Alliance 4 Development (A4D, 7-9 August), Locarno Pro’s co-development platform for projects from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, has returned with filmmakers seeking co-producers, financiers, sales agents and distributors. Among this year’s slate (see the news about the winners), the following seven titles combined established auteurs with emerging voices and sharply defined international strategies.

Cuore matto – Tamer Ruggli (Switzerland)
Produced by Francine Lusser and Gérard Monier for Geneva-based Tipimages Productions, Ruggli’s drama is set in Bienne and Ticino in 1969. Seventeen-year-old Matteo, sent south for the harvest, encounters a freer and more sensual world, while his mother, Giusi, begins her own emancipation from an oppressive marriage. Conceived as a queer and feminist coming-of-age musical, the French- and Italian-language project is budgeted at €5.17 million. According to its catalogue entry, it has secured support from Procinema Berne, SSR, the Federal Office of Culture and the Heinrich Hössli Foundation, and is seeking French, Italian and Belgian co-producers, national distributors and a sales agent.

Humanoid – Claudia Rorarius (Germany)
Rorarius is writing, directing and producing this near-future drama through Soquietfilms Production. After her partner’s death, 48-year-old artist Elsa creates an android in his image; the experiment gradually becomes an intimate relationship before forcing her to accept that technology cannot replace the man she lost. The €5.2 million project is in development, with German Federal Film Board support and WDR involvement being negotiated. Rorarius is seeking international co-producers, world sales agents, distributors and broadcasters for a character-driven exploration of artificial intelligence, grief and female self-reinvention.

Reign of Silures by Jessica Puppo (© Remi Masson)

Reign of Silures – Jessica Puppo (France)
Produced by Alexis Perrin for Rumble Fish Productions, Puppo’s €3.5 million debut is an “ecological body horror with an intimate core”. Maïa works as a concierge at a luxury palace beside a dying Lake Geneva, where giant catfish are burned as scapegoats for a disease that cracks human skin like dry earth. When her teenage sister is placed in her care, Maïa must choose between the hotel that gave her status and the family bond exposing its cost. Still in development, the project is prioritising a Swiss or other European co-producer, alongside sales, distribution and development partners.

Stone Over Stone – Hilal Baydarov (Austria/Poland)
Baydarov’s drama follows pregnant Shams as she moves with her indebted husband into an unfinished construction site, where gambling, abuse and war trauma corrode the community around her. Subobscura Films is producing, with Poland’s Asterfilm attached as a co-production company. The €3.2 million project has €10,000 in confirmed development financing through the CineLink Montenegro Award, while Heretic has issued a letter of interest for international sales.

Producer Georg Tiller stresses that a Creative Europe application remains pending and must not be treated as confirmed support. The team is targeting production in spring 2028, and is seeking further European co-producers, financing partners, broadcasters and distributors.

Third Take – Bruce LaBruce (France)
Monica Bellucci and Béatrice Dalle are confirmed to star as two iconic actresses and former lovers reuniting in a drought-stricken Mediterranean villa for a chaotic film shoot. Produced by Nicolas Brevière’s Local Films, the €2.828 million project combines melodrama, media archives and a near-future setting to examine performance, consent and resilience. Filming is envisaged for summer 2027.

Its priority at Locarno is to secure a lead Italian producer, opening either a French-Italian bilateral structure or a wider French-Italian-German-Swiss co-production, while progressing towards Eurimages backing and a target of 50% financing by April 2027.

Yazz by Florian Hoffmann

Yazz – Florian Hoffmann (Switzerland/Germany/France)
Tellfilm is producing Hoffmann’s drama with Germany’s NiKo Film and France’s Eaux Vives Productions. Yasmine grows up inside a UN compound in the Central African Republic, divided from the world around her by privilege and barbed wire. A disastrous secret meeting with her local boyfriend resurfaces ten years later in Switzerland when he unexpectedly returns with her mother.

Budgeted at €4.708 million, the project has support from the Swiss Federal Office of Culture and the Zurich Film Foundation. Its co-production structure is in place, and the team is now seeking feedback on international positioning, sales, distribution and further financing.

Yumi – Silvia Luzi, Luca Bellino (Italy)
The helmers’ third feature centres on a 13-year-old girl whose father monitors her through a parental-control app. The device becomes an unsettling vertical cinema, and Yumi turns her awareness of being watched into an increasingly ruthless performance.

Donatella Palermo’s Stemal Entertainment is producing with Luzi and Bellino’s Bokeh Film. The €2.074 million project has backing from Italy’s MIC Selective Funds, Lazio Cinema International and Eurimages. The team is using A4D to identify an international partner, sharpen the film’s European positioning, and establish long-term production and distribution relationships.