Locarno Festival’s Open Doors Highlights Latin America, the Caribbean
John Hopewell Chief International CorrespondentHaving focused since 2016 on emerging film talent in lesser-known parts of South and South East Asia, Open Doors, the Locarno Festival’s flagship co-production forum and talent incubator, is turning its focus to Latin America and the Caribbean. Of the 24 directors featured at this year’s edition, 15 identify as female or gender non conforming, led by Ecaudor’s Ana Cristina Barragán whose 2016 debut “Alba” won nods at Rotterdam and San Sebastián and Yanillys Pérez whose documentary “Jeffrey” scooped a Discovery Awards at the Toronto Festival. Both have new projects at the Open Doors Co-Production Hub, as does Yashira Jordán with “Diamond,” a coming of age tale about a Quechua trap artist last glimpsed at Málaga this year. Men directors take in Michael Labarca a winner at Cannes’ Cinéfondation film school shorts competition in 2016, and Guatemala’s Mauricio Escobar whose “Los Invisibles” is a social realist tale wrapped around the phenomenon of domestic migration in Guatemala. It is set up at La Danta, whose partners include Cannes 2019 Camera d’Or winner César Díaz (“Our Mothers”).Also selected for Open Doors’ Co-Production Hub, a platform for feature-length projects looking for international collaboration, is Guaraní language “Kokue,” the fiction feature debut of Paraguay’s Miguel Aguëro, based on his memories of growing up in the Paraguayan countryside.