Open Doors Factory in Locarno focuses on China

The jury for the Locarno Festival’s Open Doors co-production lab has selected 12 projects (out of 114 applications from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan Island) to participate in the final phase of the 2009 session. This year the Open Doors Factory is devoted to Greater China, and will take place from 9 to 11 August 2009, during the 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival.

The selected projects are:

ABERDEEN by PANG Ho-cheung – Hong Kong
AN EVERLASTING DAY by Wanmacaidan – Mainland China
BLOODSHED by GUAN Hu – Mainland China
BUS N°8 by YANG Qing – Mainland China
DON'T EXPECT PRAISES by YANG Jin – Mainland China
ELEVEN FLOWERS by WANG Xiaoshuai – Hong Kong
FATHER by ZHANG Lu – Mainland China
HELP by LI Ying – Mainland China
LITTLE WINGS by Emily Tang – Hong Kong
TREE by HAN Jie – Mainland China
UFO IN HER EYES by GUO Xiaolu – Mainland China
WINTER VACATION by LI Hongqi – Mainland China

Note that two of these projects, Help and Winter Vacation, were laureates at the first Open Doors HAF Locarno Awards, selected in partnership with the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum last March; with the award consisting of an invitation to participate in Locarno’s co-production lab.

«Over the course of our various research trips» explains Vincenzo Bugno, Open Doors Project Manager «we met numerous independent filmmakers and producers, some of them already well-known, others much younger and highly promising talents. We were struck by the urgent desire they all shared to reflect and recount contemporary life. Of the projects selected each deals, in its own way, with the enormous diversity of contemporary Chinese society and the position of the individual in a rapidly changing world. The Open Doors Factory 2009 session promises to be absolutely fascinating».

The Open Doors Factory’s objective is to help the selected projects’ directors and producers find co-production partners and complete their films. This initiative is organised in collaboration with the Festival’s Industry Office, which also invites European producers as well as professionals from the chosen region; so this year, the Open Doors Factory 2009 intends to encourage both international collaborations and exchange between partners from Greater China.

At the end of the workshop, two grants for production, each worth 50,000 Swiss francs and offered by the Swiss Foreign Ministry’s Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), will be decided by a jury composed of representatives from the Festival and "visions sud est", a Swiss support fund for production.

Finally, in addition to the workshop, there will be the by now traditional Open Doors Screenings, open to both professionals and public alike, that offer an opportunity to discover a selection of key films from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan Island, made in recent years.

The 62nd edition of the Locarno International Film Festival will take place 5 - 15 August 2009.