Six Canadian Projects Picked for Locarno Pro’s First Look Works-in-Progress Section

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On Tuesday, six emerging Canadian film projects were revealed as part of the Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro First Look program, which showcases films still in production.

After receiving over 40 submissions, an initial selection was made by a committee consisting of Ana David (Berlinale Panorama, Márgenes, Queer Lisboa), Tom McSorley (Canadian Film Institute), and Alex Masson (San Sebastian International Film Festival). These chosen projects will be showcased to industry professionals during the Locarno Film Festival by their producers.

An international jury, comprised of Franck Finance-Madureira, a film critic and founder of the Queer Palm and the Queer Palm Lab, Kim Yutani, director of programming at the Sundance Film Festival, and Jacqueline Lyanga, co-director of film programming at the Berlin International Film Festival, will present several awards. These include prizes for post-production services, music supervision services, and image finishing services, among others.

The winners will be announced during the Locarno Pro awards ceremony on Sunday, Aug. 10. Locarno Pro runs from Aug. 7-12. Here is a closer look at this year’s selected projects:

– Lhasa, directed by Sophie Leblond and produced by Metafilms (Canada), is a documentary about the life and career of Lhasa de Sela, a woman and artist, from her nomadic childhood in Mexico to her untimely death from cancer at age 37.
– Lunar Sway, directed by Nick Butler and produced by Cloudy Pictures (Canada), is a fiction film about an eccentric young man named Cliff who lives in the small desert town of Mooncrest. His life is turned upside down when his estranged birth mother arrives unexpectedly.
– Nina Roza, directed by Geneviève Dulude-De Celles and produced by Colonelle films (Canada), follows an 8-year-old Bulgarian artist whose work catches the eye of a major art collector. The film explores the protagonist’s past as he confronts his own ghosts.
– Thanks to the Hard Work of the Elephants, directed by Bryce Hodgson and produced by Coukuma (Canada), is a fiction film based on a true story about two teenage boys who escape an abusive youth lockdown center while high on LSD and start an alternative youth commune in a nearby forest.
– Veins, directed by Raymond St-Jean and produced by 1976 productions (Canada), is a fiction film about a young woman investigating the mystery surrounding her father’s sudden death in a semi-abandoned Canadian village.
– We Will Not Be Silenced, directed by Catherine Hébert and Elric Robichon and produced by Films Camera Oscura (Canada), is a documentary that follows the journeys of three writers and a publisher who are persecuted for their work, revealing how repression turns into resistance and exile into defiance.

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2025-07-16 11:54