Locarno 2023

UK docs-in-progress Mother Vera by Cécile Embleton and Alys Tomlinson, and No Ifs Or Buts by Sarah Lewis, were lauded August 6 by the First Look jury, while Pas Ta Maman by Michèle Flury and produced by Felix Schreiber of Sommerhaus Filmproduktion won the Alphapanda Market Breakout Award of Locarno’s Alliance 4 Development platform.

In her debut feature doc shot over six years Eléonore Boissinot chronicles the lives of two Muslim sisters in Ahmedabad, a city within the Hindu-majority Indian state of Gujarat. What seems at first a domestic story of teenage frustration evolves into a political rites of passage as the girls come to understand their tragic past and how it was shaped, in 2002, by a sectarian massacre that claimed 69 lives, among them ten members of their own family. The director talks to BDE.

Open Doors, Locarno Pro’s talent development program for artists from under-represented communities around the world, handed 3 awards August 8 to the Dominican Republic project Tres Balas (Three Bullets), directed by Génesis Valenzuela, produced by Wendy Espinal. The prizes include a CHF 20,000 Open Doors cash grant alongside a €8,000 development grant offered by CNC (France).

The major doc thrust of the 76th Locarno Film Festival (Switzerland) is found in the Semaine de la critique programme, founded in 1990 and this year presenting seven new documentaries, five of which are world premieres. Three prizes are up for grabs including the Grand Prix Semaine de la critique, valued at 5000 CHF. Locarno commences August 2, running through to August 12.