Short Film News (SFN)- The Locarno International Film Festival has announced that the next edition of its co-production lab, Open Doors, will focus on Central Asia.

The countries included in the focus will be Kazakhstan, Kirghizistan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan and Turkmenistan.

Olivier Père, the Festival’s Artistic Director, said: «The central Asian New Wave, which had its moment of glory in the 1990s, is already long behind us.

Today there is a new generation of very young filmmakers, who have come up through short filmmaking or the contemporary visual arts, waiting for a renewal of interest in their countries in the hope that their projects might find European co-production, festival exposure and an audience.

In the past, the Locarno Festival has played an essential role in discovering several major auteurs from central Asia, such as Aktan Abdykalykov, Darezhan Omirbayev, Djamshed Usmonov; the forthcoming session of Open Doors will contribute to discoveries that are just as significant.»
 
Applications for Open Doors 2010, open to projects from central Asia, may be submitted from January onwards via the site www.pardo.ch

Open Doors Screenings will run alongside, presenting a series of screenings of earlier work from the directors invited to the workshop, and a selection of films that are representative of recent production in central Asia. A round table on central Asian cinema will bring together producers and filmmakers from the region.

The 63rd Locarno International Film Festival will take place 4-14 August, 2010.