Six projects from Ghana, Mozambique, Nigeria, Somalia, Tanzania and Uganda are looking for international partners through Locarno Pro’s Open Projects Hub.
Accept My Plea For Burial
Dir: Mohammed Sheikh
Prod co: Aleel Films
Accept My Plea For Burial is the second feature of Somali-American filmmaker Mohammed Sheikh following Barni, which debuted in competition at the Red Sea International Film Festival in 2025.
The new feature is set in a Somali village and is the story of two 12-year-old boys. When one dies in disputed circumstances, his mother refuses to bury her son without justice, believing burial without accountability would erase his death. The village elder attempts to resolve the conflict through customary law and religious counsel, but the community fractures under the weight of the uncertainty.
Sheikh has reunited with producer Kadir Harbi of Minneapolis and Mogadishu-based Aleel Films, who also produced Barni. The drama is personal to both Sheikh, who was born in a refugee camp in Ethiopia to Somali parents before he and his family moved to the US, and Harbi, who comes from Somalia and Djibouti.
“Bringing a film rooted in this living customary law to the screen matters deeply, not as heritage cinema, but as a contemporary moral conflict that still governs real lives across Somali communities and beyond,” notes Harbi.
Accept My Plea For Burial has already secured support from the Doha Film Institute and Aflamuna Connection, a co-production platform for filmmakers in the Arab region.
Chapa 100
Dir: Ique Langa
Prod co: Kulunga Filmes
Mozambican writer and director Ique Langa, whose debut feature O Profeta screened in competition at the International Film Festival Rotterdam earlier this year, is bringing Chapa 100 to Locarno Pro. Described as an urban, surrealist love story, Langa’s second feature is set in Maputo, among the the city’s ‘chapas’, the local minibuses that carry thousands of people every day. It details the story of an 80-year-old flower vendor who meets a vegetable seller, sparking a gentle romance.
Chapa 100 producer Lara Sousa, who founded Maputo-based Kulunga Filmes to nurture Mozambican and Lusophone stories, first met Langa via his debut O Profeta, where she served as story consultant. Chapa 100 has secured 12.52% of financing,” Sousa explains. “We continue to collaborate with Portuguese producer Midas Filmes, with whom we have a relationship from previous projects.”
Sousa and Langa are keen to negotiate equity agreements to build an “innovative marketing and distribution strategy” for their film.
I Live in V.I.
Dir: Ugochukwu Azuya
Prod co: Ensemble
“What shapes this story are Nigerian eccentricities and our bravado, the spirit of adapting to the most dire of situations with sheer ingenuity, our sardonic sense of humour,” says Lagos-based Ugochukwu Azuya of her debut feature.
The social class satire I Live in V.I. is the story of a young woman from a small town who travels to Lagos to start a job in the hospitality industry following the sudden loss of her father. But Lagos is not what it promised to be as she struggles with a tough commute to Victoria Island. She moves into an abandoned building near her work and creates a fake life and family.
Azuya and producer O.O Ogunsola co-founded Ensemble, an independent production company. I Live in V.I marks the team’s debut feature. Their short Saint Simeon (2025), directed by Ogunsola, premiered at Venice in 2025. Azuya’s directorial debut short Swimming In A Sea Of Trauma, a ghost story about memories of the Biafra War, premiered in Rotterdam in 2023.
The Ones With The Tempered Flowers
Dir: Neema Ngelime
Prod co: LBx Africa
Tanzanian documentary photographer and filmmaker Neema Ngelime works from a feminist and experimental perspective. Her debut feature- length project The Ones With The Tempered Flowers is a non-linear, diary-like essay spanning Neema’s 1990s childhood through adulthood and the contradictions of contemporary Tanzania.
The film explores Ngelime’s struggle with her sense of self and who she is as a woman in society when she is told by a doctor she might not be able to have children.
“While rooted in the experiences of young African women, it speaks to a universal audience, inviting viewers to reflect on their own relationships with identity, self-expression and societal constructs,” says Ngelime.
The project is being produced by Nairobi-based Ivy Kiru for Kenyan production company LBx Africa. “Though we both live in different countries, we recognise the same tensions,” says Kiru.
The One With The Tempered Flowers is in late development, supported by the DW Akademie Development fund and Documentary Africa’s EAccelerate fund.
Too Much Music
Dir: Aseye Fiagbe
Prod co: Aseye Fiagbe Creative Studio
Too Much Music is the debut documentary feature of Ghanaian filmmaker and photographer Aseye Fiagbe. Based in Accra, the self-taught filmmaker came to filmmaking through sociology, photography and nine years working in production across commercials, documentaries and independent film.
Too Much Music details the story of Kiki Gyan, a Ghanaian keyboard prodigy who rose to international fame as a teenager with Afro-rock pioneers Osibisa. As his musical contributions expanded without recognition, tensions around credit and ownership led him to leave the band and pursue a solo career across London, Lagos and New York, while shaping African disco and funk.
Mixing archival material and testimonies from family and collaborators, the film reconstructs his life and asks how artists are remembered, who controls their stories, and what is lost when brilliance is reframed as failure.
Fiagbe founded Aseye Fiagbe Creative Studio in Accra in 2022 to produce commercials and documentaries
A Vineyard For A Lobster
Dir: Talemwa Pius
Prod co: Gripmagic
Ugandan screenwriter and director Talemwa Pius’s debut feature A Vineyard For A Lobster is produced by Kampala- based Gripmagic founder Gashumba Emmanuel.
The film is set in the equatorial village of Rukumba, where, after months of drought, snow falls overnight, sparking tension and debate among the villagers. Adding to the unrest is a visit from a British delegation that promises support for Rukumba’s independence from Uganda in exchange for access to the snow for scientific research.
Pius, an alumnus of the New York Film Academy and a Talents Durban 2025 fellow, says he wants the film “to feel grounded and unsettling, immersing the audience in a community breaking under its own contradictions.”
Producer Emmanuel has over a decade of film, TV and commercials experience. He says one of the project’s most distinctive production challenges will be realising the snowfall phenomenon at the heart of the story. “We are exploring approaches ranging from practical effects to VFX solutions and location strategies and see this as an opportunity for creative collaboration.”
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