Locarno 2023

Stéphane Breton finds subjects for his documentaries “by chance,” he tells Business Doc Europe. The idea for his latest feature Les Premiers Jours [The First Days] came in haphazard fashion after he was invited to the film school in Santiago do Chile. “I discovered the shore, the ocean and I decided to make a film there,” the director remembers. “I am really interested in the relationship between a place and the people.”

In examining why the spark in his parents’ marriage has become all but extinguished, Israeli director Ohad Milstein turns his camera on his own relationship with Swiss wife Rahel as both determine how far they are prepared to go to keep their union stimulating. “In the case of this film, I think that our curiosity about the truth is stronger than our fear of exposure,” says the director of his brave, complex and highly revelatory doc.

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.

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).