The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer (La ilusión de un verano sin fin) won the Golden Leopard in the Filmmakers of the Present section at the 79th Locarno Film Festival on August 8, 2026. It is the feature directorial debut of Alessandra Sanguinetti, an Argentine-American photographer who has been a member of Magnum Photos since 2007.
The film is the culmination of a project that began in 1999. Sanguinetti, then living in Buenos Aires, invited two nine-year-old cousins from Argentina's Pampas farming region to share their dreams and take part in what became a 25-year photographic collaboration. The subjects, Guillermina and Belinda, appear throughout the film as they grow: one becomes a schoolteacher, the other stays on the farm with her gaucho husband and children.
"When I was photographing them, I felt like it wasn't enough," Sanguinetti said ahead of the Camden screening. "I couldn't hear them. Photography's just too flat."
The 90-minute documentary weaves Sanguinetti's still photographs into the moving image. The film ends with both subjects traveling to Paris for a gallery opening of the photographs that have defined their shared history. Produced by Julia Solomonoff and co-financed by MUBI and Impact Partners, the film also screened at Telluride before reaching the fall festival circuit.
After Camden, The Illusion of an Everlasting Summer heads to San Sebastián, the Chicago International Film Festival, Film Fest Gent in Belgium, and Mill Valley in October. The Hollywood Reporter called it "Alessandra Sanguinetti's luminous, indelible documentary." A U.S. theatrical release has not been confirmed.
