Open Doors, the Locarno Film Festival‘s co-production platform and expertise improvement program for filmmakers from equity-seeking communities and areas the place creative expression is in danger, is gearing up for its second version with a deal with African cinema, unveiling on Monday its number of initiatives and producers for 2026.
Organizers promise “a bold and diverse slate of voices from across the African continent” in an version that brings collectively filmmakers whose work spans fiction, documentary and animation throughout greater than 10 nations. Operating Aug. 5-10, the Open Doors program gives hands-on coaching, mentoring and networking, alongside public screenings and occasions throughout the Locarno Film Festival and its business arm Locarno Pro.
The 2026 Open Doorways Initiatives showcase options six first and second options in improvement — from portraits of music and reminiscence to explorations of womanhood, city life and the lengthy shadows of colonialism.
The Open Doorways Producers program, which helps producers in constructing sustainable careers and cross-border networks, additionally assembles six contributors. Lastly, the Open Doorways Administrators choice brings collectively 5 administrators for a program of talks, workshops and business networking. Their brief movies can be a part of this 12 months’s Open Doorways Screenings.
“We’re looking to affirm the richness of storytelling across the continent, with artistic voices and creative entrepreneurs strongly dedicated to meet their audiences at home, within their diasporas and internationally,” stated Yanis Gaye, head of research at Open Doorways. “Our program is set to allow those synergies — within our cohort; between them and Open Doors alumni from other regions; and through the encounters they will have in Locarno — to take hold through concrete and actionable interactions. African film eco-systems and their practitioners are a chance for the industry to globally redesign some of the ways we think of our co-production practices, our audience building strategies, and the economics of cinema as a whole.”
Added Zsuzsi Bánkuti, head of Open Doorways: “With this selection, we are reaffirming something we deeply believe in: that the future of cinema depends on who gets to make it, and how. One of my hopes for this edition, and for Open Doors more broadly, is to keep amplifying female voices, both behind the camera and in the producer’s chair. Gender parity in our industry isn’t just a goal for the screen; it has to be lived in the way we work and who we support.”
And her crew can also be keeping track of extra. “What excites me most about this year’s selection is how many of these filmmakers understand that cinema is never a solo act. A film is always made by many hands, many minds, many stories. The more we build our industry on that truth — on horizontal collaboration, on genuine equality within our creative communities, on more diversity — the richer and more honest our cinema will be.”
On Monday, Aug. 10, a jury of business professionals will award monetary and in-kind prizes to profitable initiatives. New this 12 months, skilled coaching group EAVE, along with the Luxembourg Movie Fund, will supply a scholarship for the EAVE Advertising and marketing Workshop price 4,000 euros ($). Plus, African Movie Press (AFP), a cross-regional publishing alliance protecting the African movie, TV, and digital media house, joins as an award accomplice to current the AFP Critics Prize, a $500 money award, a certificates and ongoing editorial protection of the recipient and their future work throughout AFP’s three founding publications, particularly Akoroko, Sinema Focus, and What Stored Me Up.
Try a primary have a look at the Open Doorways 2026 chosen initiatives, producers and administrators beneath.
2026 Open Doorways Initiatives
Aseye Fiagbe from Ghana directs and produces Too A lot Music, a documentary portrait of Ghanaian keyboard prodigy Kiki Gyan.
Mozambique and South Africa come collectively in Chapa 100, “an city, surrealist love story directed by Ique Langa, whose characteristic O profeta screened within the Tiger Competitors on the International Movie Competition Rotterdam this 12 months. The mission is produced by Lara Sousa of Kulunga Filmes.
Nigerian director Ugochukwu Azuya and producer Olubunmi Ogunsola of Ensemble current I Reside in V.I, “a sharp social satire about urban space and gentrification.”
From Somalia and Djibouti, filmmaker Mohammed Sheikh and producer Kadir Harbi Hassan of Aleel Movies carry the fiction mission Settle for My Plea for Burial (Baryo Aas Iga Gudoon) to Locarno. It probes the tensions between custom and justice in a rural neighborhood.
Additionally featured in Switzerland can be a Tanzania–Kenya collaboration, The Ones With the Tempered Flowers, an experimental documentary weaving collectively themes of womanhood and motherhood, directed by Neema Ngelime and produced by Ivy Kiru of AQ Photos (LBx Africa), who additionally participated within the 2026 La Fabrique Cinéma program on the Cannes Movie Competition with the mission Sturdy Wind.
Final however not least, Locarno will host the Ugandan fiction mission A Winery for A Lobster, directed by Talemwa Pius and produced by Gashumba Emmanuel of Gripmagic Uganda Restricted. The movie makes use of a snow-covered panorama as an allegory for the enduring shadows of colonialism.
Open Doorways Producers
Mamounata Nikiema of Pilumpiku Manufacturing is from Burkina Faso and a veteran of the continent’s movie business, knighted on the 2021 version of FESPACO, the Pan-African Movie and Tv Competition of Ouagadougou, Africa’s largest and oldest movie fest, for her contributions to cinema.
Natasha Craveiro from Cabo Verde has, together with her firm Korikaxoru Movies, produced Omi Nobu, which featured within the Open Doorways Screenings at Locarno 2025.
Adja Mariam Mahre Soro from the Ivory Coast leads Studio Kä, an animation studio she based in Abidjan.
Nigerian producer David Ikeata of Vox Cinematic Movies has labored throughout borders, co-producing Kazakh-Nigerian fiction movie Adam Bol (2024), and is at present growing a brand new mission with an Egyptian director.
Rua Osman from Sudan and her Helomur Image have gathered intensive manufacturing expertise, together with her resumé together with such competition favorites as You Will Die at Twenty (Venice, 2019) and Goodbye Julia (Cannes, 2023).
Zimbabwe is represented by Tapiwa Chipfupa of Ambidextrous Photos. The EAVE alumn not too long ago launched the worldwide coaching and mentorship program Audiovisual Entrepreneurs Laboratory (AVEL).
Open Doorways Administrators
Fagamou Fama Ndiaye (Senegal)
Rediet Haddis Yalew (Ethiopia)
Pocas Pascoal (Angola)
Judith Nini Kibinge (Kenya)
Ariel Añez (Mozambique)
