“Final Cut: New African Shorts” will take place during the 30th Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, scheduled to take place from 3rd to 8th November, 2026.
By Adedamola Jones Adedayo
Open Doors, the flagship co-production and talent development platform of the Locarno Film Festival, has partnered with Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, Switzerland’s leading short film festival, to launch “Final Cut: New African Shorts”, an initiative dedicated to outstanding short film projects from 42 countries across the African continent.
The call for entries is currently open through an online submission form and will close on 17th August, 2026. The initiative is supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), part of the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA).
Applications are free of charge. However, applicants must complete the submission forms in English and possess a working knowledge of the language to facilitate participation. Project directors must be citizens of any of the 42 eligible African countries listed in the eligibility document available on Locarno’s official platform.
The programme welcomes short film projects in any genre or format, produced in any official or widely spoken language of the eligible countries. Eligible submissions must be works-in -progress in their final stages of post-production, must not have premiered publicly or have been selected by another festival, and must be scheduled for completion during the first half of 2027.
The finished film must not exceed 30 minutes in length. Rough cuts submitted for the pre-selection process must include English or French subtitles, while selected projects will be required to provide English subtitles.
Selected filmmakers will pitch their nearly completed short films to international industry professionals at Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur. The programme covers participants’ travel, accommodation, subsistence, and festival accreditation expenses.
One of the work-in-progress projects will then be selected as part of Cannes’ Le Short Film Corner | Rendez-vous industry, with accreditations granted to the producer and director. The project will either join the four-day SFC | Rendez-vous Industry programme or proceed to The Lab Editing Room, an initiative targeting short films in post-production, with promising consultations around editing, sound design, sales, distribution, etc. The work-in-progress projects will be presented in the Video Library of the SFC | Rendez-vous Industry in Cannes in May 2027.
Since its inception in 2003, Locarno Open Doors has supported filmmakers from historically underserved regions through funding, industry networking, mentorship, and co-production backing. Likewise, Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, founded in 1997, has grown into both a leading public short film festival and a major international industry hub for filmmakers, producers, distributors, programmers, and sales agents. Their collaboration on Final Cut: New African Shorts extends their shared commitment to discovering, nurturing, and championing emerging filmmaking talent.
“Final Cut: New African Shorts” will take place during the 30th Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, scheduled to take place from 3rd to 8th November, 2026.