Locarno's Open Doors has named the four partners and four participants for the first edition of Open Doors Connect, a sponsorship strand that brings professionals from outside the program's usual geographic focus into its orbit. It lands in the second year of Open Doors' four-year focus on the African continent, which covers 42 countries; the 2026 edition runs during Locarno Pro, August 6–11.
Open Doors Connect joins the established trio of Open Doors Projects, Producers, and Directors, with one purpose: South-South collaboration — within Africa, and between Africa and other regions. Open Doors, running since 2003 with the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, draws further support here from Fondation Botnar and the Wyss Academy for Nature.
Each partner sponsors one participant. The Wyss Academy for Nature, which works in Kenya and Madagascar, backs Madagascar's Candy Radifera of Endemika Films and adds a CHF 20,000 production fund toward her documentary "The Crab Diagonal"; the Academy's fund favors projects on biodiversity, community wellbeing, and climate resilience. The Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie sponsors Benin producer Frédy Agblo of Shriman Production. Projeto Paradiso supports Brazilian distributor Talita Arruda of FISTAILE, who worked as an expert during Open Doors' Latin American cycle. Film Nomad Lab backs Mongolia's Nomintuya Baasankhuu, a 2021 Open Doors participant with her project "Water Garden" who went on to found the Mongolian development initiative Film Nomad.
The model lets foundations, film institutions, and organizations buy in by sponsoring a professional, which Open Doors pitches as a route to new financing arrangements, markets, and collaborations. It's open to anyone looking to form ties with the African continent, not only people working in production.
Participants run a two-month hybrid program — online and on-site during the festival — focused on access to the African market and connections with the international industry. Kenyan producer Fibby Kioria and South African curator and producer Mitchell Harper mentor the group, with touchpoints across the wider Open Doors and Locarno Pro programs and individual industry matchmaking.
Harper framed the first edition as a new phase for the program. Bringing together professionals from Benin, Madagascar, Brazil, and Mongolia is meant to do more than develop the participants, he said — it's there to seed "South-South collaborations, drawing on knowledge, experiences and models from each of their regions."