Industry delegates will be back in Venice in significantly higher numbers than during the Covid-affected editions of 2020 and 2021.
“We have more distributors, more producers and, of course, far more immersive professionals,” Pascal Diot, head of Venice Production Bridge (VPB), says of the 11th edition of the festival’s industry event (running September 1-6). He is predicting that around 2,700 accredited industry representatives will be on the Lido, roughly the same number as in 2019, the last event held pre-pandemic.
Diot also says many of these guests are intending to “stay much longer than before”, bypassing other autumn festivals like Toronto and San Sebastián in order to concentrate their attention entirely on Venice. They can see most of the awards contenders in Venice while cutting down on their carbon footprint.
There isn’t much scope, however, to expand the event further. The Lido is a small, thin strip of land in which accommodation and facilities are limited (and there is still no sign of the famous Grand Hotel des Bains, which shut its doors in 2010, being refurbished).
“I don’t have the infrastructure to welcome 10,000 people. As soon as we are around 2,000-3,000, most of them key decision-makers, it’s fine for me,” says Diot.
Head of VPB since it launched in 2012, Diot says the event was never intended to become a full-blown sales market like Berlin’s EFM or Cannes’ Marché du Film, even as it has grown over the years to include such now regular strands as the Gap Financing Market, the Book Adaptation Rights Market, Final Cut in Venice and its VR strand, Venice Immersive Market (VIM), which this year will be back on Venice Immersive Island (Lazzaretto Vecchio).
While Diot predicts a robust attendance this year, he admits there won’t be many Chinese delegates on the ground due to the country’s ongoing zero-Covid policy. But he also highlights that Venice’s relationship with China is strong and longstanding.
“In China, the Venice festival is more famous than the Cannes film festival, because of the glittering side of Venice, or perhaps because of Marco Polo, I don’t know,” Diot jokes. “For them, Venice has always been the key festival.”
If the Chinese can’t get to Venice, Venice will go to them – Diot notes that the festival will be organising a “Venice Film Week” that will be staged in different Chinese cities later in the autumn.
Streamers and panels
Whereas other festivals have had strained and complicated relationships with the streamers, Venice has always been accommodating to the likes of Netflix, HBO and Amazon – and VPB will again be holding its VoD market days.
“We have been the first big international ‘A’ film festival to welcome the streamers,” Diot states. “It’s not against cinema – it’s something which is in addition to cinema.”
VoD platforms aren’t coming to the Lido to meet sales agents, believes Diot, but are instead focusing on producers. On September 5, VoD outfits including 7 Arts, Cinobo, Filmdoo, Hoanzl, Kinow, MeJane/ Mediachoice, noKzeDoc.tv, OUTtv, PZAZ TV, Shahid, TriArt and WeShort will participate in a panel exploring ways in which they can become involved in production at an earlier stage.
Running September 5-6, the VoD market days will also give European and international VoD platforms and companies the chance to meet international distributors.
Meanwhile, Final Cut in Venice, running September 3-5 and now in its 10th edition, will support films in post-production from Africa, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine and Syria.
There are 33 fiction and documentary projects and 16 VR/immersive projects in the Gap Financing Market, including a selection of titles from the festival’s training initiative, Biennale College Cinema.
Notable projects range from Lina’s 5 Seasons Of Revolution, a feature documentary about a female video reporter in Syria produced by Diana El Jeiroudi, to Jean-Claude Barny’s feature Fanon, based on the life of French political philosopher and anti-colonialist Frantz Fanon.
Diot also points to a higher number of LGBT+-themed films in the selection.
“Another topic is people trying to find their own roots because I think people nowadays are a little bit lost,” the Venice industry boss suggests.
Meanwhile, the Book Adaptation Rights Market is ramping up, with 30 publishers and literary agents invited (up from 25 last year). These include HarperCollins and Penguin Random House Verlagsgruppe as well as several Taiwanese publishers.
VPB will have plenty of talks and debates. The European Producers Club and Italian documentary associtation Doc/IT will host a panel titled Documentary - The New Eldorado on Friday, September 2 at Hotel Excelsior.
Also on September 2 at the Excelsior will be a talk titled Visibility for Diversity – Promotional Strategies for Arthouse Cinema, organised by CICAE and moderated by Screen International editor Matt Mueller. Speakers include CICAE president and CEO of Yorck Kino Group Christian Brauer, Tribeca Film Festival artistic director Frederic Boyer, producer Ada Solomon and The Match Factory’s head of marketing Carolina Jessula.
There will be sessions on Taiwan, France, India and, on September 3, one focused on Saudi Arabia, titled A New Key Player, which will feature speakers from Neom, Film AlUla, Red Sea International Film Festival and the Saudi Arabia Film Commission.
Diot says he is relaxed about the human rights questions involved in working with the Saudis.
“It is an issue – the only thing we can do is through culture to improve human rights everywhere. It is because you are able to show something different that you will be able to move the state of mind of the authorities,” he says. “Our aim is not to have any taboos.”
As one of the core parts of VPB activities, Diot has created a Venice Immersive Market to sit alongside the other industry activities.
“Indeed, they are still looking for a reliable distribution model,” Diot says of the professionals in the VR and immersive space. However, he is convinced that as the sector expands, new business opportunities will emerge. “That is why now we are going beyond VR and why we call [the strand] ‘immersive.’ We are also welcoming XR, VR, metaverse and all those kinds of things.”
On a final note, Diot believes that having the VPB as a physical event is crucial.
“The most important thing for a market is to offer a networking event where people can meet. As we have seen during the pandemic, most of the co-production markets that were online didn’t work because you need to meet people face to face,” he declares.
“This is the core of the market – to bring people together.”
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