Press Releases  ·  07 | 08 | 2018

Open Doors: the start of a new three-year cycle on South-East Asia

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Today ends the 2016-2018 series, with the announcement of prize winners for the Open Doors Hub coproduction platform and Open Doors Lab producer training workshop. This also ends Open Doors’ focus on Southern Asia, ushering in a new three-year cycle devoted to South-East Asia and Mongolia.

During its sixteen years of activity to date, Open Doors has been involved across all continents and in most regions of the global South and East. Now the section is set to continue its eastward exploration, with a new triennial focus for the period 2019-2021 on South-East Asia (Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines) and Mongolia. The winners of the Open Doors Hub and Lab at Locarno71 have received their awards today at the Spazio Cinema, bringing to a close the 2018 edition of the section and its three-year cycle on Southern Asia.

Open Doors Hub

The Open Doors jury has awarded the following prizes to projects in the Open Doors Hub, to support their development and production.

Open Doors Grant

An award financed by the Swiss film production support fund visions sud est (backed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation SDC) together with the City of Bellinzona.


Support for the production (35,000 CHF)

THE WOMEN (MA) by The Maw Naing, Myanmar

Support for the development (15,000 CHF)

MOTHER (AMMA) by Sanjeewa Pushpakumara, Sri Lanka / France

Development grant from the French national film and animation center CNC (€ 8,000)
SAND CITY by Mahde Hasan, Bangladesh

ARTE Kino International Prize Open Doors (€ 6,000)
A YEAR OF COLD (CHISO BARSA) by Min Bahadur Bham, Nepal / France

Sørfond
For the first time the Norwegian South Film Fund Sørfond has awarded a prize allowing one of the Hub projects to take part in its platform "Pitching from the South".
THE WOMEN (MA) by The Maw Naing, Myanmar

Open Doors Lab

Open Doors – TorinoFilmLab Award 
For the second year in a row, the TorinoFilmLab (TFL) offers a grant allowing one of the producers to take part in the TFL Meeting Event in Turin on November of this year, as part of a group of non-European producers, under the label “Up and Coming”.
Awarded producer: Sumudu Malalagama, Green Pictures, Sri Lanka

“Residency Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur @ Villa Sträuli”

The Winterthur International Short Film Festival, in partnership with Villa Sträuli, offers a two-month residency to a participant in the sections Open Doors, Pardi di domani and Filmmakers Academy, from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe or Latin America.
Awarded filmmaker: Mahde Hasan, Bangladesh, filmmaker of SAND CITY (Open Doors Hub)

In collaboration from the outset by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA), the Open Doors section aims to assist and raise the visibility of films and filmmakers from countries in the global South and East where the status of independent filmmaking is precarious. The Open Doors program runs along three main lines: the international coproduction platform Open Doors Hub, the workshop for nurturing talented new producers, Open Doors Lab, and the Open Doors Screenings, open to the public and due to be repeated as a formula over the coming three-year cycle, as well as the collaboration with SDC.

Sophie Bourdon, head of Open Doors: “We are delighted to be setting out to discover Mongolia and to be returning to South-East Asia, a region which has witnessed growth across its film industries over the past decade, with an increasing number of films being screened both at the Locarno Festival and at other festivals worldwide. Despite this progress, however, the requirements in terms of structure, training and international contacts continue to be of vital importance for the independent filmmaking scene to prosper artistically. Thanks to its intervention over a three-year period Open Doors can go beyond the traditional role of a coproduction platform, supporting directors and producers in the long term and also fostering regional partnerships, in particular with the current Open Doors community already established in South-East Asia.”

Open Doors can also count on collaborations with its many international partner organizations: ACE Producers, EAVE (European Audiovisual Entrepreneurs), EURODOC, LIM/Groupe Ouest, Produire au Sud/Festival des Trois Continents, TorinoFilmLab, Festival Scope, the Winterthur International Short Film Festival.


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