Venice International Film Festival Adds a New Category With Award

This goes against the grain of the population's reduced attention spans, but adds something new in the festival world.  The 67th Venice Film Festival's (September 1-11, 2010) Horizontal Section, the "Orizzonti", is creating four new awards to "extra-format" works which means Very Long Feature Films will receive a special award for its category, as well as three other new awards for long feature, short feature and medium feature formats.

They will also award John Woo with the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement.

The 67th Festival’s advisors for the various regions of the world are: Paolo Bertolin (South Korea/South-east Asia); Dora Bouchoucha (Africa and Arab world); Chen Zhiheng (China); Cecilia Cossio (India); Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan (USA); Fabio Fumagalli (Benelux, Portugal, Switzerland); Babak Karimi (Iran); Donald Ranvaud, Luciano Barisone (Central and South America); Alëna Shumakova (Russia and former USSR countries); and Tomita Mikiko (Japan).And the Venice Film Festival’s Selection Committee has continue to operate in 2010 which will include: Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, Giorgio De Vincenti, Marie-Pierre Duhamel, Antonella Gaeta and Alberto Pezzotta. Alongside them will be Enrico Magrelli as the Director’s advisor.

With them will be the two researchers for the Orizzonti section: Cecilia Alemani and Sergio Fant.

Berlin Begins

Berlin begins for me with a two day seminar at Deutsche Welle Akademie aimed at acquainting film festival directors from Africa and Asia with EFM and networking opportunities.  An arresting array of festivals, large and small include Vilole Images from Zambia, Thai Short Film & Video Festival, Zanzibar International Film Festival, KwaZulu Natal African Film Festival, Encounters South African International Documentary FF from Capetown, Cinemalaya from the Philippines, Festival International du Cinema d'Auteurs from Rabat Morocco, Jakarta International Film Festival, Hello Festival of Motion Picture Arts from Jakarta, Ahmedabad International Film Festival from India, Southern Pocket Film Festival from Guangzhou, China and Burundi International Film Festival.

Any readers looking to network during the Berlinale, especially Film Festivals looking to expand and partner up, these festivals are all specially selected by German news agency Deutsche Welle.  You are invited to their reception February 17 6-8 at the Helene Schwarz Cafe in the Sony Center at Potsdamer Platz.  Hope to see you there!