Locarno opens doorways to Africa

ROME -- The Locarno Film Festival's Open Doorways co-production mart will concentrate on French-speaking Sub-Saharan Africa this season. The prominent Swiss fest has employed African cinema specialist Alex Moussa Sawadogo, who's director of Berlin's AfriKamera film festival, as consultant in choosing twelve taking part projects to become introduced in May 2012. Open Doorways this season is available to distribution from: Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Chad, Comoros, Ivory Coast, Gabon, Djbouti, Guinea, Guinea Bissau, Equatorial Guinea, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Niger, Central African Republic, Republic from the Congo, Democratic Republic from the Congo, Rwanda, Senegal, Seychelles and Togo. Reason for the mart/workshop, that will run August. 4-7, would be to help selected projects interact with co-production partners, especially European producers. Open Doorways also assigns a prize worth 50.000 Swiss Francs ($58,000), along with other more compact cash nods provided by Gaul's CNC and broadcaster ARTE. Previous models of Open Doorways have centered on Central Asia, Greater China and, this past year, India. Locarno, that is devoted to indie photos and cutting-edge fare, may have its 65th edition August. 1-11. Contact Nick Vivarelli at nvivarelli@gmail.com