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Open Doors, the Locarno Film Festival’s co-production platform and talent development programme, has unveiled the projects and producers taking part in its 23rd edition, which this year is focused on the African continent.

The Open Doors programme, which runs during the festival’s industry strand Locarno Pro from August 7-12, is dedicated to emerging voices from Africa for its upcoming four editions after a three-year cycle focused on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Six projects in development have been selected for co-production platform Open Doors Projects. They are:

Congolese army veteran documentary Bilokos (Les Bilokos) directed by Erickey Bahati...

Open Doors, the Locarno Film Festival’s co-production platform and talent development programme, has unveiled the projects and producers taking part in its 23rd edition, which this year is focused on the African continent.

The Open Doors programme, which runs during the festival’s industry strand Locarno Pro from August 7-12, is dedicated to emerging voices from Africa for its upcoming four editions after a three-year cycle focused on Latin America and the Caribbean.

Six projects in development have been selected for co-production platform Open Doors Projects. They are:

Congolese army veteran documentary Bilokos (Les Bilokos) directed by Erickey Bahati...

Writers Guild of America (WGA) has announced its 2026 awards ceremony will take place on March 8 next year.

As usual the event is split between the East and West chapters and will take place at Edison Ballroom in New York City and the Jw Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live, respectively.

Last season saw Sean Baker receive the original screenplay award for Anora whileRaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes took the adapted prize for Nickel Boys.

The Guild will reveal its full awards season timeline including the nomination announcement date later this summer.

Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, first Arab and African director to win Cannes Palme d’Or,...

Writers Guild of America (WGA) has announced its 2026 awards ceremony will take place on March 8 next year.

As usual the event is split between the East and West chapters and will take place at Edison Ballroom in New York City and the Jw Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live, respectively.

Last season saw Sean Baker receive the original screenplay award for Anora whileRaMell Ross and Joslyn Barnes took the adapted prize for Nickel Boys.

The Guild will reveal its full awards season timeline including the nomination announcement date later this summer.

Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, first Arab and African director to win Cannes Palme d’Or,...

Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, the first Arab and African director to win the Cannes Palme d’Or, has died aged 91.

His family confirmed last week he died at his home in Algiers on May 23, the same day Cannes screened his 1975 Palme d’Or-winning film Chronicle Of The Years Of Fire in its Cannes Classics programme.

Chronicle Of The Years Of Fire isa drama set between 1939 and 1954, about the Algerian war of independence. He also competed at the festival with The Winds Of The Aures (which won the prize now known as the Caméra d’Or in 1967), Sandstormin 1982 and Last Image in 1986.

The...

Chronicle of the Years of Fire took the prize in 1975 for its portrayal of the Algerian war of independence, drawing on his own traumatic history

Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, the first Arab and African director to win the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival, has died aged 91, his family said Friday.

The film-maker was awarded the prize in 1975 for Chronicle of the Years of Fire, a historical drama about the Algerian war of independence.

Algerian director Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, whose 1975 drama Chronicles of the Years of Fire remains Africa’s only Cannes Palme d’Or to this day, has died at the age of 91.

Lakhdar-Hamina’s family said the producer and director died at his home in the Algerian capital of Algers on May 23.

In quirk of fate, the Cannes Film Festival screened Chronicles of the Years of Fire in its Cannes Classics program that day, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of the film’s Palme d’Or, in the presence of the director’s son Malek Lakhdar-Hamina.

Set between the late 1930s and 1954, the movie retells the Algerian War of Independence through the eyes of a peasant farmer, exploring the roots of the movement and depicting the harshness of French colonial rule.

In an era in which the film world had yet to start embracing diversity, Lakhdar-Hamina was one of the few African...

Quentin Tarantino will be the guest of honour at Cannes Classics, the repertory cinema strand of Cannes Film Festival’s Official Selection.

Tarantino will present two western films by George Sherman – 1949’s Red Canyon, and 1950’s Comanche Territory – and will take part in a discussion with critic and filmmaker Elvis Mitchell.

Scroll down for the full selection of Cannes Classics titles

The Classics lineup includes the Cannes pre-opening film, a 4K restoration of Charlie Chaplin’s 1925 The Gold Rush, restored by the L’Immagine Ritrovata laboratory at the Fondazione Cineteca di Bologna. Mk2 Films is arranging a worldwide re-release of the...

Quentin Tarantino will be guest of honor of Cannes Classics this year with a special tribute devoted to late low-budget westerns director George Sherman.

The Cannes regular, who won the Palme d’Or winner for Pulp Fiction and President of the Jury in 2004, will share his passion for Sherman’s work with screenings of two of his westerns made for Universal Pictures – Red Canyon and Comanche Territory – in one of his most creative periods.

Tarantino will participate in a conversation about Sherman moderated by critic and documentary filmmaker Elvis Mitchell.

Other highlights of the program devoted to classic cinema include a pre-opening screening of Charlie Chaplin’s The Gold Rush, to mark the centenary of its making, as well as a 25th anniversary screening of Amores perros by Alejandro G. Iñárritu, in the presence of director, and the 50th anniversary screening of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.

Shia Labeouf...

As much as people have quibbles with (much more democratically voted-on) awards like the Oscars, the decisions by juries at film festivals tend to be even more contentious. Usually drawn from practitioners and actors, with a few other curious participants in there as well, jurors often come in with their own likes, dislikes and agendas, and in the absence of a unanimous choice, often end up settling for compromises.

Indeed, this year's Cannes Film Festival jury president Nanni Moretti said, after the awards were unveiled this past weekend, that none of the them were unanimously voted for (word is Andrea Arnold in particular was a fervent opponent of Leos Carax's "Holy Motors"). That being said, their Palme D'Or winner was a popular one: while a few critics were rooting for "Holy Motors," almost everyone was delighted that Michael Haneke's "Amour" picked up the prize (his second in four years,...

So, it’s the final day at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and, if you’ve been around these parts in the last few weeks, you’ll know about our excitement at the fact that an African film, Un homme qui crie (A Screaming Man), by Chadian filmmaker, Mahamet-Saleh Haroun is in competition for this year’s Palm d’or. Reviews coming out of Cannes have been quite positive and, as of the date of the film’s screening, on May 16th, its has been seen by some as a front-runner for the top prize.

Following up Tambay’s “first look” post over a week ago, I’ve been watching Haroun’s Cannes 2010 coverage on the official Cannes Film Festival website, which now has english language subtitled clips from the film, as well as photo call, press conference and red carpet coverage.

For those of you who didn’t catch Tambay’s post,...