The Trapper’s Snare and Burqa Boxers win the Open Doors Co-Production Lab awards.

Two of the Indian projects at this year’s edition of the Open Doors co-production lab shared the top award financed by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation.

An Open Doors grant of CHF 30,000 went to Shanker Raman’s directorial debut The Trapper’s Snare set against the civil war in Sri Lanka, to be produced by Chasing Tales, while a second grant worth CHF 20,000 was awarded to Alka Raghuram for her documentary Burqa Boxers.

A development grant of €7,000 from France’s CNC went to Anup Singh’s The Gentle Dance (Lasya) to be produced by German producer Johannes Rexin of Cologne-based Heimatfilm.

Rexin told ScreenDaily in Locarno that he ia presently finalising the financing on another feature by Singh before The Gentle Dance, Qissa, which will begin shooting in India in December as a co-production with Netherlands‘ Bero Beyer, and France’s Thierry Lenouvel of Cine-Sud Promotion, with backing from Eurimages, Fonds Sud, Filmstiftung NRW and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

In addition, a development grant worth €6,000 was presented by ARTE to Sourav Sarangi’s Char…The Island Within which already has on board Stefano Tealdi of Italy’s Stefilm International and Signe Byrge Sorensen of Copenhagen-based Final Cut for Real.

This year’s Locarno Film Festival is presenting three films which had participated as projects in previous editions of Open Doors, such as last year’s main award-winner, Kazakh director Nariman Turebayev’s Sunny Days, which is screening in the Filmmakers of the Present competition.

Meanwhile, the official festival prizes and honours from other organisations are being handed out on a daily basis ahead of the closing awards ceremony on Saturday evening on the Piazza Grande.

Tuesday evening saw the veteran US producer Mike Medavoy receive the Raimondo Rezzonico Prize before the world premiere of Achim von Borries‘ German-Russian-Ukrainian co-production 4 Days In May, and Wednesday (today) will see Lucerne-born screenwriter, director and producer Villi Hermann coming on stage to pick up the Premio Cinema Ticino.

This prize was awarded for the first time in 2009 and  pays tribute to the work of a personality from or resident in Ticino for at least five years, who has a distinguished film career.

The Premio Cinema Ticino is awarded every two years and comes with a purse of CHF 30,000.

In addition, the internet TV channel art-tv.ch announced the winners of this year’s Swiss Film Pearls. Michael Steiner’s 2010 box-office hit Sennentuntschi was the winner in the Best Feature Film category, while Mano Khalil’s Unser Garten was named Best Documentary.

At an exclusive soiree in the Ramada Arcadia Al Lago Hotel, two Honorary Pearls were presented to two distinguished figures of Swiss cinema who have shown particular commitment over the year to promoting Swiss film culture.

Those honoured were the international face of Swiss Films for many years, Francine Brücher, and avid film stills and poster collector André Chevailler, one of the leading lights at the Cinémathèque Suisse in Lausanne.

Moreover, the Swiss Authors Society SSA announced the names of winners of its annual script competition to receive grants totalling CHF 160,000 on Wednesday morning.

The lucky recipients include such writer-directors as Lionel Baier, Elena Hazanova, Yves Yersin and the writing team of Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond.

At the same time, the SUISA Foundation revealed that its jury had been unanimous in selecting Niki Reiser’s score of Hans Steinbichler’s Promising The Moon over more than 20 other candidates for the Foundation’s 2011 Music Prize.

It is the second time that Reiser has won the SUISA Music Prize since he received it in 2001 for his composition for Kalt Ist Der Abendhauch.