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.

Latin America In the News

Ventana Sur, a new Latin American Event was launched today in Cannes. In the current Cannes Film Festival announced the project called South Window, a market to be held in Buenos Aires in partnership with the French festival, the first of its kind that supports Cannes beyond its borders. Jerôme Paillard and Liliana Mazure, president of the National Film Institute (INCAE), will hold Window South, a market, in Buenos Aires in the second half of November at the site of the former store Harrods. Its aim is to boost sales and production not only of Argentine cinema but of all Latin American cinema through the participation of film professionals from around the world.

From Screen International: Pyramide, Wild Bunch, Diaphana, three of the 70 distributors in 19 European countries who make up a pan European network called Europa Distribution want to forge closer ties with Latin America and is seeking funds from MEDIA to do so. Launched in 2006, Europa Distribution would use the money to offer direct support to distributors in the region. The outfit is currently supported by members’ subscriptions. Distributors pay $1,358 (€1000) each per year in annual fees) and has also received $353,249 (€260,000) in support for 2009 from the EU’s MEDIA Programme. Now, it is looking to access an extra $543,461 (€400,000) in MEDIA backing. The idea is to back both Latin-American distributors handling European movies and Europeans distributing Latin-American fare.

Cine Sin Fronteras is a new initiative whose aim is to support distribution of Latin American cinema in Europe and of European cinema in Latin America. It is led by four partners and supported by MEDIA. Partners are Europa Distribution, a network of 70 independent European distributors, CICAE (Confederation Internationale des Cinemas d’Art et d’Essai) a network of exhibitors festivals and some distributor of art movies, ARCALT (Association Rencontre Cinema d’Amerique Latin de Toulouse) which shows also show works in progress in partnership with the San Sebastian Film Festival, and FICCO (Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporaneo de la Ciudad de Mexico). Workshops have already been held in Mexico city and in Toulouse in the first half of 2009.

Don Ranvaud of Buena Onda has partnered with Syrian company The Orient Group and their first production will be the Argentinean film by short filmmaker Dario Nardi "Sadourni's Butterflies". Max Saidel of Latido will be one of four associate producers.

Toonz Animation India and Argentina-based Illusion Studios have inked a co-production deal for a 90-minute 3D animated feature "Gaturro" based on the famous Argentine comic strip of the same name.