Open Doors at 64th Locarno Film Festival –Festival del Film Locarno

Locarno Film Festival is organizing the Open Doors section with the support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) of the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs. This section seeks to highlight films and filmmakers from countries in the South and East where independent cinema is still in developing stage and enable them to find co-production partners for new projects. This initiative focuses on a different region every year and operates in two modes.
Open Doors co-production lab brings professionals from the chosen region together with potential partners, mostly from Europe. Following a call for submissions, each year the Festival selects a dozen new projects from the chosen region.In addition, Open Doors Screenings is a selection of key films from the national cinema of the chosen region .The focus of the 64th edition is on India. Following are the films included in the Open Door screening. Aag by Raj Kapoor – India , Halodia Choraye Baodhan (The Yellow Birds) by Khai Jahnu Barua ,Kanasembo Kudureyaneri (Riding the Stallion of a Dream) by Girish Kasaravalli,Manthan (The Churning) by Shyam Benegal ,Meghe Dhaka Tara (The Cloud-Clapped Star) by Ritwik Ghatak,Neecha Nagar (Lowly City) by Chetan Anand .Nizhalkkuthu (Shadow Kill) by Adoor Gopalakrishnan,Prapancha pash (A Throw of Dice) by Franz Osten,Pyaasa (The Thirsty One) by Guru Dutt ,Udaan by Vikramaditya Motwane ,Valu (The Wild Bull) by Umesh Kulkarni ,Vanaja by Rajnesh Domalpalli .This section also includes a Satyajit Ray Retrospective with Charulata (The Lonely Wife),Joy Baba Felunath (The Elephant God), Kapurush O Mahapurush (The Coward and the Holy Man) Mahanagar (The Big City) and Nayak (The Hero)
Open Doors: The Co-Production Lab
The Open Doors Co-Production Lab will take place 6 - 9 August 2011. Its aim is to assist the directors and producers of the projects selected –12 from India this year – in finding coproduction partners to enable their films to be completed.At the end of the four day Lab, a jury will award a prize of 50,000 CHF (circa 39,000 Euros),financed by the Open Doors initiative, with, for the first time this year, the participation of the City of Bellinzona. Renewing its collaboration with Open Doors, the CNC (Centre National du Cinéma et de l’Image Animée, France) will offer a further prize of 7,000 Euros to support development. Also this year the International Relations ARTE Prize, worth 6.000 Euros has been renewed.Selected projects:
Aharbal Falls by Ajay Raina ,Ajeeb Aashiq by Natasha Mendonca ,Arunoday by Partho Sen-Gupta,Burqa Boxers by Alka Raghuram ,Char, the Island Within by Sourav Sarangi
Jat Panchayat by Satish Manwar ,Lasya / The Gentle Dance by Anup Singh
Samaadhi by Sidharth Srinivasan ,Sebastian Wants to Remember by Vasant Nath ,The Trapper’s Snare by Shanker Raman ,Thread / Le fil by Lilium Leonard , Vidhvastha / Devastated by Ashish Avikunthak .
Open Doors invite the six filmmakers who participated in the Cinéfondation Cannes Festival Residency to present their own film project to producers and international buyers attending Locarno.
Arunkarn by Sivaroj Kongsakul – Thailand
Bastard by David Nawrath – Germania,Entomology by Julia Kozyreva – Russia,Lady’s Mantle by Bohdana Smyrnova – Ukraine,S. K. by Laszlo Nemes – France,Tam Rasisalai by Pramote Sangsorn – Thailand
Round Table «Lessons from Bollywood»
Saturday, August 6 at the Spazio Cinema (Forum), at 10.30 am, a round table on film production in India will offer an exchange between mainstream Bollywood and independent cinema.«Lessons from Bollywood» will analyze two realities that coexist but represent two very different aspects of Indian cinema.
Guests of the round table include:
Kabir Bedi, actor (India)
Adoor Gopalakrishnan, independent filmmaker (India)
Bhuvan Lall, Chairman and founder of Lall Entertainment (India)
Anu Rangachar, Programmer Mumbai Film Festival (India)
Gargi Sen, Magic Lantern Foundation (India)
A member of Film Federation (India)