Open Doors and attractive prizes for India at Locarno

Olivier Père, the French film critic who is a member of IFFI jury, is also the Artistic Director of the Locarno Film Festival. In his second capacity, he brings welcome news to Indian film buffs and budding scriptwriters. Locarno co-production lab ‘Open Doors’ will focus on India in the 64th edition of the festival, to be held during August 3-13, 2011.

The Open Doors segment is supported by the Swiss foreign ministry’s agency for Development and Co-operation (SDC) and its main objective is to assist the directors and producers of the selected projects to find co-production partners, particularly in Europe.

Twelve short-listed proposals will be invited to participate in the co-production, and there will be grants of Euro35,000 for the best proposal and Euro6,000 for the second best.  Père told this correspondent that he would be delighted if the short-listing, shooting and post-production could be completed in time for the festival, and the ‘winning’ film could be premiered at the closing ceremony of the festival. “Though time is short, it is not impossible”, he enthused.

Over the last two years, twelve screenwriters have already presented their work-in-progress scripts to film professionals from all over the world, under the aegis of Binger Filmlab, an Amsterdam based international feature-film and documentary development centre, where talented writers, directors, producers and script editors from around the world can place both their projects and their usual working practices within an inspiring environment of fellow film-makers, to be coached and supported by internationally acclaimed mentors and advisors.

Indians wishing to submit their proposals to Open Doors 2011 can do so via the website www.pardo.ch

Prof. Siraj Syed