This morning, the Locarno Film Festival announced its lineup for 2025, with Swiss TV presenter Sandy Altermatt in charge of the proceedings. The announcement revealed films to be screened across festival sections, including those selected for the 2025 Open Doors programme, which has an African focus.
The event, which took place with a live audience and over the internet via YouTube, featured a brief speech from Maja Hoffmann, President of the Festival, and an extended exchange between Altermatt and artistic director, Giona A. Nazzaro.
Nazzaro said the festival received thousands of submissions, from which 221 films were programmed. Of that number, 99 are world premieres, 150 are serial projects and 70 are shorts. The festival director then spoke about his organisation’s attempts at achieving a gender balance of filmmakers. Those attempts took the female representation to around the 40% mark.
“It’s still not 50/50 that we want to achieve,” he said, “but it is an accurate picture of our concerns.”
Africa Focus
For Africans watching the announcement, extra attention would perhaps have been paid to the Open Doors screening lineup, which were announced with stills from the respective films projected behind Altermatt and Nazzaro. Countries represented in the list include South Africa, Angola, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, and Sudan. Altogether, 13 African projects will be screened, including eight feature films and five shorts. This is the latest Open Doors announcement, following a list of 12 made public weeks ago.
The chosen African films, all of which were released over the last five years, include Mosotho filmmaker Lemohang Mosese’s hybrid docufiction, Ancestral Visions of the Future, will be screened, as well as Ema Edosio Deelen’s When Nigeria Happens. The latter will be receiving a world premiere, following a private screening in Lagos.
The full list of the 2025 Open Door film screenings is provided below.
Feature Films
Ancestral Visions of the Future. Director: Lemohang Mosese (Lesotho, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, 2025)
Le Reve De Dieu. Director : Fousseyni Maiga, Mariam Kamissoko (Mali, 2025)
Nome. Director : Sana Na N’Hada (Guinea-Bissau, France, Portugal, Angola, 2023)
Omi Nobu (The New Man). Director: Carlos Yuri Ceuninck (Cape Verde, Belgium, Germany, Sudan, 2023)
The Bride. Director: Myriam Birara (Rwanda, 2023)
Une Si Longue Lettre (So Long A Letter). Director: Angele Diabang (Senegal, Mali, France, Ivory Coast, Egypt, 2025)
Vuta N’Kuvute (Tug of War). Director: Amil Shivji (Tanzania, South Africa, Germany, Qatar, 2021)
When Nigeria Happens. Director: Ema Edosio Deelen (Nigeria, 2025)
Short Films
Where My Memory Began. Director: Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda (Sierra Leone, 2024)
Jangu. Director: Patience Nitumwesiga (Uganda, 2022)
L’envoyee De Dieu (The Envoy of God). Director: Amina Abdoulaye Mamani (Niger, Burkina Faso, Rwanda, 2023)
Le Dernier Voyage. Director: Abdoulaye Sall (Mauritania, Senegal, 2023)
Bougainvillea. Director: Yasir Faiz (Egypt, Sudan, 2024)
