‘Open Doors’ opens maiden Regional Forum
Switzerland’s prestigious Locarno Film Festival’s ‘Open Doors’, an initiative to lead independent filmmakers from Asia to international heights, will launch its first Regional Forum via online from May 27 to 29.
Open to South Asian, Southeast Asian and Mongolian film professionals, the project will give priority to those coming from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Mongolia, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
The forum will create opportunities for daily sessions with regional and International professionals of the film industry, get the chance to interact with them and with peers from the regions. Open Doors runs under the label of Locarno Pro, the reference for industry professionals at Locarno Film Festival.
Over 2016-2018 Sri Lanka along with three other South Asian countries Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Maldives, received focus at Locarno’s Open Doors Lab, a co-production, sales and networking forum targeting South Asian film industries, movies and filmmakers.
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- Sumudu Malalgama winning the award
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- Sarah Schiesser Deputy Head
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- Filmaker Sanjeewa Pushpakumara who won Open Doors Grant of the Locarno Film Festival for his film project “Amma” ‘Mother’ in 2018.
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- Paolo Bertolin
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- Open Doors’ head Sophie Bourdon
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- Jude Ratnam at Locarno Film Festival
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- Winners at Open Doors 2018
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- Hayet Benkara
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- Event at ‘Open Doors
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- Delphine Jeanneret
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- South Asian film artistes who participated and won awards at ‘Open Doors’ 2018
From 2019 to 2021 Open Doors has been exploring cinema in Southeast Asia and Mongolia via a co-production platform, a producers’ Lab and a non-competitive screening section taking place in August, plus year-round activities including Consultancy services and a knowledge-sharing platform.
Speaking about Open Doors Programme which opened window of opportunities for many new talents, its head Sophie Bourdon in an interview told media that the Open Doors section of Locarno Festival together with its partner, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), intended to spotlight filmmaking talents from the focused regions South and South East Asia , towards the audience as well as towards international film professionals; and to better connect the filmmakers with international film professionals, to possibly increase working collaborations on future films. In order to achieve this objective, Open Doors has been developing different activities; The Hub and the Lab for professionals, and the Open Doors Screenings for the public, as a window onto the cinematography of the focused region.
Sophie has said that the project focused on two areas; professional training activity (the Lab) designed for proactive producers in the yearly-focused countries to increase their entrepreneurial skills and knowledge of the international marketplace, and a business platform (the Hub) to introduce new feature-length film projects from South Asian countries to the international decision makers.
The purpose of the Lab is to introduce professionals from the respective regions and work internationally. “Our goal is to give tools to the participants to better sense how to approach the international market. The programme was a 5-day journey combining individual consultancies, group tutorials and talks on several subjects relating to storytelling, international film financing and distribution, festival and marketing strategies within and across Asia and Europe. We hope to bring the emerging producers creative and business inspiration to strengthen the independent film industry in their own countries while reinforcing their visibility and commercial prospects abroad”.
A number of Sri Lankan filmmakers and young and upcoming filmmakers had been features at the Open Doors of the Locarno Film Festival.
In 2015, at the 68th Locarno Film Festival Vimukthi Jayasundara’s ‘Sulanga Gini Aran’ (Dark in the White Light) competed at the International Competition. In 2017 Sanjeewa Pushpakumara’s film ‘Devena Vihagun’ was featured at the festival and in the following year, 2018 he won Open doors Grant for his film project “Amma”-’Mother’. The Open Doors Jury conferred the 15000 Swiss Frank grant for production support. The grant was awarded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) by the City of Bellinzona by the Swiss fund for production support Visions Sub EST. The festival also features Jude Ratnam’s ‘Demons in Paradise‘ and Prasanna Vithanage, Asoka Handagama and Vimukthi Jayasundara’s joint film venture ‘Thundenek’ (Her. Him. The Other) at the 71st Locarno Film Festival.
Young film producer Sumudu Malalagama was awarded the Open Doors – TorinoFilmLab Award. The award offered a grant allowing the winner to take part in the TFL Meeting Event in Turin in November that year, as part of a group of non-European producers, under the label “Up and Coming”.
Open Doors team heads Sophie Bourdon while Sarah Schiesser is the Deputy Head. Open Doors Community Coordinator is Zsuzsi Bánkuti while Clara Kiskanc is Open Doors Community Junior Manager. Renowned film critics and specialist in Asian cinema Paolo Bertolin is the Artistic Consultant of Open Doors while Open Doors Young Talents Consultant and Programmer is Delphine Jeanneret and Open Doors Lab Head of Studies is Hayet Benkara.