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Locarno moves film spotlight to Latin America

Audience at Piazza Grande
A reduced audience watches a film on the Piazza Grande during the 74th Locarno Film Festival on Monday Keystone / Urs Flueeler

Open Doors, a project of the Locarno Film Festival that “shines a light on emerging filmmaking countries and helps them grow”, is moving its three-year focus from Southeast Asia and Mongolia to Latin America and the Caribbean.

The 2022-2024 period will be devoted to all South American, Central American and Caribbean countries except Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Colombia, which already have structured film industries, the festival said on Wednesday. The project will therefore take place in Spanish-, English- and French-speaking communities.

The first appointment is already scheduled for this autumn, when Open Doors will make its first official visit to South America.

locarno
Producers and filmmakers from Open Doors – Southeast Asia programme during one of the networking events. SWI swissinfo.ch / Carlo Pisani

On Tuesday the winners were announced for the international co-production platform Open Doors HubExternal link and the producer training workshop Open Doors LabExternal link. The Production Support, worth CHF35,000 ($38,000), went to A Useful Ghost by Thai filmmaker Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke.

Ratchaoom Boonbunchachoke
Director Ratchaoom Boonbunchachoke, winner of the Open Doors Production Grant, at the Locarno Film Festival on Tuesday © Locarno Film Festival / Ti-press / Samuel Golay

Open Doors is celebrating its 19th anniversary this year. Created in partnership with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), its mission is to nurture talent and promote local and regional independent filmmaking.

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