Every year, Locarno welcomes the global film industry (around 1,900 attendees in 2024), offering a space for networking, exchange, and discovery of over 100 emerging talents, selected through various incubation activities:
Added to all this is the rich program of talent and films in Open Doors, which this year inaugurates a new cycle dedicated to 42 countries on the African continent.
Locarno Pro's incubation activities are at the heart of the Festival, in keeping with the Festival's DNA, offering those working in the sector a platform for internationalization and the expansion of their professional network.
Special praise goes to Matīss Kaža (Trickster Pictures), producer and screenwriter of FLOW, winner of the Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film 2025 and participant in Match Me! in 2018. This year he returns to Locarno as part of the Latvian Previews, where, together with two other Latvian production professionals, he will present his new projects.
In an increasingly complex context for those working in independent cinema, where there is ever more competition for public funding, Locarno Pro is taking a stand and committing to offering new opportunities for meeting and exchange for those who make up the professional ecosystem. This has led to the creation of the Locarno Investment Community, a group dedicated to discovering new projects and talents in which to invest through private funds.
Based on the assumption that private funds and investments can complement existing public mechanisms in a harmonious way, Locarno Pro has laid the foundations for a day of reflection on the main challenges facing the European and global film industry: the international think tank StepIn. This year's main themes:
As part of Locarno Heritage, the day dedicated to heritage cinema returns this year: Heritage Monday (now in its third edition).
It will be an opportunity to (re)discover recently restored films of the past and to participate in meetings dedicated to the distribution of heritage cinema and its relationship with today's audience.
Locarno Pro will present a film restored by the Locarno Film Festival as part of the Restoration Contest initiative and a film selected by our artistic direction, both supported by the Zurich-based Cinegrell laboratory:
Both will be included in the official selection Histoire du Cinéma(s) – Locarno Heritage.
Together with the Locarno Pro team and all our partners, we are delighted to welcome industry professionals to the 78th edition of the Locarno Film Festival and the most important professional event of the summer.
Markus Duffner
Director
