News  ·  13 | 05 | 2022

Opening the Door to Guatemalan Cinema

Open Doors is among the curators of the closing event at the World Press Photo Exhibition, with a free screening of César Díaz’s Nuestras Madres at Monte Carasso

Nuestras Madres, by César Díaz (2019) - © trigon-film.org

On Monday, May 30, the doors of the Ancient Augustinian Convent of Monte Carasso will once again be open to world cinema. The event that for years has shone a light on distant cinematic visions and valuable films is back, combining in a single evening two gazes, as similar as they are distant: Open Doors and the World Press Photo Exhibition

Closing the Ticino leg of the World Press Photo Exhibition, which from May 6 is hosting the exhibition that in one year touches 40 countries and 120 cities in the world, attracting over 4 million visitors, will be the free screening of Nuestras Madres by César Díaz. Winner of the Camera d'or in Cannes in 2019, Nuestras Madres is a Belgian-Guatemalan co-production which, three years ago, illuminated the talent of the newcomer César Díaz, a director from Guatemala who wanted and knew how to tell a dense intertwining of history, missing people, guerrilla warfare, collective memory, and investigations. A true gem of recent Latin American cinema that Ticino audiences will have the opportunity to discover on the big screen. 

Open Doors, which for years has had a close collaboration with the City of Bellinzona, in turn a supporter of the Open Doors Grant since 2011, will therefore offer the public a film that symbolically inaugurates the new three-year period of the Locarno Film Festival’s project devoted to independent cinema from emerging filmmaking regions, and to supporting local talents every step of the creative way, through activities dedicated to them not only in Locarno, but also during the rest of the year. The new three-year project, running until 2024, will involve Latin America and the Caribbean. 

Ticino audiences will have the opportunity to find out more about filmmaking from Central America and the Caribbean through other works selected for the Open Doors Screenings, a selection that will be announced on July 6. 

The screening will take place on Monday, May 30, at 9.15 pm (free of charge), at the Ancient Augustinian Convent of Monte Carasso, as part of the end of the World Press Photo Exhibition. Starting at 6 pm, audiences will get to visit the exhibition (also free of charge) and enjoy welcoming refreshments. In case of rain, the event will be postponed. For more information: www.spazioreale.ch

Support the festival now with a donation