The Locarno Festival’s Open Doors platform dedicated to promoting cinema in areas where filmmaking is especially tough, has unveiled the 8 projects, directors, and producers from 7 countries in South-East Asia and Mongolia who will make the trek to Switzerland for networking and training opportunities.
The selected projects include “The Thonglor Kids” by Thai director Aditya Assarat, produced by Fran Borgia, who also produced last year’s Golden Leopard winner “A Land Imagined,” by Singapore’s Yeo Siew Hua (pictured).
Vietnamese director Chuyen Bui Thac, whose second feature “Adrift,” set in Hanoi, premiered at Venice in 2009, will be attending the Asian cinema incubator with his latest project “Glorious Ashes” centered on the hardships and love lives of three women in a poor coastal village.
Locarno’s Open Doors program this year is entering a new three-year cycle dedicated to Laos, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Mongolia.
The event’s co-production platform, called Open Doors Hub, will feature eight projects from seven different countries, mixing older and younger auteurs.
Separately, nine young key producers/directors, from seven different countries in Southeast Asia and Mongolia have been invited to the Open Doors Lab, a training program devised to give them more international expertise.
In a statement the fest’s new artistic director Lili Hinstin said it was a “a promising sign that in August we will be welcoming a majority female group of producers working in such a meaningful way in Southeast Asia and Mongolia.”
Open Doors is run by veteran film industry expert and former sales agent Sophie Bourdon with input from Asia-Pacific region film expert Paolo Bertolin.
The eight projects selected for the Open Doors Hub are:
– “Autobiography,” by Makbul Mubarak (Indonesia, Singapore)
– “Cu Li Never Cries,” by Pham Ngoc Lan (Vietnam, Philippines, France)
– “Glorious Ashes,” by Chuyen Bui Thac (Vietnam, France)
– “If Only I Could Hibernate,” by Zoljargal Purevdash (Mongolia, Malaysia)
– “Red Mekong,” by Anysay Keola (Laos)
– “Some Nights I Feel Like Walking,” by Petersen Vargas (Philippines)
– “The Thonglor Kids,” by Aditya Assarat (Thailand, Singapore)
– “Tiger Stripes,” by Amanda Eu (Malaysia)
The producers/directors who will participate in the Open Doors Lab are:
– Chandara So, Mekong Film Fixers, Cambodia
– Ifa Isfansyah, Fourcolours Films, Indonesia
– Xaisongkham Induanghanthy, Lao New Wave Cinema Productions, Laos
– Nandita Solomon, Apparat, Malaysia
– Soe Arkar Htun, Kafka Film, Myanmar
– Lkhagvadulam Purev-Ochir, 30chir Films, Mongolia
– Cattleya Paosrijaroen, 185 Films, Thailand
– Quynh Anh Le, Hanoi Doclab, Vietnam
– Khin Warso, Observer Myanmar
Open Doors runs Aug. 8-13. The 72th Locarno Festival takes place Aug. 7-17.
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