There was no shying away from uncomfortable truths and hotly debated issues as the Locarno Pro industry program kicked off on a similarly hot Thursday in the Swiss lakeside town.
The 15th edition of the industry strand, taking place in parallel with the 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival, runs Aug. 6-11.
The 2026 version of the annual StepIn: Out of the Box introduction session lived up to its billing as a thought-provoking kick-off event, as film industry data analyst Stephen Follows raised eyebrows with various data points and hard truths in a presentation entitled “Fear, Lies, and the Illusion of Control.”
The surprise, or shock, of the audience was audible when Follows unveiled new data he has compiled on how many of this century’s top-grossing films have had a “nepo baby creative.” He detailed that he had looked at the top 100 films for the 2000-2025 period and calculated when a director, writer, or one of the top three actors of a film had at least one family member already working in the industry. Want to take a guess at what he found?If your guess is 70 percent, you are right! If you are shocked, know that the analyst emphasized that access plays a key role here. “It’s not always nepotism in a terrible way,” he explained. “It might be that they grew up around the industry. … I’m not saying they have no merit.”
