“Twin Peaks,” “Wild at Heart” and “Beverly Hills, 90210” Producer Sigurjón “Jonny” Sigvatsson Receives Locarno Award

The 2026 Locarno Film Festival will honor a pioneering Icelandic-born, US-based film, music video and television producer who has been behind some of the most popular and acclaimed films and series of the past decades: Sigurjón “Joni” Sighvatsson. He will be celebrated with the Raimondo Rezzonico award in the Swiss city’s Piazza Grande on the evening of August 6, with the official program showing two major films from his career: a David Lynch film; Wild at heart (1990) and the documentary about the football icon by Philippe Parrino and Douglas Gordon Zidane, a picture of the twenty-first century (2006).

“Whether as co-founder of Propaganda Films in 1986 — the powerhouse that once produced a third of all music videos in the United States, including early works by Zack Snyder, Spike Jonze, Gore Verbinski, Michael Bay, and co-founder David Fincher — or as a producer of David Lynch’s Palme d’Or-winning Wild at heart And pioneering by Julian Schnabel Basquiat (1996), [he] “He played a crucial role in the search for new talent and in shaping the modern-day pop aesthetic,” Locarno said on Tuesday. Over the course of a remarkable career, he produced more than 60 feature films or television series – most notably Twin Peaks (1990-91) and Beverly Hills, 90210 (1990-2000) – and championed author-led projects that boldly tested the limits of the medium.

The festival added: “Sighvatsson’s collaborations with filmmakers such as Nicolas Winding Refn and Jim Sheridan – as well as artists such as Douglas Gordon and Philippe Parrino – have produced cult classics that continue to exert a powerful influence on young filmmakers around the world.”

“Distinguished by a deeply European perspective yet steeped in the business of US industry, Sigurjón ‘Johnny’ Sigvatsson formed a true ‘producer policy’, allowing artists, like David Lynch, to create their works with complete freedom and supporting auteurs, like Kathryn Bigelow, to produce some of the most personal films of her career,” said Locarno Artistic Director Giona Nazzaro. “His instinct as a producer profoundly influenced the course of 1990s cinema, while his stance of favoring originality and independence as a principle He made it a point of reference for a whole generation of filmmakers who looked to Sigvatsson’s work as a model of boldness, integrity, creativity and vision.

The Raimondo Rezzonico Prize, presented by the municipality of Minusio in Switzerland, was established in 2002 in memory of the man who was president of the Locarno Festival from 1981-1999. The 79th edition of Locarno will take place from August 5 to 15.

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