New projects from Ovashvili, Pirveli and Shek selected for Locarno’s Open Doors.

New projects from George Ovashvili, Rusudan Pirveli and Nika Shek are among 12 selected for the 11th edition of Locarno’s Open Doors co-production lab.

The event will be held during the festival from August 10-13 and is dedicated to the South Caucasus countries of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia.

Ovashvili, who already has Germany’s 42film and France’s Arizona Films onboard his next feature Khibula as production partners, had previously been nominated for the European Discovery  of the Year award at the 2009 European Film Awards for his feature debut The Other Bank.

Similar to his compatriot Rusudan Pirveli, Ovashvili attended the Berlinale Talent Campus, Pirveli returning to Berlin’s Generation section with her feature debut Susa in 2010.

Meanwhile, Armenian Nika Shek – another Berlinale Talent Campus alumnus - is planning an autumn 2013 start for Long Gardens which she will co-direct with Sarik Hovsepyan as an Armenian-Azeri co-production.

The lineup of projects looking for co-producers and co-financing also includes Rusudan Glurjidze’s House Of Others about a group of homeless, war-stricken survivors trying to rebuild their lives in an abandoned village in the early 1990s.

The production by Tbilisi-based Cinetech, which was previously pitched at Connecting Cottbus and in Tallinn as part of the Baltic Bridge East by West (B’Est) initiative last year, already has France’s MPM Film onboard as co-producer.

Line-up in full

  • Abysm, Oksana Mirzoyan (Armenia)
  • House of Others, Rusudan Glurjidze (Georgia/France)
  • Khibula, George Ovashvili (Georgia/France/ Germany)
  • Long Gardens, Nika Shek and Sarik Hovsepyan (Armenia /Azerbaijan)
  • Madona, Nino Gogua (Georgia)
  • Naked in Baku, Arzu Gulijeva (Azerbaijan/Estonia)
  • Pipeline, Asif Rustamov (Azerbaijan/Germany)
  • See you in Chechnya, Alexander Kvatashidze (Georgia/France/Estonia/Netherlands)
  • Sleeping Lessons, Rusudan Pirveli (Georgia)
  • Territoria, Nora Martirosyan (Armenia/Switzerland/France)
  • The Second Journey, Lévon Minasian (Armenia)
  • The Valley, Arsen Azatyan and Nariné Mkrtchyan (Armenia)

In addition, an innovation at this year’s edition of Open Doors will see the introduction of a series of workshops on current issues and problems in independent film production and distribution for the lab’s participants.

New Locarno summer academy head

Local journalist and director Stefano Knuchel has been appointed the new head of the Locarno Summer Academy which offers lectures, roundtables and workshops for young filmmakers, professionals, students and film critics.

Now in its fourth edition, the Summer Academy will select 80 promising young talents from all over the world to participate in one of its four programmes:

  • Filmmakers Academy (Aug 12-17);
  • Critics Academy (Aug 7-17);
  • Documentary Summer School (Aug 12-17);
  • Cinema&Gioventù (Aug 6-17) aimed at 32 high-school and university students.

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