African filmmakers have gone through before. Mati Diop (Atlantics) and Rungano Nyoni (I Am Not a Witch) both brought early projects to Locarno’s Open Doors, years before the platform committed to more countries on the continent. Diop’s debut feature was incubated in the 2012 edition, which targeted Francophone Sub-Saharan Africa, while Nyoni participated in 2014, when the focus expanded to 25 Sub-Saharan countries.
In 2025, Open Doors widens its reach to 42 African nations in this Africa-centred cycle. Among the six projects in the 2025 Projects line-up is Dika Ofoma’s Kachifo (Till the Morning Comes), produced by Blessing Uzzi of Bluhouse Studios in Nigeria. They join a slate of work from DR Congo, Ivory Coast, Ethiopia, Senegal and Zimbabwe.
The latest cycle was announced in November 2024, followed a month later by an outreach stop in Lagos, where Delphine Jeanneret, head of Open Doors Directors, presented the programme at S16 Film Festival. Among those in attendance was Dika Ofoma, a regular at the community-driven festival (where he received a Rising Star Award). “I knew of Locarno Open Doors before S16 and had considered it,” Ofoma said in a conversation with WKMUp. “The workshop with Delphine gave me a clearer understanding of what was required and pushed me to apply.”
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The Open Doors Projects segment functions as an international co-production workshop for projects in development, pairing directors and producers with potential partners. Over three months — first online in June and July, then on site during the Locarno Film Festival and Locarno Pro from August 7 to 12 — participants receive targeted coaching, pitch their work, and meet producers, funders, and distributors. The goal extends beyond finding foreign investment or one-off exposure. It is also about building long-term capacity in the regions represented.
Despite submitting, Ofoma says he wasn’t aiming for selection so much as “a trial ahead of the next one.” He had applied to other labs and workshops in the past without success, and even faced rejection from film school, an episode he jokingly calls “the great depression of 2022.” On the call was also Uzzi, founder of Bluhouse, who cuts in to tease that he still needs to attend film school before making his feature debut.
Ofoma’s path to Kachifo runs through a steadily expanding body of short films, from 9 to 27 minutes runtime. His earliest works — Soma, The Way Things Happen, and Nkemakonam — went straight to YouTube, often made with and inspired by friends who pushed him to take filmmaking more seriously. Industry figures like CJ Obasi encouraged him to submit them to festivals, though at the time he only thought of the shorts “as a way to learn”. Receiving further informal mentorship from CJ, Abba Makama and Michael Omonua, more intention came with A Japa Tale, A Quiet Monday and God’s Wife, which have travelled to festivals including S16 Film Festival (an influential Nigerian pipeline), Kurzfilmtage Winterthur, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and the New York African Film Festival, placing his work in front of a wider and global industry audience where more opportunities could emerge.
Those early, modest YouTube shorts laid the groundwork for his connection with producer Blessing Uzzi. “Before I work with you, you need to have made something, no matter how small. I need to see that you can actually do it,” Uzzi said. Their paths crossed when he replied to her tweet about wanting either to make her first feature by 25 or help someone else make theirs. She was struck by the fact that his first shorts had been made for about 60,000 to 100,000 naira. It wasn’t just the budgets. She saw the potential of his voice in the films, recognizing that his work could grow with more resources. Together, they went on to make Ofoma’s A Quiet Monday, which has screened on the festival circuit, and Obi is a Boy, still awaiting release.
Bluhouse Studios has also backed other titles less familiar to the general audience, including I Hate It Here by Dammy Twitch and Uzzi’s own feature debut, No Man’s Land, both unreleased. More recognisable are recent projects such as Lekan Afolabi’s Freedom Way, which secured a July theatrical release following a festival run, and the well-received Zikoko Life, a three-part anthology YouTube series funded by the Gates Foundation and produced with Big Cabal Media. The topical Zikoko Life brought Uzzi together for the first time with creatives like Victor Daniel, Olamide Adio and Uzoamaka Power. As showrunner, Uzzi managed a mix of first-time collaborators in a timely public-facing turn for a studio that, until recently, had kept most of its work under wraps.
Uzzi grounds Bluhouse’s collaborative approach in “shared film sensibilities and conviction.” The projects emerging from Bluhouse so far reflect that intention, inviting cultural journalists and critics to engage with them as more than plot, gauging the pulse of our times in commentary that can be interrogated regardless of whether the viewer liked them. At the core, she says, “I want to tell human stories with relatability and authenticity at the heart with talents who genuinely care about the work they do.” For Ofoma, the partnership works because of aligned vision and trust. “When I’m working with somebody who knows the story I want to tell and understands the vision, it makes the work easy.”
The trust was at first sight. From their very first meeting, Uzzi was taken by the idea of Kachifo: “It is a unique love story with depth that has so much life and heart to it. I didn’t need to read a script. It just worked in my mind.” She pushed for it to become a feature, shelving it until the time was right. Ofoma had been carrying the story since his university days. He was never satisfied with the ending, but always felt connected to the story, keeping it in hibernation, never dead, just waiting to be awakened when the time was right. The project’s reincarnation queer romance, set in both pre-colonial Igbo society and modern-day Nigeria, cites some of its inspiration to Mati Diop’s Atlantics. “It was a point of reference while developing the story. Atlantics as a Locarno alum was also a good sign,” Ofoma, who has also re-read Achebe’s “The African Trilogy” for research, revealed.
Another underrated trait for a creative is the ability to bide time. “I’m not anxious about making it soon… I’m willing to stay the course,” Ofoma said. “It’s really about making the best thing possible and aligning with the right people whenever it aligns.” Now, with Locarno, Kachifo is a project they are nursing through the Open Doors programme, which he likens to a film school. “The feedback has been good. It’s been a good experience,” he said of the feedback so far. Uzzi adds, “You start seeing where your project might fit in the world… what kinds of partners are out there and how they think.” The application process, however, was intensive: “Locarno required about 40 pages of documents. You had to send things from the story angle—treatment, synopsis, logline—and then budgets and plans.” For future applicants, he advises, “Your why needs to be taken seriously. Go in depth. Check within yourself and your story for what makes you stand out.”
Looking ahead, both see Locarno as a way to connect with international partners. “They want to connect you to people that could potentially be interested in the film… film isn’t made by one person,” Uzzi said. Her ambitions are global: “Looking for an A24. A for A24, B for Bluhouse,” but she insists on remaining authentic, believing that “a good story should be able to be universal.” The goal is for Bluhouse projects to be globally relevant, a vision gradually reflected in its path with Freedom Way and its slate of shorts. She has no plans to stop travelling to festivals, even if such appearances can affect a film’s reception at home, because of the way audiences sometimes perceive festival titles.
Moreover, co-productions with foreign entities can also risk alienating local audiences — as Kenyan producer Wairegi participating in Open Doors told Sinemafocus, “If your film is backed by European funding, chances are people back home might never get to see it.” Uzzi sees this as a lesson: her aim is to make films that appeal to a wide audience, are well-crafted, and still have a festival life. She also emphasizes that Nigerian audiences should not assume festival films are inherently inaccessible. While there are further valid concerns to have due to the current industry distribution woes and future censorship that Kachifo could face, Ofoma is confident Kachifo will find its audience, even if not via “traditional distribution.” Their priority is to make the work thoroughly, whether that’s a drama or “a universal comedy that resonates beyond the shores of Nigeria.”
Uzzi is well aware of the demands, the work that goes into scripting, multiple drafts, internal critique, and collaborating with international script editors who may have no context for Nigeria, to ensure the story remains universal. All of this feeds into a five-year vision of “collaborations with top talents and companies globally, such as A24, Neon, Universal, Disney.” She is also clear-eyed about the realities: just like Rugano Nyoni, who landed a Zambia-UK-France co-production in 2017 and Mati Diop with a Senegal–France–Belgium co-production in 2019 for their respective Open Doors projects, it is not all smooth sailing after a first or second feature. Certain industry gaps and structural issues persist. But first, they remain patiently excited about what the other side of the Open Doors holds.
Kachifo, still in development, picked up the Open Doors Grant, ARTE Kino International Prize, and SØR Fund Award, announced on August 12 at the Locarno Open Doors closing.
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