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Nigeria and Zimbabwe win top honours at Locarno's Open Doors Awards
This year's Open Doors highlighted a new wave of African filmmakers building industry structures, like pan-regional co-productions, genre films and works for Arab or Indian audiences, to reduce reliance on European funding.
Open Doors, Locarno's co-production platform and talent development program for filmmakers from equity-seeking communities and regions where artistic expression is at risk, has announced its 2025 winners. In 2025, Open Doors entered its 23rd edition with a renewed focus on 42 countries from the African continent.
Six projects in development were selected for their co-production platform, Open Doors Projects, and were eligible for the three main cash prizes. Along with six creative producers who participated in the programme's career-building initiative, Open Doors Producers, and the directors of the short films of the Open Doors Screenings, who form the Open Doors Directors, they make up the full selection of this year's programme.
The initiative's main award for the Open Doors Projects, the Open Doors Grant with a total value of CHF 50,000 sponsored by visions sud est (supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation) and the City of Bellinzona, was divided among three projects: Black Snake, directed by Naishe Nyamubaya, produced by Sue-Ellen Chitunya (Zimbabwe) (CHF 25,000), Kachifo (Till the Morning Comes), directed by Dika Ofoma, produced by Blessing Uzzi (Nigeria) (CHF 20,000) and Journal intime d'une femme chèvre (Diary of a Goat Woman), directed by Azata Soro, produced by Nameïta Lica Touré (Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso) (CHF 5,000). Kachifo (Till the Morning Comes) by Dika Ofoma spawned two more awards: the ARTEKino International Award, worth € 6,000, and the Sørfond Award, granting the project to participate in the Sørfond pitching event in November. Les Bilokos (The Bilokos), directed by Erickey Bahati, produced by Giresse Kassonga (DR Congo, France) scooped the CNC Development Grant endowed with € 8,000.
The four prizes above were selected by the Open Doors Projects Jury. The jury consisted of Madeline Robert (Manager, visions sud est), John Canciani (Artistic Director, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur), Lucie Garnier (CNC Centre national du cinéma et de l'image animée, DEENTAL-ACP Programme Manager), Julie Savary (ARTE France, Head of Projects) and Ana-Marija Grøndahl (Films from the South, Head of Production).
Additionally, the Open Doors partners – Tabakalera-San Sebastian Film Festival, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), Rotterdam International Film Festival and World Cinema Fund – provided awards to participants across the three program strands.
In 2025, Open Doors partnered up for the first time with MECAS, the International Market for Almost-Finished Films. MECAS gave out an award to June Wairegi (Giza Visuals, Kenya), one of the Open Doors Producers. The prize consists of participation in the market, with the opportunity for personalised meetings and networking, including travel and accommodation costs. The next edition of MECAS will take place in Gran Canaria in April 2026.
