{"id":36531,"date":"2026-08-10T13:54:40","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:54:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=36531"},"modified":"2026-08-10T13:54:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T08:54:40","slug":"marco-perego-with-zoe-saldana-shares-indie-film-love-at-locarno-pro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=36531","title":{"rendered":"Marco Perego, With Zoe Salda\u00f1a, Shares Indie Film Love at Locarno Pro"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cIf you decide to be a producer in the independent world, don\u2019t do it for the money.\u201d Producer Marco Perego didn\u2019t mince words during a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/locarno-pro\/\" id=\"auto-tag_locarno-pro_1\" data-tag=\"locarno-pro\">Locarno Pro<\/a> keynote appearance. If money is all you care about, \u201cgo [work for] a bank.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tThe Italian native, conceptual artist and movie lover made his feature directorial debut in 2023 with\u00a0<em>The Absence of Eden<\/em>, starring his wife, Oscar winner\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/t\/zoe-saldana-2\/\">Zoe Salda\u00f1a<\/a>.\u00a0Perego then launched the production company Leaf Entertainment with\u00a0Michael Cerenzie. Its goal: back the best global auteurs to help them get their projects made.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tAt Cannes this year, Perego had three competition films: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-features\/cristian-mungiu-fjord-sebastian-stan-renate-reinsve-film-1236604118\/\">Cristian Mungiu<\/a>\u2019s Palme d\u2019Or winner <em>Fjord<\/em>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-features\/andrey-zvyagintsev-cannes-return-minotaur-exclusive-1236596897\/\">Andrey Zvyagintsev<\/a>\u2019s <em>Minotaur<\/em>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/james-gray-locarno-award-wife-reminded-him-of-the-trash-1236669782\/\">James Gray<\/a>\u2019s\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/james-gray-actors-dictate-film-style-cinema-dream-locarno-1236669660\/\">Paper Tiger<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tOn Sunday night, he appeared at the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/2026-locarno-film-festival-program-unveiled-hong-sang-soo-1236641562\/\">79th edition<\/a>\u00a0of the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/locarno-film-festival-poster-2026-cindy-sherman-1236579961\/\">Locarno\u00a0Film Festival<\/a> on stage with Gray, who was honored with the Swiss festival\u2019s Career Leopard ahead of a huge <em>Paper Tiger<\/em> outdoor screening. Just hours before that, he shared his take on the role of a producer at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/movies\/movie-news\/locarno-pro-2026-preview-ai-algorithm-mergers-creative-film-1236649968\/\">industry strand Locarno Pro<\/a> in a session that was well-attended despite the busy weekend. Among the people in the audience was Salda\u00f1a.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cIndependent film is for people who take risk,\u201d Perego emphasized. \u201cIt\u2019s about respecting the vision, and the vision is not yours. \u2026 Just let [directors] do what they want.\u201d You want to support them, and you may every now and then help with suggestions, but in general, step back and let the creatives do the magic, he said. Emphasizing the significance and importance of ensuring and maintaining artistic integrity, the producer highlighted: \u201cWe need to be sure that we really protect the filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\tMoney may talk, but Perego didn\u2019t talk about money details beyond sharing: \u201cI invest quite a lot.\u201d He signaled that he has no strict rules for the size of investments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph larva \/\/  a-font-body-m     \">\n\t\u201cI\u2019m a disruptor. I\u2019m a radical,\u201d Perego also told the Locarno crowd, adding that he wasn\u2019t afraid of slipping up. \u201cI\u2019m going to fail. I\u2019m going to fail so many times, but I promise, I will stand up.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cIf you decide to be a producer in the independent world, don\u2019t do it for the money.\u201d Producer Marco Perego didn\u2019t mince words during a Locarno Pro keynote appearance. If money is all you care about, \u201cgo [work for] a bank.\u201d The Italian native, conceptual artist and movie lover made his feature directorial debut in&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.hollywoodreporter.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Marco-Perego-Locarno-Film-Festival_Ti-Press.jpg?w=1440&h=810&crop=1","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/36532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}