Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors Announces its Second African Cohort

In 2025, the decades-long Locarno Open Door initiative shifted its focus to the continent. This follows a three-year cycle dedicated to Latin America and the Caribbean. Thus, for its next four editions, the initiative will be a dedicated platform for emerging African voices through its Projects, Producers, and Directors programmes. In 2026, the Fondation Botnar and Wyss Academy for Nature-supported initiative announced selected filmmakers and projects for its second edition. 

The programme has selected African filmmakers whose work spans fiction, documentary, and animation across more than ten countries. The Open Doors Projects, Open Doors Producers, and Open Doors Directors programmes will take place online between June and July, then onsite between 5th to 10th August  in the framework of the 79th Locarno Film Festival and Locarno Pro. The programme will offer these selected filmmakers hands-on training, mentoring, and networking. According to Locarno’s press release, this year’s selection showcases “an exciting range of six selected first and second features in development: from portraits of music and memory to explorations of womanhood, urban life, and the long shadows of colonialism.” 

The selected filmmakers and projects include Ghanaian Aseye Fiagbe, who directed and produced Too Much Music, a documentary portrait of Ghanaian keyboard prodigy Kiki Gyan. From Mozambique and South Africa comes Ique Langa‘s Chapa 100, an urban, surrealist love story. Langa’s O profeta screened in the Tiger Competition at the 2026 International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year, and was produced by Lara Sousa (Kulunga Filmes). Nigerian director Ugochukwu Azuya and producer Olubunmi Ogunsola (ENSEMBLE) present I Live in V.I, a sharp social satire about urban space and gentrification.

Mohammed Sheikh and producer Kadir Harbi Hassan (Aleel Films), from Somalia and Djibouti, bring fiction project Accept My Plea For Burial (Baryo Aas Iga Gudoon), which probes the tensions between tradition and justice in a rural community. A Tanzania–Kenya collaboration, Neema Ngelime‘s The Ones With The Tempered Flowers is an experimental documentary weaving together themes of womanhood and motherhood. The project is produced by Ivy Kiru of AQ Pictures and LBx Africa, who also participated in the 2026 La Fabrique Cinéma programme at the Cannes Film Festival with the project Strong Wind. Rounding out the selection, Ugandan Talemwa Pius’ fiction project A Vineyard for A Lobster, produced by Gashumba Emmanuel (Gripmagic Uganda Limited), uses a snow-covered landscape as an allegory for the enduring shadows of colonialism.

The Open Doors Producers programme which supports creative producers in building sustainable careers and cross-border networks selected six participants from six different countries. From Burkina Faso, Mamounata Nikiema (Pilumpiku Production) is a veteran of the continent’s film industry, knighted at FESPACO 2021 for her contributions to cinema. Natasha Craveiro (Cabo Verde, Korikaxoru Films) produced Omi Nobu, which screened as part of the Open Doors Screenings at Locarno 2025. Adja Mariam Mahre Soro (Ivory Coast) leads Studio Kä, an animation studio she founded in Abidjan. Nigerian producer David Ikeata (Vox Cinematic Films) has worked across borders, co-producing Kazakh-Nigerian fiction film Adam Bol (2024) and currently developing a new project with an Egyptian director. Rua Osman (Sudan, Helomur Picture) brings extensive production experience, with a resumé including festival landmarks You Will Die at Twenty and Goodbye Julia. Rounding out the selection, Tapiwa Chipfupa (Zimbabwe, Ambidextrous Pictures) is an EAVE alumna who has recently launched the international training and mentorship programme Audiovisual Entrepreneurs Laboratory (AVEL).

Five directors have been selected for Open Doors Directors, a programme of talks, workshops, and industry networking: Fagamou Fama Ndiaye (Senegal), Rediet Haddis Yalew (Ethiopia), Pocas Pascoal (Angola), Judith Nini Kibinge (Kenya), and Ariel Añez (Mozambique). Their short films will be part of the Open Doors Screenings, an official section of the Festival featuring both short and feature films; the full selection will be announced on 1 July 2026.

Additionally, the programme will end with an award-giving event which includes financial and in-kind prizes for selected winning projects. These include the Open Doors Grant of CHF 50,000, sponsored by visions sud est and the City of Bellinzona; the CNC Development Prize of EUR 8,000; and the Arte Kino International Prize of EUR 6,000. Additional awards are offered by IFFR Pro, the International Culture Center Tabakalera and San Sebastian Film Festival, the Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), and Sørfond.

New this year, professional training organisation EAVE, together with the Luxembourg Film Fund, will offer a scholarship for the EAVE Marketing Workshop worth EUR 4,000. African Film Press (AFP), a cross-regional publishing alliance covering the African film, television, and digital media markets, also joins as an award partner. AFP will present the AFP Critics Prize, comprising a USD 500 cash award, a certificate, and ongoing editorial coverage of the recipient and their future work across AFP’s three founding publications: Akoroko, Sinema Focus, and What Kept Me Up.

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). For 23 years, Open Doors’ mission has been to support artists from underrepresented communities around the world and from countries where cinema and art as forms of expression are at risk. Its aim is to help foster sustainable industry practices and film environments in the regions in question.

By offering a multifaceted space for nurturing African talents, it has developed an array of programmes for training, learning, and networking, for African film professionals, as well as public screenings and events.