Open Doors, the Locarno Film Festival‘s co-production platform and talent development program for filmmakers from equity-seeking communities and regions where artistic expression is at risk, is ready for its 2026 edition. It is its second that is putting a spotlight on African cinema.

The Open Doors Producers program supports producers in their efforts to build sustainable careers and cross-border networks, bringing to the Swiss city six participants. They are Tapiwa Chipfupa of Ambidextrous Pictures in Zimbabwe, an EAVE alumn who recently launched the international training and mentorship program Audiovisual Entrepreneurs Laboratory (AVEL); Adja Mariam Mahre Soro from the Ivory Coast, or Côte d’Ivoire, who leads Studio Kä, an animation studio she founded in Abidjan; Natasha Craveiro from Cabo Verde, whose company Korikaxoru Films produced Omi Nobu, which featured in the Open Doors Screenings at Locarno 2025; veteran Mamounata Nikiema of Pilumpiku Production in Burkina Faso; Nigerian producer David Ikeata of Vox Cinematic Films; and Rua Osman from Sudan, whose Helomur Picture has been behind such festival favorites as Goodbye Julia (Cannes, 2023).

Yanis Gaye, a French-Senegalese creative producer, co-founder of the boutique production houses Goree Cinema in Senegal and Strange Fruit Production House in France, also co-founded Yetu (Un)Limited, a multi-venture African film studio. At Locarno, he serves as head of studies at Open Doors. And he connected THR with some of the producers attending this year’s edition.

“It’s interesting because you see a lot of territories represented that you would think have a lot of challenges in terms of infrastructure and local industry itself,” he explained about the Open Door 2026 participants. “But this is where you actually see the resilience and the most innovative models. Because you have to be bold in a way that allows you not just to produce content, but also to shape your own ecosystem.”

Continued Gaye: “The nature or the profile of the African producer is much closer to an entrepreneur and social entrepreneur. … It’s about working on multiple things at the same time, so usually those producers and their companies tackle many verticals at the same time.”

Running Aug. 5-10, the Open Doors program offers hands-on training, mentoring and networking, along with public screenings and events during the Locarno Film Festival and its industry arm Locarno Pro. Before they all dive into a busy week in Switzerland, THR talked to Soro from the Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe’s Chipfupa and Craveiro from Cabo Verde about what projects they are currently working on and what they expect from the Open Doors experience in Locarno.

What’s your hope for the Open Doors experience?

NATASHA CRAVEIRO I am really, really happy that I will get this opportunity to be in Locarno to meet people, to be in this program that is so very well designed, and they are so attentive to our needs. My expectation is to meet people with whom we can collaborate and who get to know Cape Verde from another point of view that is not the football [FIFA World Cup] point of view. Not that it’s not a good opportunity. People still have the name [of our country] in their heads. It’s a good opportunity to say, yes, we have football, but we do have cinema too.

TAPIWA CHIPFUPA Like Natasha, I am extremely excited. The online program has been really awesome for me already. It has been curated for me or around me. So, I already have so much that I’ve learned. I’ve gotten to know the other producers a little bit, so I’m really excited to actually see them face-to-face and to have more discussions. The program they’ve outlined to us for Locarno looks so exciting. I feel that if we apply ourselves, we’ll be able to develop it into something so much bigger. So, I’m feeling really privileged.

ADJA MARIAM MAHRE SORO I’m also very happy to be part of this program and to be selected. We do animation, which is not necessarily the kind of work and projects for which they used to have producers in Open Doors. I was curious to see how our reality can fit with the program, and online, it was already very, very interesting. So I look [forwward to] Locarno and will just follow the flow, meet new people, make good experiences and enjoy the moments.

Are you bringing specific projects to Locarno?

SORO I am coming with a young adult animated series. That is not something that we used to have coming from Africa for a global audience, with taekwondo and murder and many things in it. So I’m curious to see how the the producers at Locarno who focus more on feature films see this kind of opportunity.

CRAVEIRO I’m also coming with projects, two hybrid features. And I am looking, of course, for financing, for co-producers. Both are talking a lot about our reality in Cape Verde. One is more related to environmental protection and the worries we have now that we are seeing tourism exploding. We are getting more worried every day. And of course, we are happy for the World Cup, but it’s an extra worry for us because we know we are not even prepared for the numbers of tourism we have already. The other project is about the post-colonial Cape Verde. It’s a country that doesn’t talk about the colonial traumas. And that is sticking with us generation after generation, 50 years after our independence [in 1975 from Portuguese colonial rule].

CHIPFUPA I’m coming with a supernatural thriller based in a village. It’s about a young girl who defies the patriarchy and tradition to ultimately become the unlikely savior of the village. I am obviously looking for financing partners, people who are interested in developing a short as a proof of concept. But I’m also in the process of trying to contribute to the local ecosystem here in Zimbabwe, as our industry is still really developing. I’ve been developing some initiatives for which I would really love to find people to partner with. The first one is a producers’ lab that is already supported by Berlinale Talents, and I am looking for ways to continue that and keep that alive. And recently, I started an initiative for young women and girl creatives in the film and art sector. Locarno is an opportunity not just to showcase our films, but to look at how else we can help or we can contribute to the development of the continental sector as well.

CRAVEIRO We do have these kind of projects too because we are also still struggling to build a healthy ecosystem. We have the Cine Club project because we feel that the audience needs to be educated, and you have to go get them. We have so we have the Cinet Club. Our company also has this academy through which we try to help young people who have an idea to transform it into a project. And we do have this festival that we started last year. So, I’m also looking for partners who are interested and who can help us to take these steps, these baby steps that we need to take.

SORO In Côte d’Ivoire, until last year, it was a real challenge. There was a real gap between what we know about animation and what our government knew about animation. They had to understand that we need to build an ecosystem to have talents who know how to make animation, we need to have schools, we need to have a real ecosystem. But now they have started to understand it. For example, I have the chance to collaborate with the Ministry of Communication on an animation school pilot for 25 young animators and see how that can be a way to improve our schools that already exist and their curriculum. Last year, we also signed a treaty of co-production with Belgium, and we are also having a conversation with Canada. So there is movement now. We also have an event in November where we invite Japan in Côte d’Ivoire to talk about animation, so there is a real desire to do something in Côte d’Ivoire.