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Dutch Co-Pros At Locarno

Two minority Dutch co-productions have been selected for Locarno's The Films After Tomorrow initiative: Chocobar and Eureka.

Chocobar by Argentine director Lucrecia Martel, is co-produced by Amsterdam-based company Lemming Film. The filmmaker describes her first non-fiction film as a "hybrid, creative documentary" about the murder of indigenous activist Javier Chocobar by a white landowner. After a decade of research, Chocobar was at a key stage of production when it was interrupted.

Eureka is a western by Lisandro Alonso, who was directing outside his native Argentina for the first time, with an ensemble of international cast and crew, when Covid-19 hit the shooting in Portugal. Exploring the connections between the different cultures inhabiting a land through time is at the heart of Eureka. Creative producer is Ilse Hughan from Fortuna Films in the Netherlands.

Both Chocobar and Eureka have received support from the NFF+HBF Co-Production Scheme, a collaboration between the Netherlands Film Fund and the Hubert bals Fund.

The two projects are among the twenty films, in suspended state, competing at the Locarno Film Festival for the 2020 Pardo. These are the feature length projects that the selection committee, headed by Artistic Director Lili Hinstin, has chosen for The Films After Tomorrow, the strand of Locarno 2020 - For the Future of Films that has been conceived to offer support to filmmakers who had to put production on hold because of the lockdown.

From 5 to 15 August the Locarno 2020 audience will be able to access a presentation of the selected projects on the Festival website. Users will find plot synopses and pictures from the projects, as well as a video presentation on the films in progress and their directors. During the same period, some of the selected filmmakers will hold online masterclasses open to the public, discussing their work and reflecting on what the future may hold for cinema.

On Saturday August 15, which would have featured the awards ceremony of the 73rd Locarno Film Festival, the two international juries of The Films After Tomorrow will announce the two winners of the Pardo 2020, worth 70,000 Swiss francs and to be used to complete the films in question.

For more information: 73rd Locarno Film Festival: www.locarnofestival.ch

Source: Eye International