The Locarno Film Festival has announced the line-up for the 23rd edition of its Open Doors program, which will focus on filmmakers from countries in Africa.
Six projects in development have been selected to participate in the co-production platform, Open Doors Projects. The titles are listed below:
- Congolese documentary Les Bilokos (Bilokos) directed by Erickey Bahati and produced by Giresse Kassonga for Gikas Films;
- Documentary-animation hybrid Journal Intime d’une Femme-Chèvre (Diary of a Goat Woman), a co-production between Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso, represented by director Azata Soro and producer Nameita Lica Toure (Les Studios Indigo)
- Ethiopian The Fortunate, a dark comedy by director Habtamu Gebrehiwot and producer Nahusenay Dereje (MTF Multimedia)
- Nigerian reincarnation romance Kachifo (Till The Morning Comes) by Dika Ofoma (director) and Blessing Uzzi (producer, Bluhouse Studios)
- Lutteurs (Fighters), a Senegalese wrestling family drama by director Alassane Sy and producer Jules Dieng (Thiely Films)
- Zimbabwean supernatural mystery Black Snake by director Naishe Nyamubaya and producer Sue-Ellen Chitunya (263 Reels Productions).
The Open Doors Producers program, a career-building initiative for creative producers, has selected six participants representing six different countries. They are: Kamy Lara (Angola), Moustapha Sawadogo (Burkina Faso), Leul Shoaferaw (Ethiopia), June Wairegi (Kenya), Yannick Mizero Kabano (Rwanda), and Kudakwashe Miss Maradzika (Zimbabwe).
At Locarno, on August 12, a panel of professional jury members will grant awards to the selected winning projects. They include the Open Doors Grant of CHF 50,000 sponsored by visions sud est and the City of Bellinzona; the CNC Development Prize worth EUR 8,000; and the Arte Kino International Prize of EUR 6,000.
The Open Doors initiative was launched by the Locarno Film Festival in 2003, in subsequent collaboration with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA).