Projects by Indian filmmakers Anup Singh [pictured] and Alka Raghuram are among 12 selected for this year’s edition of the Open Doors co-production lab to be held in Locarno from August 6-9.

The finalists were selected from over 200 projects submitted in 18 different languages and from 30 regions in India.

Anup Singh’s Mumbai-set drama The Gentle Dance (Lasya) already has Germany’s Heimatfilm onboard as a co-producer. The Cologne-based company was previously a production partner of the Turkish 2010 Golden Bear winner Honey (Bal) and is already co-producing Singh’s next feature film The Ghost Is a Lonely Traveller (Qissa), which is due to begin shooting this November and has received backing from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and Filmstiftung NRW.

Meanwhile, Alka Raghuram will be coming to Locarno looking for partners for her documentary Burqa Boxers about three young Muslim girls training for the state amateur boxing championships in Kolkata.

The selected projects are:

  • Aharbal Falls by Ajay Raina
  • Strange Love (Ajeeb Aashiq) by Natasha Mendonca
  • Sunrise (Arunoday) by Partho Sen-Gupta
  • Burqa Boxers by Alka Raghuram
  • Char, The Island Within by Sourav Sarangi
  • The Judgement (Jat Panchayat) by Satish Manwar
  • The Gentle Dance (Lasya) by Anup Singh
  • The Penance (Samaadhi) by Sidharth Srinivasan
  • Sebastian Wants to Remember by Vasant Nath
  • The Trapper’s Snare by Shanker Raman
  • Thread (Le Fil) by Lilium Leonard
  • Devastated (Vidhvastha) by Ashish Avikunthak

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