The Locarno Film Festival has unveiled the winners of the project and incubator initiatives gathered under its Locarno Pro umbrella and spanning First Look, Alliance 4 Development, and Open Doors

For Open Doors, Talemwa Pius’s A Vineyard For A Lobster (Uganda), Mohammed Sheikh’s Accept My Plea for Burial (Somalia) and Aseye Fiagbe’s Too Much Music (Ghana) shared 50,000 Swiss Francs ($61k) main prize sponsored by Switzerland‘s Visions Sud Est fund.

Pius’s absurdist political allegory, about a drought-hit Ugandan village which awakes to snowfall, and Sheikh’s social thriller, revolving around the accidental death of a young boy in a remote Somali village, both received 20,000 CHF ($24k), while Fiagbe’s music documentary was awarded 10,000 CHF ($12k).

The year-round Open Doors project and talent incubator is in the second year of a four-year cycle devoted to 42 countries across Africa. Some 25 participants connected to six projects gathered in person in Locarno for six days of mentoring and networking during the festival this year.

In other Open Door prizes, Mozambique director Ique Langa’s fantasy romance Chapa 100, won the CNC Development Grant worth € 8,000 ($9.2k).  Tanzanian director Neema Ngelime’s feminist drama The Ones With the Tempered Flowers, about a woman left with conflicted feelings after she is told it is unlikely she will be able to bear children, won the ARTEKino International Award, worth € 6,000 ($6.9k), and the Sørfond Award, under which it will participate in the Sørfond pitching event in Oslo November. 

Additionally, Open Doors partners IFFR Pro, the International Culture Center Tabakalera and San Sebastian Film Festival, the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF), and Sørfond also provided awards to participants. There were also new awards sponsored by EAVE, together with the Film Fund Luxembourg, and African Film Press (AFP) LLC. Scroll down for full list.

Locarno Pro Prizes

In other Locarno Pro 2026 awards (announced separately on Sunday), the First Look work-in-progress showcase devoted to Uruguayan films this year meted out a number of collateral prizes.

Gabriela Guillermo and Irina Raffo’s Spring Story (Historia de primavera), produced by Guillermo and Raffo for L’Avventura Cine and Germán Ormaechea for Animista Cine, won two awards: the Bright Side of the Moon First Look Award, which comes with complete colour grading services, and the Le Film Français Award, worth €5,600 in advertising space.

The jury, comprising Ana David (Programme Advisor at Berlinale), Susana Santos Rodrigues (Co-Director of IndieLisboa), and Triin Tramberg (Artistic Director of Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival), praised the film “for its candid depiction of longing and desire which connects those who dare to be driven by it.”

Lorenzo Tocco’s The Surubí, produced by Pancho Magnou Arnabal and Isabel García (Montelona) and co-produced by Kocria (Brazil), took home three awards: the La Mayor Cine Award, which comes with complete sound post-production services, the Music Library & SFX/Acorde Award, worth EUR 45,000 in music supervision services at Music Library & SFX’s labs, and the Jannuzzi Smith Award, the design of an international poster worth EUR 10,000.

In the Alliance 4 Development showcase, aimed at nurturing project co-development between film professionals based in Austria, France, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, Florian Hoffmann’s Yazz, produced by Katrin Renz (tellfilm Switzerland), Nicole Gerhards (NiKo Film, Germany) and Xénia Maingot (Eaux Vives Productions, France), took home the NEBEL Studios Award, estimated at CHF 30,500 for three days of studio use and five days of camera equipment, and the Studio13/Valais Film Commission Award, estimated at CHF 12,000 for 5 days of studio use at Studio13.

Antonio Donato’s Shooting Watermelons, produced by Santiago Fondevila Sancet (Cinedora, Italy), received the Masé Studios Award, worth a CHF 3,000 cash voucher.

The Masé Studios Post-Production Award, worth CHF 25,000 in post-production services, was shared Tamer Ruggl’s Cuore Matto, produced by Francine Lusser and Gérard Monier (Tipimages Productions, Switzerland), and Wendy Pillonel’s Magnetic Storms (Les Orages Magnétiques), produced by Flavia Zanon (Close Up Films, Switzerland).

Jessica Puppo’s Reign of Silures (Le Règne des Silures), produced by Alexis Perrin (Rumble Fish Productions, France), won the Ticino Film Commission Residence Award: a two-day location scout (worth CHF 4,000) plus a Letter of Intent for financial support up to CHF 12,000 should the film shoot in Ticino.

Bruce LaBruce’s Third Take, produced by Nicolas Brevière (Local Films, France), took the Alphapanda Market Breakout Award (consultancy services worth €3,500), and Magnetic Storms also picked up the MIDPOINT Consulting Award, an online script consultancy with a MIDPOINT Institute expert.

In further Locarno Pro prizes, the Locarno Heritage Restoration Contest was won by Anne-Marie Miéville’s 1997 work We’re All Still Here, a three-part meditation on philosophy and everyday life featuring Jean-Luc Godard in a rare on-screen role.

Selected by an international jury composed of Amy Homma (Director and President, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures and Academy Collection), Leslie Vuchot (CEO and Founder, The Festival Agency), and Nicole T. Allemann (Head of Film Restoration and Lab, Cinegrell Postproduction), the film will undergo a complete restoration by Swiss film lab Cinegrell, to premiere at the 2027 edition of Locarno.

Open Doors 2026 Winners

Open Doors Grant 
 
Vineyard For A Lobster (Uganda)
Dir: Talemwa Pius
Prod: Emmanuel Gashumba (Gripmagic Uganda Limited) Uganda 

Accept My Plea for Burial (Somalia/Djibouti)
Dir: Mohammed Sheikh
Prod: Kadir Harbi (Aleel Films) Somalia/Djibouti 

Too Much Music (Ghana)
Dir: Aseye Fiagbe
Prod: Aseye Fiagbe (Aseye Fiagbe Creative Studio) 

CNC Development Grant 
Chapa 100 (Mozambique)
Dir: Ique Langa
Prod: Lara Sousa (Kulunga Filmes) 

ARTEKino International Award 
The Ones with the Tempered Flowers (Tanzania, Kenya)
Dir: Neema Ngelime
Prod: Ivy Kiru (LBx Africa)

Sørfond Award 
The Ones with the Tempered Flowers (Tanzania/Kenya)
Dir: Neema Ngelime
Prod: Ivy Kiru (LBx Africa)

EAVE Award 
Mamounata Nikiema (Pilumpiku Production), Burkina Faso 

Tabakalera-San Sebastian Film Festival Residency Award 
I Live in V.I. (Nigeria)
Dir: Ugochukwu Azuya
Prod: Olubunmi Ogunsola (ENSEMBLE)

Rotterdam Lab Award 
Adja Mariam Mahre Soro (Studio KÄ), Ivory Coast 

Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) 
Sarah (Angola)
Dir: Pocas Pascoal
 

AFP Critics Prize 
Submergido (Mozambique)
Dir: Ariel Añez
Prod: Joseph Mata
Co-prod: Ariel Añez (Maochas Filmes)

Jeff Bezos and Eduardo Saverin look set to become the latest tech giants entering the English football world.

The pair are part of a consortium that is set to buy a stake in 20-time English league winners Liverpool, according to a report from Sky News.

News of the deal first emerged last month, and Sky News business editor Mark Kleinman is now reporting that an agreement on a 30% stake is close to being announced by current owner Fenway Sports Group (FSG), which also owns the likes of the Washington Red Sox. We have contacted Amazon, Saverin’s B Capital and FSG for comment.

The consortium is being led by Amit Bhatia, the son-in-law of Indian steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal. Bhatia was until recently a major shareholder and boardroom player at English Championship side Queens Park Rangers, but sold his shares on the same day in initial report about the Liverpool deal emerged.

Liverpool are one of English footballs’ best-supported teams, having won multiple top division titles, especially in the 1970s and 1980s, and six European Cups – more than anyone else in the UK. They most recently won the Premier League in 2024-25, but finished a disappointing fifth, 25 points behind champions Arsenal.

Bezos has previously explored deals for the likes of the Seattle Seahawks, but this would represent the Amazon founder’s first major move into sports team ownership. His wealth is currently estimated at close to $300B.

Saverin, who co-founded Facebook alongside Mark Zuckerberg, now runs private equity company B Capital. He was previously part of a group that looked to take over Liverpool rivals Chelsea in 2022, but this would also represent a first move in the sports space. His wealth is estimated at over $30B.

Saverin left Facebook in 2005 when Zuckerberg effectively diluted his shares and relieved him of active duty – a situation that played out in Aaron Sorkin’s movie The Social Network, with Andrew Garfield playing the Brazilian-born Saverin opposite Jesse Eisenberg’s Zuckerberg.

Sky News reported FSG plans to make an announcement on the deal in “coming days,” but that this could push into next week. It will value Liverpool at $6B, making it one of the biggest investments in football history.

The news comes at a very delicate time for world football, with European association UEFA effectively at war with world governing body FIFA, whose President Gianni Infantino has faced a barrage of criticism after announcing a plan to sell off stakes in the World Cup to the likes of Joshua Kushner, the brother of President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.

The plan was scrapped after UEFA and several other bodies rejected the plan. Infantino has been urged to resign, but it appears he has the support to continue in the role, at least for now.

Open Doors, the Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro-organized co-production platform and talent development program for filmmakers from regions where artistic expression is at risk, has wrapped up its 24th edition, its second with a focus on the African continent. And on Monday, its winners were unveiled.

Following a three-year cycle dedicated to Latin America and the Caribbean, the program’s current focus is on voices from Africa through its Projects, Producers, and Directors programs. It provides training, mentoring, and networking opportunities.

The 79th edition of the Locarno Film Festival  runs through Aug. 15.

Check out the Open Doors 2026 winners below.

Open Doors Grant  
A total of CHF 50,000 sponsored by visions sud est (with the support of the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation), the City of Bellinzona, and the Open Doors initiative.   

CHF 20’000  to
A Vineyard for A Lobster by Talemwa Pius, produced by Emmanuel Gashumba (Gripmagic Uganda Limited), Uganda.

Synopsis: “The equatorial village of Rukumba has endured months of drought when suddenly snow falls overnight, an impossible event blanketing the land in white. Kamuturaki (48), a failed trader once mocked for selling winter jackets under the blazing sun, becomes an overnight success. Byeitaka (40), a disgraced preacher, declares the snow divine and sells melted snowflakes as holy water to frightened followers. Kagoro (38), the timid chairman, watches his authority erode as the village reorganizes itself around the miracle. When British envoys arrive promising support for Rukumba’s independence from Uganda in exchange for access to the snow for scientific research, the village committee embraces the deal as progress. As competing ambitions take hold across the village, tensions rise and unrest erupts, forcing Ugandan military forces to intervene. By the time the snowfall melts, Rukumba is no longer a community but a collection of competing interests, each convinced the miracle belongs to them.”
  
CHF 20’000  
Accept My Plea for Burial by Mohammed Sheikh, produced by Kadir Harbi (Aleel Films), Somalia/Djibouti .

Synopsis: “In a remote Somali pastoral village, two 12-year-old boys, Waasuge and Warmooge, spend their days herding goats and playing games. Their playful rivalry turns tragic when Warmooge dies after falling into a steep dry riverbed during a game. No one sees exactly what happened, and the only witness, a mentally unstable man, gives conflicting accounts that deepen the uncertainty. As the village gathers, grief hardens into accusation. Warmooge’s mother, Saluugla, refuses to bury her son without justice, believing burial without accountability would erase his death. The elder, Alamagan, attempts to resolve the conflict through customary law and religious counsel, but the absence of truth fractures the community. Rituals are performed, oaths proposed and broken, and tensions escalate as the unburied body decays. Despite Waasuge’s age and the lack of evidence, the village demands resolution. Understanding what the adults cannot admit, Waasuge makes a choice that ends the conflict.” 
 
  
CHF10’000  
Too Much Music by Aseye Fiagbe, produced by Aseye Fiagbe (Aseye Fiagbe Creative Studio), Ghana.  

Synopsis: “Too Much Music is a feature documentary about Kiki Gyan, a Ghanaian keyboard prodigy who rose to international fame as a teenager with Afro-rock pioneers Osibisa. As his musical contributions expanded without recognition, tensions around credit and ownership led him to leave the band and pursue a solo career across London, Lagos and New York, shaping African disco and funk in the process. Over time, the same system that profited from his brilliance proved indifferent to his vulnerability, and his life became reduced to a singular narrative of addiction and demise. Through archival material and testimonies from family and collaborators, the film reconstructs the forces that shaped his journey and asks how artists are remembered, who controls their stories, and what is lost when brilliance is reframed as failure.”

CNC Development Grant   
The CNC development prize is an incentive for the development of a project for the value of 8,000 euros.  
 
Chapa 100 by Ique Langa, produced by Lara Sousa (Kulunga Filmes), Mozambique.  

Synopsis: “In the busy streets of Maputo, 80-year-old flower vendor Sitóe offers brief moments of beauty to strangers passing through the city’s crowded “chapas”, the local minibuses that carry thousands of people every day. One morning, he meets Valentina, a vegetable seller in her seventies, and a simple flower sparks a quiet romance. Together, they dream of owning a small piece of land where flowers and vegetables can grow side by side. When a thief steals Valentina’s rented wig, Sitóe runs after him and is struck by a speeding chapa. The city moves on, but Sitóe does not. His spirit becomes tied to the very minibus that killed him, traveling through Maputo day after day among passengers carrying their hopes, grief, and exhaustion. Flowers slowly begin to bloom inside the vehicle, subtle signs of his lingering presence. One day, Valentina boards the chapa carrying the flower Sitóe once gave her. Surrounded by the quiet traces of his spirit, she feels his love beside her once again.”
 
Jury statement: “By awarding the CNC grant to the fiction project Chapa 100, directed by Ique Langa, the jury aims to support the development of a work imbued with genuine sensitivity and poetry. The jury was particularly moved by the film’s portrayal of a love story between two elderly characters – a rare theme in cinema – set against the vibrant backdrop of Maputo. Furthermore, the project’s artistic potential is reinforced by the director and producer’s strong commitment to establishing a robust international distribution strategy that would match the film’s universal appeal.”  
  
ARTEKino International Award  
Providing an incentive for the development of a project for the value of 6,000 euros.  

The Ones With the Tempered Flowers by Neema Ngelime, produced by Ivy Kiru (LBx Africa), Tanzania/Kenya.

Synopsis: “For Neema, being a woman has always meant a script: school, marriage, babies. When a doctor tells filmmaker Neema having children might be hard, she doesn’t expect it to confuse her. Those expectations wound her. Raised in a multi-religious home, her identity was forged by questions of what is haram and what would please Jesus. All Neema cared about was which hell she’d end up in. To her, the older women in her family are a mystery beyond work and family. Their lives feel prophetic to her own. Her sister and her try to rewrite their scripts through tarot. Her father taught her that anything is possible. Now he reminds her of her fate. She stages performances with her family, reenacting fragments of their lives. They believe these are fictions. But they’re memories, repurposed, hidden truths surfacing through play. This is the story of a woman studying her body’s relationship to self, society, and the political weight placed on women’s bodies in Tanzania, challenging duty masked as love.”
 
Jury statement: “ARTEKino aims to support emergent contemporary cinema through the ArteKino International Award and the ARTEKino festival. ARTE has decided to reward a young director, whose project is a performative essay and a personal journey that explores the expectations placed on women by family, society and tradition. This is the story of a woman studying her body’s relationship to self, society and the political weight placed on women’s bodies in her country.”  

Sørfond Award  
The prize consists of the participation at the Sørfond Pitching Forum at the Films From the South festival for one of the Open Doors Projects, which will be held in November this year in Norway.   
 
The Ones With the Tempered Flowers by Neema Ngelime, produced by Ivy Kiru (LBx Africa), Tanzania/Kenya . 
 
EAVE Award  
Together with the Film Fund Luxembourg, professional training organization EAVE will offer a scholarship for the EAVE Marketing Workshop worth EUR 4,000.   
 
Mamounata Nikiema (Pilumpiku Production), Burkina Faso  
  
Tabakalera-San Sebastian Film Festival Residency Award  
The prize consists of a residency in Tabakalera and taking part in the industry activities of the San Sebastian Film Festival, given in collaboration with the International Culture Center Tabakalera and San Sebastian Film Festival.  
 
I Live in V.I., by Ugochukwu Azuya, produced by Olubunmi Ogunsola (ENSEMBLE), Nigeria  
 
Jury statement: “We wanted to highlight the following project because it follows a great story that is set and represents a unique and specific spot of its country and has the power to connect with universal concerns like displacement, class struggle and housing and labor pressures.  It is also a project that could benefit from the platform of our festival so that it can open new ways of collaboration, and searching partnerships that allow the film to strenghten and fulfill its necessities. And also: because we believe that every each of us carries a little Florence that tries to make its way in a varied and complex world, we want to welcome the team behind I Live in V.I., so that its producer Olubunmi Ogunsola can come to San Sebastian and make it through with their amazing project.”
  
Rotterdam Lab Award  
In collaboration with IFFR Pro, a participant from the Open Doors Producers will have the chance to take part in the training workshop Rotterdam Lab in January 2027, together with a delegation of more than 70 emerging international producers.   
 
Adja Mariam Mahre Soro (Studio KÄ), Ivory Coast  
 
Jury statement: “For her highly professional approach to her work as a producer and entrepreneur, and for the integrity and commitment she has demonstrated in building and developing her company. Her dedication to strengthening the local ecosystem through training initiatives and international collaborations is equally remarkable. She is now ready to build meaningful collaborations and co-productions across the continent and throughout Europe.”
  
Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)  
A consultancy prize to one selected feature film or series project directed by a national of an OIF Member State within the French-speaking Global South, produced or co-produced by a production company based in one of those same Member States.  
 
Sarah, by Pocas Pascoal, Angola  
 
Jury statement: “A film of revolution and independance, based on a moment in life of a revolutionary and independent woman, one of the first Black female filmmakers: Sarah Maldoror. Sarah by Pocas Pascoal is very promising narratively and visually and it will give space to a beautiful, multilingual, coproduction between several countries from Africa and Europe.”  
  
AFP Critics Prize  
Presented by African Film Press (AFP) LLC, a cross-regional publishing alliance covering the African film, television, and digital media markets. The AFP Critics Prize comprises a USD 500 cash award, a certificate, and ongoing editorial coverage of the recipient and their future work across AFP’s three founding publications: Akoroko, Sinema Focus, and What Kept Me Up.  
 
Submergido, by Ariel Añez, produced by Joseph Mata, co-produced by Ariel Añez (Maochas Filmes), Mozambique  
  
Jury statement: “Sad and poignant yet ultimately hopeful, it offers a moving and incisive exploration of the human cost of conflict, especially for those whose loved ones are directly involved in war.”