Locarno spotlights filmmakers from South America and Caribbean

Each year the Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors programme selects artists from communities that are under-represented and disadvantaged in film production around the world. Keystone

The Open Doors section of the Locarno Film Festival has named the winners for 2024. The spotlight is on the South American and Caribbean regions.

+Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox

The most coveted award of the Projects Hub co-production platform, the CHF50,000 ($58,000) Open Doors grant, was divided between four projects. Salvacion (Salvation) by Ernesto Bautista and El unico tiempo (The Unique Time) by Paz Encina won CHF20,000 each. La levedad de ella (Her lightness) by Rosa Maria Rodriguez and Huaco retrato by Fernando Luis Mondoza Salazar will receive CHF5,000.

The Open Doors grant is offered by the visions sud fund to support Swiss film production, in collaboration with the City of Bellinzona, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and the Open Doors Initiative, the festival said.

El unico tiempo also received the Artekino International Award, worth €6,000 (CHF5,700), presented by Arte. Rob Mendoza’s film Ovnis en el Tropico (UFOs in the Tropics) won a development grant from France’s Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC).

+ Future of Locarno Film Festival lies in discreet charm of new president

Each year, the Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors programme selects artists from communities that are under-represented and disadvantaged in film production around the world.

The 2024 edition brings to a close a three-year cycle devoted to the South American and Caribbean regions. Next year will see the start of a four-year cycle devoted to Africa.

Translated from French by DeepL/ts

How we work

This news story has been written and carefully fact-checked by an external editorial team. At SWI swissinfo.ch we select the most relevant news for an international audience and use automatic translation tools such as DeepL to translate it into English. Providing you with automatically translated news gives us the time to write more in-depth articles.

If you want to know more about how we work, have a look here, if you want to learn more about how we use technology, click here, and if you have feedback on this news story please write to [e-mail].