Locarno’s industry platform Locarno Pro has long offered a range of activities for film professionals. Locarno Pro is home to initiatives such as work-in-progress strand First Look, networking platform Match Me!, co-production platform Open Doors, co-development programme Alliance 4 Development, classic film focus Heritage Online, workshop programme Industry Academy and the StepIn think tank as well as industry talks and masterclasses.
“This year is mainly about consolidating our various activities,” explains Markus Duffner, now in his fourth year as head of Locarno’s industry platform. He adds that Locarno Pro will begin looking to enhance its offer “by exploring opportunities for producers to access alternative sources of financing as public funding budgets contract.”
Works-in-progress initiative First Look will this year focus on Spanish cinema. Six Spanish films, all currently in post-production, will be presented to international buyers, sales agents, post-production support fund representatives and festival programmers from August 9-11.
The titles include Marc Ortiz’s debut feature, the drama L’Aguait, about a former hermaphrodite maquis turned bandit; veteran Galician documentary filmmaker Margarita Ledo Andion’s Prefiro Condenarme; and Enrique Buleo’s black comedy Still Life With Ghosts.
Recent titles to have taken part in First Look include Karlovy Vary 2023 premiere Empty Nets by Behrooz Karamizade, and Venice Critics’ Week 2023 title Life Is Not A Competition, But I’m Winning by Julia Fuhr Mann.
“It was the right time to have the focus for this year’s First Look showcase on Spain,” explains Duffner, “because we can now see the results of the boost the Spanish film industry received from the post-Covid recuperation plan.”
Meanwhile, Locarno hosts the ninth edition of Alliance 4 Development (A4D), the co-development programme for film projects from Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland. Eleven projects have been selected this year from 86 submissions.
The line-up sees director Lukas Nathrath and his producer Linus Günther of Hamburg-based Klinkerfilm return to Locarno with their new feature project Bourgeois Paranoia, a mix of dark comedy and psychological thriller. Nathrath’s debut One Last Evening won the Cinegrell First Look Award when it was presented as a work-in-progress at Locarno in 2022.
Projects previously presented as part of A4D include Mo Harawe’s The Village Next To Paradise, which premiered this May in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard, and Willy Hans’ Der Fleck, which has its world premiere at Locarno this year in the Filmmakers of the Present section.
The informal networking platform Match Me! has been expanded this year, and welcomes 36 up-and-coming producers from around the globe (an increase from last year’s 30) to meet with potential co-production partners. Meanwhile the intensive Industry Academy workshop programme is celebrating its 10th anniversary, providing young professionals with an opportunity to gain greater insight into the workings of the international film industry.
“We tried this year to create a diverse group of participants coming from every sector of the cinema ecosystem,” notes Industry Academy project manager Marion Klotz. “We wanted to give priority to young professionals deeply committed to the strong transformation our industry needs, and to new voices and daring visions.”
StepIn steps up
The 13th edition of the StepIn think tank, an invitation-only event held at Hotel Belvedere on August 8, will discuss challenges facing the film industry under the title ‘The ground is shaking’. It will include contributions from HanWay Films’ head of production Katie Ellen, award-winning Romanian producer Ada Solomon of microFILM and WME Independent’s co-head Alex Walton.
The afternoon will be taken up with closed-session round tables on topics including independent production and financing, the future of the traditional theatrical model, and gender equality and diversity representation.
The select group of 50 key international professionals invited to brainstorm includes producer Ted Hope, Film4 executive David Kimbangi, Berlinale festival director Tricia Tuttle and Eurimages executive director Susan Newman Baudais.
Other Locarno Pro speakers include Romanian filmmaker Radu Jude, who delivers a masterclass, and Mubi founder and CEO Efe Cakarel, who tells the story of the streaming platform.
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