Open Doors, the Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro-organized co-production platform and talent development program for filmmakers from regions where artistic expression is at risk, has wrapped up its 24th edition, its second with a focus on the African continent. And on Monday, its winners were unveiled.
Following a three-year cycle dedicated to Latin America and the Caribbean, the program’s current focus is on voices from Africa through its Projects, Producers, and Directors programs. It provides training, mentoring, and networking opportunities.
The 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival runs through Aug. 15.
Check out the Open Doors 2026 winners below.
Open Doors Grant
A total of CHF 50,000 sponsored by visions sud est (with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation), the City of Bellinzona, and the Open Doors initiative.
CHF 20’000 to
A Vineyard for A Lobster by Talemwa Pius, produced by Emmanuel Gashumba (Gripmagic Uganda Limited), Uganda.
Synopsis: “The equatorial village of Rukumba has endured months of drought when suddenly snow falls overnight, an impossible event blanketing the land in white. Kamuturaki (48), a failed trader once mocked for selling winter jackets under the blazing sun, becomes an overnight success. Byeitaka (40), a disgraced preacher, declares the snow divine and sells melted snowflakes as holy water to frightened followers. Kagoro (38), the timid chairman, watches his authority erode as the village reorganizes itself around the miracle. When British envoys arrive promising support for Rukumba’s independence from Uganda in exchange for access to the snow for scientific research, the village committee embraces the deal as progress. As competing ambitions take hold across the village, tensions rise and unrest erupts, forcing Ugandan military forces to intervene. By the time the snowfall melts, Rukumba is no longer a community but a collection of competing interests, each convinced the miracle belongs to them.”
CHF 20’000
Accept My Plea for Burial by Mohammed Sheikh, produced by Kadir Harbi (Aleel Films), Somalia/Djibouti .
Synopsis: “In a remote Somali pastoral village, two 12-year-old boys, Waasuge and Warmooge, spend their days herding goats and playing games. Their playful rivalry turns tragic when Warmooge dies after falling into a steep dry riverbed during a game. No one sees exactly what happened, and the only witness, a mentally unstable man, gives conflicting accounts that deepen the uncertainty. As the village gathers, grief hardens into accusation. Warmooge’s mother, Saluugla, refuses to bury her son without justice, believing burial without accountability would erase his death. The elder, Alamagan, attempts to resolve the conflict through customary law and religious counsel, but the absence of truth fractures the community. Rituals are performed, oaths proposed and broken, and tensions escalate as the unburied body decays. Despite Waasuge’s age and the lack of evidence, the village demands resolution. Understanding what the adults cannot admit, Waasuge makes a choice that ends the conflict.”
CHF10’000
Too Much Music by Aseye Fiagbe, produced by Aseye Fiagbe (Aseye Fiagbe Creative Studio), Ghana.
Synopsis: “Too Much Music is a feature documentary about Kiki Gyan, a Ghanaian keyboard prodigy who rose to international fame as a teenager with Afro-rock pioneers Osibisa. As his musical contributions expanded without recognition, tensions around credit and ownership led him to leave the band and pursue a solo career across London, Lagos and New York, shaping African disco and funk in the process. Over time, the same system that profited from his brilliance proved indifferent to his vulnerability, and his life became reduced to a singular narrative of addiction and demise. Through archival material and testimonies from family and collaborators, the film reconstructs the forces that shaped his journey and asks how artists are remembered, who controls their stories, and what is lost when brilliance is reframed as failure.”
CNC Development Grant
The CNC development prize is an incentive for the development of a project for the value of 8,000 euros.
Chapa 100 by Ique Langa, produced by Lara Sousa (Kulunga Filmes), Mozambique.
Synopsis: “In the busy streets of Maputo, 80-year-old flower vendor Sitóe offers brief moments of beauty to strangers passing through the city’s crowded “chapas”, the local minibuses that carry thousands of people every day. One morning, he meets Valentina, a vegetable seller in her seventies, and a simple flower sparks a quiet romance. Together, they dream of owning a small piece of land where flowers and vegetables can grow side by side. When a thief steals Valentina’s rented wig, Sitóe runs after him and is struck by a speeding chapa. The city moves on, but Sitóe does not. His spirit becomes tied to the very minibus that killed him, traveling through Maputo day after day among passengers carrying their hopes, grief, and exhaustion. Flowers slowly begin to bloom inside the vehicle, subtle signs of his lingering presence. One day, Valentina boards the chapa carrying the flower Sitóe once gave her. Surrounded by the quiet traces of his spirit, she feels his love beside her once again.”
Jury statement: “By awarding the CNC grant to the fiction project Chapa 100, directed by Ique Langa, the jury aims to support the development of a work imbued with genuine sensitivity and poetry. The jury was particularly moved by the film’s portrayal of a love story between two elderly characters – a rare theme in cinema – set against the vibrant backdrop of Maputo. Furthermore, the project’s artistic potential is reinforced by the director and producer’s strong commitment to establishing a robust international distribution strategy that would match the film’s universal appeal.”
ARTEKino International Award
Providing an incentive for the development of a project for the value of 6,000 euros.
The Ones With the Tempered Flowers by Neema Ngelime, produced by Ivy Kiru (LBx Africa), Tanzania/Kenya.
Synopsis: “For Neema, being a woman has always meant a script: school, marriage, babies. When a doctor tells filmmaker Neema having children might be hard, she doesn’t expect it to confuse her. Those expectations wound her. Raised in a multi-religious home, her identity was forged by questions of what is haram and what would please Jesus. All Neema cared about was which hell she’d end up in. To her, the older women in her family are a mystery beyond work and family. Their lives feel prophetic to her own. Her sister and her try to rewrite their scripts through tarot. Her father taught her that anything is possible. Now he reminds her of her fate. She stages performances with her family, reenacting fragments of their lives. They believe these are fictions. But they’re memories, repurposed, hidden truths surfacing through play. This is the story of a woman studying her body’s relationship to self, society, and the political weight placed on women’s bodies in Tanzania, challenging duty masked as love.”
Jury statement: “ARTEKino aims to support emergent contemporary cinema through the ArteKino International Award and the ARTEKino festival. ARTE has decided to reward a young director, whose project is a performative essay and a personal journey that explores the expectations placed on women by family, society and tradition. This is the story of a woman studying her body’s relationship to self, society and the political weight placed on women’s bodies in her country.”
Sørfond Award
The prize consists of the participation at the Sørfond Pitching Forum at the Films From the South festival for one of the Open Doors Projects, which will be held in November this year in Norway.
The Ones With the Tempered Flowers by Neema Ngelime, produced by Ivy Kiru (LBx Africa), Tanzania/Kenya .
EAVE Award
Together with the Film Fund Luxembourg, professional training organization EAVE will offer a scholarship for the EAVE Marketing Workshop worth EUR 4,000.
Mamounata Nikiema (Pilumpiku Production), Burkina Faso
Tabakalera-San Sebastian Film Festival Residency Award
The prize consists of a residency in Tabakalera and taking part in the industry activities of the San Sebastian Film Festival, given in collaboration with the International Culture Center Tabakalera and San Sebastian Film Festival.
I Live in V.I., by Ugochukwu Azuya, produced by Olubunmi Ogunsola (ENSEMBLE), Nigeria
Jury statement: “We wanted to highlight the following project because it follows a great story that is set and represents a unique and specific spot of its country and has the power to connect with universal concerns like displacement, class struggle and housing and labor pressures. It is also a project that could benefit from the platform of our festival so that it can open new ways of collaboration, and searching partnerships that allow the film to strenghten and fulfill its necessities. And also: because we believe that every each of us carries a little Florence that tries to make its way in a varied and complex world, we want to welcome the team behind I Live in V.I., so that its producer Olubunmi Ogunsola can come to San Sebastian and make it through with their amazing project.”
Rotterdam Lab Award
In collaboration with IFFR Pro, a participant from the Open Doors Producers will have the chance to take part in the training workshop Rotterdam Lab in January 2027, together with a delegation of more than 70 emerging international producers.
Adja Mariam Mahre Soro (Studio KÄ), Ivory Coast
Jury statement: “For her highly professional approach to her work as a producer and entrepreneur, and for the integrity and commitment she has demonstrated in building and developing her company. Her dedication to strengthening the local ecosystem through training initiatives and international collaborations is equally remarkable. She is now ready to build meaningful collaborations and co-productions across the continent and throughout Europe.”
Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)
A consultancy prize to one selected feature film or series project directed by a national of an OIF Member State within the French-speaking Global South, produced or co-produced by a production company based in one of those same Member States.
Sarah, by Pocas Pascoal, Angola
Jury statement: “A film of revolution and independance, based on a moment in life of a revolutionary and independent woman, one of the first Black female filmmakers: Sarah Maldoror. Sarah by Pocas Pascoal is very promising narratively and visually and it will give space to a beautiful, multilingual, coproduction between several countries from Africa and Europe.”
AFP Critics Prize
Presented by African Film Press (AFP) LLC, a cross-regional publishing alliance covering the African film, television, and digital media markets. The AFP Critics Prize comprises a USD 500 cash award, a certificate, and ongoing editorial coverage of the recipient and their future work across AFP’s three founding publications: Akoroko, Sinema Focus, and What Kept Me Up.
Submergido, by Ariel Añez, produced by Joseph Mata, co-produced by Ariel Añez (Maochas Filmes), Mozambique
Jury statement: “Sad and poignant yet ultimately hopeful, it offers a moving and incisive exploration of the human cost of conflict, especially for those whose loved ones are directly involved in war.”
