The second year of Open Doors\u2019 Africa focus takes in new projects and emerging directors and producers from fest and lab winners to new propositions \u00a0<\/p>\n
Magic realist love story \u201cChapa 100,\u201d absurdist political allegory \u201cA Vineyard for a Lobster\u201d and cross-continental queer drama \u201cHibiscus by the River\u201d look like some of the potential standouts at Locarno\u2019s talent-deep, wide-ranging 2026 Africa-focused Open Doors, unspooling on-site at Locarno over Aug. 5-10.<\/p>\n
Winner of a 2025 Atlas Workshops Development Award no less, moving from observational social realism to \u2013 literally \u2013 \u00a0flowering magical realism, love story \u201cChapa 100\u201d is set in Mozambique capital Maputo. It marks scribe-helmer Ique Langa\u2019s follow-up to \u201cThe Prophet,\u201d a 2026 IFF Rotterdam main competition entry.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n
Beginning with an impossible snowfall blanketing a drought-ridden Ugandan village, \u201cA Vineyard for a Lobster\u201d signals the feature debut of Ugandan Talemwa Pius, a New York Film Academy alum.<\/p>\n
Now in advanced development, \u201cHibiscus in the River\u201d is one of five projects brought to market at Locarno by David Ikeata at Vox Cinematic Films, a burgeoning force on Nigeria\u2019s new film scene.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Screenings this year at Open Doors pack a particularly powerful punch taking in, for example, Suzannah Mirghani\u2019s Venice Critics\u2019 Week premiere \u201cCotton Queen,\u201d a Thessaloniki\u2019s best film and Doha Audience Award winner and the first feature-length fiction film from Sudan that is written and directed by a woman.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also on show is \u201cCrocodile,\u201d a doc-feature best film, Viewpoints laureate at Tribeca Film\u00a0Festival, New York and Youth Jury Prize at the U.K.\u2019s Sheffield DocFest, and \u201cDiya,\u201d a 2025 TIFF Centerpiece title praised by those who caught it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Aymar Esse\u2019s touching \u201cMy Father\u2019s Kora\u201d world premieres at Locarno.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A Snapshot of Africa\u2019s Upscale Film Scene<\/p>\n
Carefully curated, Open Doors 2026 provides a telling take of the range of current upscale titles coming out of Africa plus their artistic and industrial trends.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Though light years from parity in Africa at large, women cineastes feature prominently at Open Doors, dominating its producers, new Open Doors Connect and directors sections.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Also, \u201cthe cohort of Open Doors 2026 is made up of projects and filmmakers that don\u2019t compromise with authenticity,\u201d says Suzsi Bankuti, head of Open Doors. Many titles are indeed redolently and proudly local. \u201cI Live in V.I\u2019s\u201d \u201ccharacter ensemble and dramatic situations are colored with different aspects of the Nigerian collective psyche,\u201d promises director Ugochukwu Azuya.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In \u201cCrocodile,\u201d Nigeria\u2019s The Critics collective, though achieving increasing global renown, debate what it takes to be a Nigerian filmmaker.<\/p>\n
Directly or indirectly, most films deal with the state of Africa today. That includes a critique of post-colonial dynamics. Formally, the British Empire et al. has gone. But their legacy lingers. In \u201cCotton Queen,\u201d set on a Sudanese cotton farm, teen Nafisa, raised on her grandmother\u2019s heroic tales of battling British colonizers, sets out to save the cotton fields \u2013 and herself when a British businessman arrives planning to introduce genetically engineered cotton.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018A Vineyard for a Lobster\u2019 grows out of my interest in how colonial structures continue to shape authority, belief and communal life in Uganda decades after independence,\u201d explains director Talemwa Pius.<\/p>\n