Running for the second consecutive year under the brand of Locarno Pro (8-13 August), the industry section of the 72^nd Locarno Film Festival (7-17 August), continues its expansion by unfolding a rich programme. Headed by Nadia Dresti, Locarno Pro is the landmark event for the festival’s film professionals and spans seven different sections, along with the much-anticipated Industry Screenings.

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The 17^th edition of Open Doors, which will continue its Asian focus until 2021, will this year promote emerging talents from the Southeast and more precisely from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam, while Mongolia will be represented for the first time. In the Open Doors Hub co-production platform, eight film projects (read more here) in search of international partnerships and competing for the main CHF 50,000 Open Doors Grant will be presented. Moreover, nine up-and-coming producers (read more here) will be part of the Open Doors Lab, an incubating programme. As in every previous edition, the Open Doors Screenings will host more than twenty filmmakers and producers who will showcase eight feature and fifteen short films from Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Mongolia (read more here).

Seven projects will participate in the 2019 Alliance for Development initiative, with four of them coming from Italy, Germany and France, where they have received the support of their national funds. Three are Swiss projects supported by MEDIA Desk Suisse that are also looking to establish co-production partnerships with neighbouring countries (read more here). Running from 9 to 11 August, the workshop will cover all the key aspects of the dialogue between the challenges of co-productions and distribution through special conferences, discussions, and curated one-on-one meetings. On the same dates, the ninth edition of the First Look initiative will be dedicated to Serbian cinema and, in partnership with the Film Center Serbia, six films in post-production will be screened, showcasing the diversity of cinematic approaches in the country. More information on the selected projects can be found here.

Tagged as an “informal” networking platform, Locarno Pro’s fifth edition of Match Me! will aim to bridge the gap between production companies in order to create new international collaborations. Three up-and-coming producers from each of the countries (Brazil, Estonia, Italy, Latvia, Mexico, Poland and, for the first time, Spain and Singapore — read more here) will participate in the matchmaking event. Under the heading “What Are We Afraid Of?”, the 2019 edition of the StepIn think tank will address some of the main “fears” haunting the film industry, by inviting more than 40 film professionals to further express their ideas and share their experiences in relation to the topic.

Finally, Locarno Pro is hosting this year the U30 project, a new initiative where 24 young professionals under the age of 30 will voice their concerns on highly topical issues. Meanwhile, the fifth edition of the Industry Academy will invite ten sales agents, distributors, managers and professionals in other fields to explore all of the opportunities that the Academy platform can offer them.