MUMBAI: India has submitted as many as 200 project submissions in 18 languages from 30 regions at this year’s Locarno’s ‘Open Door Co-production Lab’.
Of the lot, the jury will select 12 final projects and announce the names by the end of April. The selected films will then participate in the Co-production Lab in Locarno, Switzerland from 6 to 9 August.
Supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Swiss Foreign Ministry, Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors programme has been in existence for the last eight years.
This initiative, focusing on a different region every year, operates in two modes. Open Doors Co-production Lab brings professionals from the chosen region together with potential partners, mostly from Europe, to foster support for projects that would otherwise be difficult to make.
Every year, following the submissions, the Festival selects a dozen new projects from the chosen region. At the end of the workshop, the winning projects receive either development or production support. This year the chosen region is India.
The ‘Open Door Co-production Lab’ at Locarno has been working to highlight filmmakers and films from countries the cinema of which is still developing. It is committed to enabling them to find co-production partners for their new projects.
