Rainbow Girls

"Audiences needed to see these women in their full humanity, understanding their motivations by stepping into the intimate spaces of their world."

In ‘Rainbow Girls’ three young Black trans women push back against a San Francisco selling itself off, reclaiming luxury in a joyous heist. Nana Duffuor tells DN about spinning real life inspiration into a defiant fiction of sisterhood, identity and belonging.

glide (all the people i'll never be)

"Shooting on film, I knew I wanted to be quite minimal with the diversity of shots and instead emphasise the blocking, camera movement, and composition. I wanted to convey the emotional distance within a relationship in a single shot."

Most ghost stories run on terror, but Li Anne Liew instead wanted to capture the quiet ache of being unseen in her tender reverie short 'glide (all the people i’ll never be)'. Shooting on just one roll of 16mm film a day, the team had to rely on heavy rehearsals and available sunlight to bring this haunting, melancholic vision to life.

Filmmakers of the Future: 10 Essential Shorts from the Locarno Film Festival

Every August, Locarno Film Festival turns its attention to the most daring corners of contemporary cinema. This year, its shorts selection felt especially restless, bringing together films shaped by war, politics, identity, desire and the question of how we make sense of a world that seems increasingly difficult to understand.

From teenage oil pageants and haunted trees to lovers racing through a burning world and a conversation with a sniper seen through thermal imaging, this DN selection of Locarno shorts take you somewhere unexpected and leave you there.