When Nigeria Happens, a Nigerian contemporary dance feature film by Ema Edosio is set to have its world premiere at the 2025 Locarno Film Festival. It will be the first African film to open the Open Doors Section, a section of the Locarno Film Festival that supports filmmakers from under-represented regions around the world and from countries in which cinema as a form of expression is at risk.

Described by Edosio as “a testament to the resilience, ingenuity, and spirit of the Nigerian youth,” When Nigeria Happens uses dance to offer a unique perspective on Nigeria’s socio-political landscape and to portray the current predicaments of young Nigerian creatives. It will be screened alongside 13 other selected African films.

“The selection of When Nigeria Happens as the first African film to become the opening feature of the Open Doors Section at Locarno is an immense honour,” said director Edosio. “Our film serves as a testament to the resilience, ingenuity, and spirit of the Nigerian youth. In our film, it was important to us that any viewing audience find a reflection of our lived realities. I expect that these kinds of stories will continue to find relevance at home and abroad.”

The Open Doors program will take place in two phases, online between June and July, and onsite between 7th and 12th August, 2025, in the schedule of the Locarno Film Festival and Locarno Pro.

Other African films screening at the festival include Ancestral Visions of the Future, a 2025 co-production of Lesotho, France, Germany, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, directed by Lemohang Jeremiah Mosese. Also selected to screen are Le Rêve de Dieu by directors Fousseyni Maïga and Mariam Kamissoko, and Omi Nobu by director Carlos Yuri Ceuninck, which won the Étalon d’Or for Best Feature Documentary at FESPACO 2023.

Myriam Birara’s The Bride, which earned a Special Mention for the GWFF Best First Feature Award at the 2023 Berlinale as well as So Long a Letter, the debut feature of Angèle Diabang and an adaptation of the acclaimed novel of the same title by Senegalese writer, Mariama Bâ, will also be screening at the festival. The 2022 Africa Movie Academy Awards Best Film winner, Tug of War directed by Amil Shivji, and Nome directed by Sana Na N’Hada, are on the festival roster.

Also screening at the Open Doors Section of the festival are the short films: Yasir Faiz’ Bougainvillea, Patience Nitumwesiga’s Jangu,  Amina Abdoulaye Mamani’s The Envoy of God, Abdoulaye Sall’s Le Dernier Voyage, and Priscillia Kounkou Hoveyda’s Where My Memory Began. All the directors of the selected short films will participate in the Open Doors Directors program.

Asides the African films and directors in film screenings and the Open Doors Directors program categories, other African filmmakers and producers were also selected for the Locarno Open Doors Projects and Open Doors Producers program, respectively.

The films selected for the Open Doors Projects are Kachifo (Till the Morning Comes) directed by Nigerian director and producer Dika Ofoma and Blessing Uzzi’s for BluHouse Studios; Congolese veteran documentary, Les Bilokos, directed by Erickey Bahati and produced by Giresse Kassonga for Gikas Films; the Ivorian and Burkinabé documentary-animation hybrid, Journal Intime d’une Femme-Chèvre (Diary of a Goat Woman), by director Azata Soro and producer Nameita Lica Toure for TSK Films; and Lutteurs (Fighters), a Senegalese film directed by Alassane Sy and produced by Jules Dieng for Thiely Films.

Zimbabwean supernatural mystery, Black Snake, by Zimbabwean-Egyptian director Naishe Nyamubaya and Zimbabwean-American producer Sue-Ellen Chitunya, for 263 Reels Productions, and the Ethiopian dark comedy, The Fortunate directed by Habtamu Gebrehiwot and produced by Nahusenay Dereje for MTF Multimedia, were also selected for the project.

For the Open Doors Producers program, participants selected include Kamy Lara (Angola), Moustapha Sawadogo (Burkina Faso), Leul Shoaferaw (Ethiopia), June Wairegi (Kenya), Yannick Mizero Kabano (Rwanda), and Kudakwashe Maradzika (Zimbabwe).

After three years focused on Latin America and the Caribbean, Locarno Open Doors has shifted its focus to the African continent for the 2025 to 2028 editions, with filmmakers from 42 African countries to benefit from professional development initiatives as well as Locarno’s Open Doors Projects, Producers, and Directors programs, and the festival’s non-competitive section, Open Doors Screenings.