Cabo Verde, Ivory Coast, Zimbabwe: Locarno Producers Chat

The Locarno Film Festival’s Open Doors program has long served as a launchpad for filmmakers from underrepresented regions, and this year’s edition is showcasing a trio of ambitious projects that stretch far beyond the usual festival circuit talking points. With a focus on less-charted territories, the initiative is bringing together producers from Cabo Verde, the Ivory Coast, and Zimbabwe, each carrying a distinct vision of what cinema can achieve in their respective homelands. In a series of conversations with the participants, the overriding sentiment was less about surviving the industry’s hurdles and more about redefining the kind of stories that get told on a global stage.

For the Cabo Verdean contingent, the conversation naturally begins with football, but not in the way one might expect. The nation’s surprising run in recent World Cup qualifiers has put the archipelago in the international spotlight, and the filmmakers are eager to harness that attention. Rather than churning out a celebratory sports documentary, the producers are looking at the post-tournament moment as a lens through which to examine national identity, migration, and the quiet comedies of daily life in a country often seen only through postcards. “There is a whole generation that grew up with the team’s success, but our stories are not just about the ninety minutes on the pitch,” one producer explained, emphasizing that the real drama happens in the streets, the bars, and the homes where the matches are watched. The goal, they said, is to use the World Cup’s afterglow to build a sustainable local industry that doesn’t rely on a single event or a single film’s viral moment.

Meanwhile, the Ivory Coast delegation is taking a different route to prominence: animation. In a region where live-action production often struggles with funding and distribution infrastructure, the Ivorian producers are betting on the medium’s flexibility and its deep roots in local storytelling traditions. They argue that animation allows for a level of fantastical expression that live-action budgets simply cannot accommodate, and they are leaning into that advantage. The projects in development are not derivative imitations of Western cartoons; instead, they draw heavily on West African folklore, trickster tales, and contemporary urban legends, rendered with a visual style that the producers hope will feel distinctly theirs. One participant noted that the appeal of animation is its ability to bypass some of the logistical nightmares of shooting on location, while also creating a product that can be dubbed and sold across borders with relative ease. The ambition is clear: to turn Abidjan into a hub for African animation that rivals the output of more established studios on the continent, like those in South Africa or Nigeria.

Zimbabwe’s presence at Open Doors carries a different kind of weight, one rooted in political and economic perseverance. The producers there spoke candidly about the challenges of making films in a country that has seen its cultural infrastructure hollowed out by decades of instability. Yet, their pitch is one of unapologetic ambition. They are not asking for sympathy or charity; they are asking for partnership on projects that aim to reclaim a cinematic heritage that was nearly lost. The films in development range from intimate family dramas to sweeping historical epics, all with a focus on narratives that have been ignored or suppressed by official channels. One producer framed the effort as a “declaration of intent,” a way of telling the world that Zimbabwean cinema is not a thing of the past but a formidable force in the making. They acknowledged the need for foreign co-productions and training programs but stressed that the creative control must remain local, insisting that the international community has much to learn from Zimbabwean resilience.

What unites these three national projects is a refusal to be defined by their limitations. The Open Doors platform, which has historically supported filmmakers from Latin America, Asia, and Africa, is designed to facilitate these kinds of cross-cultural exchanges, and the producers are clearly using the time in Locarno to forge concrete connections. There is a palpable sense of urgency in their conversations - not the anxiety of a deadline, but the drive of people who know that the window for their stories is wide open and that the world is finally paying attention. The mention of the World Cup, the embrace of animation, and the bold claims from Zimbabwe are all variations on a single theme: the belief that African cinema is moving beyond the narrow categories of “issue films” or “festival curiosities” and into a space where it can compete on its own terms.

As the festival continues, these producers will be pitching their projects to potential financiers, sales agents, and collaborators. The immediate goal is funding, of course, but the longer-term objective is more profound. They are building the scaffolding for industries that will outlast any single production, and they are doing so with a level of strategic thinking that belies the often-fractured state of their home markets. For the casual observer, the takeaway from these chats is simple: the next big thing in cinema might not come from Hollywood or even from the established European auteurs. It could very well come from a small island nation that just qualified for the World Cup, an animation studio in Abidjan, or a determined group of producers in Harare who have refused to stay silent. The projects may be in early stages, but the ambition is fully formed.

Source: Hollywood Reporter