’s provocative title comes from a message a niche Californian skatewear company once wove into their clothing line’s care labels as a joke, a sample of which is seen here. But it hints at how a low-key misogyny can sometimes be palpable under the surface in the skater dudes’ bro-centric culture, even if at first the guys seem pretty chill.

Even so, the film’s gaze is more anthropological than polemical, especially given the faux-doc vibe created by its abundant handheld camerawork, seemingly filmed sometimes by the actors themselves. Premiering in Locarno’s Cinema of the Present strand should give this a good launch on the rolling concrete ups and downs of the festival skatepark circuit.

First met in happier times rolling around the streets of a Jersey town just across the river from Manhattan, working-class Alex is especially close to her big brother Gabriel (Gil Perez-Abraham, who also collaborated with Mesa-Perez on the script, as did Flo Baumann and Vassilopoulos). Gabriel was a talented skater with access to the latest in skate designs, but an abrupt flashforward finds him paralyzed after a car accident, the particulars of which are explained later.

Alex, pointedly called Alexa by her mother (Florencia Lozano), who hates Alex’s tomboyish style, works in a bodega and looks after her brother a lot. Constantly bickering with her mother and burdened by her brother’s care at home, Alex finds joy mostly when she’s out skating herself, or filming others at the local skatepark with her minicam.

One day down at the park she meets Cameron (Dominic Bruce), a lanky white guy with an odd accent (he’s Scottish but with all the glottal stops and gutterals sanded down) who is a real showboat on the jumps and ramps. Cameron is the de facto leader of a little non-violent gang-ette that call themselves Prospers. Together, they travel from skate park to skate park, getting high often on weed and beer, and hoping that they’ll get taken up by a sponsor so they can compete out in California professionally. It’s not exactly clear how they support themselves, let alone afford the gas to run the refurbished short bus they live in, but maybe they sell the footage shot by Cole (Malcolm Heard) or deal a bit of drugs on the side. Who knows, maybe they have trust funds.  

Alex certainly doesn’t ask too many questions and is just happy to keep hanging out with them in New York and points beyond, living in the bus. She starts shooting the B-roll for Cole’s ongoing doc, and learns a few tricks from Cameron with whom she soon starts a romantic liaison, although he’s upfront about having a child with another woman.

While the script may have four names attached to it, the dialogue often feels spontaneous and semi-improvised and Vassilopoulos does a good job at relaxing the young cast so that they sound like regular zoomers as they banter and bicker. The road movie atmosphere may conjure features set in a similar milieu, like Andrea Arnold’s American Honey perhaps, or early Harmony Korine or Larry Clark movies, but with less tension or violence.

Indeed, not much really happens apart from skating and partying, the latter reaching its high pitch when Alex and Cameron take mushrooms and check into a motel room for a night of hallucinations and sex. But the voice messages from her family that Alex occasionally listens to start to pull her back to her old life. Will she go home or stay with sweet but self-absorbed Cameron? Alex’s androgynous dress sense suggests that she might not be that into him, and possibly may be more taken with lithe skater punk Silvia (Silvia Kambouridis, luminous in just a few scenes).

The resolution when it comes is satisfying if slight. The way Vassilopoulos and her team have chosen not to define things like Alex’s gender identity feels very of the open-ended, label-resistant ways of the younger generations. Identity here is very much in motion, much like the young athletes themselves.

The Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro industry strand on Sunday unveiled the winners of its industry awards, including its First Look works-in-progress section focusing on projects on the verge of completion, the co-development program Alliance 4 Development, the Antaviana Spanish Previews Award, and the fourth Heritage Restoration Contest.

The winners were unveiled during the Locarno Pro Award Ceremony on Sunday. The promising feature film projects that competed for the First Look awards were from this year’s focus country, Uruguay.

The 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival runs until Aug. 15.

Check out the full list of Locarno Pro winners below.

FIRST LOOK
Works-in-progress section, with a 2026 focus on Uruguay.

Bright Side of the Moon First Look Award
Complete color grading services.
Historia de primavera (Spring Story) – dir. Gabriela Guillermo and Irina Raffo, prod. Gabriela Guillermo and Irina Raffo (L’Avventura Cine), Germán Ormaechea (Animista Cine).

Synopsis: “In Montevideo’s Botanical Garden, a fleeting encounter ignites a fevered love between Agustín and Bruno. As Bruno departs for Venice, desire persists across oceans, entangling a Spinozist professor and rival passions. Between philosophy and flesh, jealousy and freedom, spring unfolds as a restless search for love, nature, and the fragile ethics of attachment.”

Jury statement: “For its candid depiction of longing and desire which connects those who dare to be driven by it.”

La Mayor Cine Award
Complete sound post-production services.
El Surubí (The Surubí), dir. Lorenzo Tocco, prod. Pancho Magnou Arnabal and Isabel García (Montelona), co-prod. Kocria (Brazil).

Synopsis: “The Surubí, an industrial town on the verge of disappearing, is transformed overnight into the scene of a series of miraculous apparitions. Locals seize the opportunity to market the town as a destination for mystical tourism. But divine power is a dangerous weapon, especially in a town desperately in need of a savior.”

Music Library &SFX/Acorde Award
Music supervision services at Music Library & SFX’s labs worth EUR 45,000.
El Surubí (The Surubí), see above

Jannuzzi Smith Award
The design of an international poster worth EUR 10,000.
El Surubí (The Surubí), see above

Le Film Français Award
EUR 5,600 of advertising space.
Historia de primavera (Spring Story), see above

ALLIANCE 4 DEVELOPMENT
Co-development platform.

Nebel Studios Award
Estimated value of CHF 30,500 for three days of studio use and five days of camera equipment.
Yazz by Florian Hoffmann, prod. Katrin Renz (tellfilm GmbH, Switzerland), Nicole Gerhards (NiKo Film, Germany), Xénia Maingot (Eaux Vives Productions, France).

Synopsis: “As a teenager Yasmine – Yazz – grows up on a UN compound in the Central African Republic, caught between barbed wire, privilege and danger. A secret escape to see her local boyfriend Joseph ends in an accident that tears her family apart. Ten years later, her mother reappears in Switzerland – with Joseph by her side. Forced to face her first love and her own guilt, Yazz must ask whether old wounds can truly heal, or only scar.”

Statement: “What really struck us about Yazz is its unique and very personal perspective on a world we think we know, but rarely see from the inside. The project has also shown to be at an incredibly advanced stage of development that has already received strong recognition, with experienced co-production partners on board, great talent attached and development funding secured in Switzerland – confirming our belief in the project’s artistic and production potential.”

Masé Studios Award
CHF 3,000 in cash.
Sparare alle Angurie (Shooting Watermelons) – dir. Antonio Donato, prod. Santiago Fondevila Sancet (Cinedora, Italy).

Synopsis: “During a difficult separation, an authoritarian father takes his two grown sons on a summer vacation without their mother for the first time. As they try to survive without her, the gap between them widens, especially when a wealthy foreign family arrives, stirring envy and rivalry. When a strong storm forces them to stay indoors, old wounds and hidden fears surface, revealing their struggle to connect and their quiet wish to stay together as a family.”

Masé Studios Post-Production Award
CHF 25,000 in post-production services.
Ex aequo winners:
Cuore Matto – dir. Tamer Ruggli, prod. Francine Lusser, Gérard Monier (Tipimages Productions, Switzerland)

Synopsos: “Bienne, 1969. Matteo, 17, dreams of becoming an actor and escaping his father and a grey industrial town. Sent to Ticino for the harvest, he discovers a vibrant, sensual world with Lucio and Alba, awakening desire and identity. At home, his mother Giusi, trapped in an oppressive marriage, begins her own quiet emancipation. Carried by Italian songs, their parallel journeys intertwine in a queer and feminist coming-of-age musical about freedom, love and reinvention.”

and

Les Orages Magnétiques (Magnetic Storms) – dir. Wendy Pillonel, prod. Flavia Zanon (Close Up Films, Switzerland).

Synopsis: “As she prepares to compete in crucial selections, Jo, a brash young rugby talent, finds herself without a phone, stranded with her mother in an Italian village where the ground is shaking. Angry and obsessed with returning to Switzerland, she secretly contacts her father, convinced he’ll help her. But his arrival upsets the fragile balance she believed she could control. Jo realizes she can no longer protect the silence surrounding her father’s behavior. As the ground and her world gradually crumble around her, she chooses to break free, not only from fear, but above all from complicity.”

Studio13/Valais Film Commission Award
Estimated value of CHF 12,000 for five days of studio use at Studio13.
Yazz, see above

Ticino Film Commission Residence Award
Two-day location scout (CHF 4,000) plus a letter of intent for financial support up to CHF 12,000 if the project films in Ticino.
Le Règne des Silures (Reign of Silures) – dir. Jessica Puppo, prod. Alexis Perrin (Rumble Fish Productions, France).

Synopsis: “Maïa is a devoted concierge at a luxury thermal palace on the shores of Lake Geneva, where giant catfish – silures – are burned as scapegoats for a plague that cracks human skin like parched earth. When her teenage sister Léonie is placed in her care, the hotel seals itself off as a gilded fortress from the dying world beyond. As fissures begin to spread across her own body, Maïa must choose between the palace that gave her a place in the world and the sister who reminds her what it cost.”

Statement: “We were particularly struck by the project’s strong and organic connection to the Swiss-Italian landscape. Its themes of environmental fragility, social inequality, labour and belonging resonate strongly with the identity of our region. We were also impressed by Jessica Puppo’s distinctive cinematic voice and by the ambitious combination of author filmmaking, ecological storytelling and body horror.”

Alphapanda Market Breakout Award
Consultancy services valued at EUR 3,500.
Third Take – dir. Bruce LaBruce, prod. Nicolas Brevière (Local Films, France).

Synopsis: “Set in a not-so-distant future, two iconic actresses, once madly in love, reunite in a drought-stricken villa, isolated from the world for a chaotic film shoot destined to become the epiphany of their decayed romance.”

Statement: “The winner of the Alphapanda Market Breakout Award is a cinematic explosion of campness and queerness, but also an hommage to the history of film with a truly cinephile approach. Thanks to its five lesbian characters played by goddesses of cinema, we are convinced that the film will make audiences happy, disgusted and wet.”

MidPoint Consulting Award
Online script consultancy with a MidPoint Institute expert.
Les Orages Magnétiques (Magnetic Storms), see above

LOCARNO HERITAGE RESTORATION CONTEST
A complete restoration by film lab Cinegrell. The restored film will celebrate its premiere at the 2027 edition of the Locarno Film Festival.
Nous sommes tous encore ici (We’re All Still Here, 1997) – dir. Anne-Marie Miéville, represented by Anne-Marie Miéville and L’atelier / Casa Azul Films.

Jury statement: “First presented at the festival in 1997, Nous sommes tous encore ici is an essential work of Swiss cinema by one of the country’s leading female directors. In the year of its 30th anniversary, this restoration offers a long-overdue opportunity to rediscover both the film and the work of a major filmmaker, whose contribution to Swiss cinema deserves renewed recognition, as Locarno approaches its 80th edition.”