The Locarno Film Festival's industry programme, Locarno Pro, will tackle the fallout from Paramount Skydance's planned acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery as one of its central themes in 2026, reflecting how the deal has become a talking point across the industry, from studio lots to other festivals such as Karlovy Vary. Locarno Pro director Markus Duffner said the merger news broke while his team was already planning the programme, and rather than being a distraction, it fitted naturally into the wider issues of consolidation, power concentration and technological disruption the event was set to address.

Locarno Pro runs from 6 to 11 August as part of the wider Locarno Film Festival, taking place in the Swiss lakeside town from 5 to 15 August, and will mark its 79th edition. Its opening session, StepIn, will examine how power structures, human capital, politics, AI and data-driven systems are reshaping independent cinema, with its first roundtable focusing on pressures facing the sector, including streaming platforms' influence over creative choices, growing use of algorithms and AI in decision-making, and industry consolidation through mergers.