Locarno Film Festival 

Thursday, August 16--------As an adjunct to the announcement of the top prizes at the Locarno International Film Festival this past weekend (see previous story), the Festival announced the winners in its Open Doors initiative on August 8th. Open Doors is the Festival's co-production lab,  which is organised with support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).

The 2007 session was devoted to film projects from the Near and Middle East. Thirteen projects, selected from 120 submissions, participated in the workshop that took place during the Festival, whose objective is to assist their directors and producers to find co-production partners and the means with which to complete their films.

Two grants in the amount of 50,000 Swiss Francs (US $75,000) for development and production offered by the SDC and jointly allocated by the Festival and visions sud est, the Swiss fund for production support, were given to: TANATHOR, from Palestinian director Tawfik Abu-Wael, produced by Amir Harel / Lama Films (Israel); and LE CHEMIN DES FIGUIERS, from Syrian director Meyar Al Roumi, produced by Emmanuel Agneray and Jerome Bleitrach/BIZIBI Productions (France).

Two additional awards were announced by the Centre National de la Cinematographie (France) awarded to: JUSTICE MUST BE SEEN, from Iraeli director Ra anan Alexandrowicz, produced by Liran Atzmor/Belfilms (Israel), which will receive a development grant in the amount of 10,000 Euros ($14,000); and to HARAG WE MARAG, from Egyptian director Nadine Khan, produced by Wika Production (Egypt), which includes an all-expense paid residency at the Moulin d'Ande for two months. Locarno is one of several major international film festivals (the others including Berlin, Rotterdam, Cannes, IDFA and others) that offer grant monies and professional support to filmmakers from the emerging world.

Sandy Mandelberger, Awards Watch Editor