Locarno Film Festival · CINEMA UNLIMITED – 20 years of films from...

As it reaches the milestone of 20 years in existence, the Locarno Film Festival’s initiative Open Doors is teaming up with the Swiss distributor trigon-film to bring one special film previously supported through its training and networking activities to a national audience: Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak, produced by Yulia Evina Bhara (KawanKawan Media, Indonesia). Nine cinemas in the three linguistic regions of Switzerland will join Open Doors and trigon-film in releasing the film, from next Thursday. This will be the first time that three such types of film organizations unite on the circulation of a film in Switzerland, boosting its visibility with the Swiss public and celebrating innovative cinema in all regions of the country.

Along with Mubarak’s dazzling dramatic thriller, which took home the FIPRESCI Award in the Horizons section of the Venice Film Festival last year, each venue has put together a unique program of titles hand-picked from 20 years of the Open Doors initiative. This is CINEMA UNLIMITED – 20 years of films from Locarno Open Doors, a program that will be shown in the nine partnering cinemas from April 27th through May 25th, showcasing films that have never been widely screened in Switzerland despite having had successful distribution and festival runs across Europe.

“Coming from a film distribution and exhibition background, I am happy that with this venture we will bring Open Doors even closer to Swiss audiences. Autobiography has a strong political and cultural message but also offers food for thought for audiences thinking outside the box. The immediate positive reaction from trigon-film and all the cinemas that joined the program gives us enormous hope for the future of distribution, in Switzerland and across the world.” – Zsuzsi Bánkuti, Head of Open Doors since 2022.

“We would like to congratulate the Locarno Film Festival and Open Doors on its 20th anniversary. Open Doors plays and important role in helping young and upcoming talents from challenging film industries to connect to the international industry - but it also enables the Swiss audience to discover filmmaking from these contexts which are hugely underrepresented on Swiss screens. As a Swiss film distributor focusing on making these countries visible in our national cinemas, we are very happy to strengthen our partnership with the Locarno Film Festival and keen to have the audience discover these hidden gems, and above all Autobiography, an impressive and haunting directorial feature debut from Indonesia.” – Meret Ruggle, Managing Director at trigon-film.

After the anniversary screenings, trigon-film will further handle the distribution of Autobiography which will be screened in the cinemas outside of the event as well as on their online platform filmingo.ch.

Giona A. Nazzaro, Locarno Film Festival artistic director: “Open Doors is one of the initiatives the Locarno Film Festival is most proud of, literally opening its doors to the world and welcoming the countless stories that are yet to be told. Open Doors has been instrumental in revealing talents that have become an integral part of film history in recent decades. A unique initiative that by multiplying the possibilities of working with cinema has helped reinvent the world and empower all the people in it, who struggle day after day, to make it a better, more welcoming, more inclusive, kinder, and more open place.

The Open Doors initiative was launched by the Locarno Film Festival in 2003, in collaboration with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs (FDFA). Since its origins, Open Doors’ mission has been to support artists from under-represented communities around the world, and from countries in which cinema and art as a form of expression are at risk.

Offering a multi-faceted space for nurturing film talents, it has developed over 20 years an array of programs for training, learning, and networking for film professionals, as well as public screenings and events - during the Locarno Film Festival and beyond.

Discover the program of CINEMA UNLIMITED in the participating cinemas at their link or download the full program here:

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