Locarno Pro’s Open Doors Hub and Lab hand out their awards
- The established Locarno Pro initiative commenced its three-year cycle of focus on South-East Asia and Mongolia
The 17th edition of Locarno Pro’s Open Doors platform (8-13 August) has wrapped by announcing its winners for the Hub co-production platform and the Lab producer training workshop. Furthermore, this was the first edition of the three-year focus on South-East Asia (Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam) and Mongolia, which will conclude during the 2021 edition. The Open Doors platform is headed by Sophie Bourdon, who is also the deputy head of Locarno Pro, and Locarno Pro manager, Sarah Schiesser, is the deputy head of the platform.
In the Open Doors Hub, eight projects, represented by a director and one attached producer, introduced themselves to European and international professionals. The jury has awarded the following projects to support their development and production:
The Open Doors Grant, totalling CHF 50,000, co-financed by the Swiss film production fund Visions Sud Est – with the backing of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) – and the City of Bellinzona, goes to Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak (Indonesia/Singapore). The €8,000 development grant from the CNC went to Glorious Ashes by Chuyen Bui Thac (Vietnam/France). Finally, Cu Li Never Cries by Pham Ngoc Lan (Vietnam/Philippines/France) snagged both the ARTE Kino International Prize, worth €6,000, and the Norwegian South Film Fund’s Sørfond Award, which allows the project to take part in its “Pitching from the South” event.
In the initiative’s training workshop the Open Doors Lab, the Rotterdam Lab Award — which allows the winner to participate in the Rotterdam Lab workshop together with a delegation of producers in January 2020 — was given to Quynh Anh Le (Hanoi Doclab, Vietnam). The screenwriters’ residency Moulin d’Andé-CECI Award was bestowed upon Vietnamese filmmaker Duong Thi Dieu Linh, to further develop her upcoming feature film project.
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