Final Cut in Venice: call for the 9th edition open until 20 June

Launched on 10 March on the website of La Biennale di Venezia www.labiennale.org, is the call for the 9^th edition of the Final Cut in Venice workshop, which will take place September 5^th to 7^th 2021 as part of the Venice Production Bridge of the 78^th Venice International Film Festival (1 – 11 September 2021).

Since 2013, Final Cut in Venice has provided concrete assistance to complete quality films from Africa, as well as Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria.

The 9^th edition of Final Cut in Venice will consist of a three-day workshop (September 5^th to 7^th 2021) on the Lido di Venezia during the 78^th Venice Film Festival, in which up to 6 working copies of selected films-in-progress will be presented to producers, buyers, distributors and film festival programmers.  There will be opportunities for networking, encounters and meetings in which directors and producers will be able to engage with the participants in the workshop. Individual meetings between the teams of the selected films and the professionals will be organized on September 7^th 2021.

To participate in the 9^th Final Cut in Venice, fill in the pre-selection online entry form available on the website www.labiennale.org, and send the materials to the email address finalcut@labiennale.org on or before June 20^th 2021.

The 78^th Venice International Film Festival, directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by La Biennale di Venezia, will be held on the Lido from September 1^st to 11^th 2020.

Over the course of its eight years of activity, Final Cut in Venice has received submissions of over 485 works-in-progress and has selected and presented 46 of them in Venice. It has proven to be a unique opportunity to highlight works and talents from underprivileged and little-known film industries, celebrating their diversity and creativity and contributing to their success at the international film festivals. Among many, we can single out:

• The documentary Obscure (Final Cut 2016), the debut in Venice of Syrian filmmaker Soudade Kaadan, who went on to win the Lion of the Future 2018 for The Day I Lost My Shadow.
• Freedom Fields (Final Cut 2017), by Naziha Arebi, the first feature-length documentary by a Libyan director, which won the BAFTA 2018.
• Félicité (Final Cut 2017) by French-Senegalese filmmaker Alain Gomis, won the Silver Bear – Grand Jury Prize at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival.
• Talking about trees (Final Cut 2018) by Sudanese director Suhaib Gasmelbari, won the Original Documentary Award and Audience Award at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival.
• The debut documentary Makongo by Elvis Sabin Ngaibino (Final Cut 2019) won the Prix International de la Scam (the Festival’s second award) at the 42° Cinéma du reel de Paris 2020 and the Jury Prize for documentaries at the Festival d’Amiens 2020.
• The Congolese documentary En route pour le milliard (Downstream to Kinshasa) by Dieudo Hamadi, awarded the Premio Biennale di Venezia at Final Cut 2019, won the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig 2020 and the Gran Prix for documentaries at the Festival d’Amiens 2020.

Final Cut in Venice will end with the awarding of prizes in kind or in cash, the purpose of which is to provide economic support for the post-production phase of the films.

The following is the list of prizes:

- For the fifth year in a row, La Biennale di Venezia will offer a cash prize of Premio La Biennale di Venezia will be awarded by a jury composed of three members designated by the Festival Director. The other prizes offered by supporting companies – which include, among the many services, colour correction, sound mixing, the creation of a DCP master and subtitles – will be awarded by final and irrevocable decision of the Festival Director, in conjunction with the supporting companies and the heads of the Institutions involved.

- € 15,000 for the colour correction of a feature-length film offered by Laser Film (Rome) for up to 50 hours of work (technician included);

- € 15,000 offered by Mactari Mixing Auditorium (Paris) for the sound mixing of a feature length film (up to 12 days of work, sound mixer not included);

- For a feature-length fiction film a $10,000 MG or for a feature-length documentary a $3,000 MG for marketing, publicity and distribution in the Arab World offered by MAD Solutions for one Arab project (except for projects already funded by MAD Solutions);

- Titra Film (Paris) will offer up to € 5,000 for colour-grading; up to € 3,000 for the production of a DCP master, or the creation of i-Tunes, Google or Netflix files; up to € 2,000 for French or English subtitles (translation not included);

- up to € 7,000 for the creation of the DCP master with Italian or English subtitles, offered by Sub-Ti Ltd. (London);

- up to € 7,000 for the accessible contents of the film for audiences with sensory disabilities: subtitles for the deaf and hearing-impaired and audio description for the blind and visually impaired, including audio subtitles in voiceover, in Italian or English (the subtitles and the audio-described soundtrack for the DCP will be provided) offered by Sub-Ti Access Srl (Turin).

- € 5,000 for the purchase of two-year broadcasting rights by Rai Cinema;

- $ 5,000 awarded to an Arab project and an invitation to participate in the CineGouna Platform offered by the El Gouna Film Festival;

- “Coup de cœur de la Cinémathèque Afrique” Prize, offered by Cinémathèque Afrique of the Institut Français (Paris). The prize consists in the acquisition of the non-commercial and non-exclusive broadcasting rights for 7 years for a value of € 4,000 – € 6,000 depending on the genre and length of the film and the number of available territories;

- participation in the production costs of a DCP (€ 2,500), offered by the Festival International du Film d’Amiens;

- participation in the production costs of a DCP (€ 2,500), offered by the Festival International de Films de Fribourg;

- one of the selected projects will benefit from the Eye on Films label, which will present the film to distributors and festivals affiliated with EoF and will contribute to the communication of the film for a value of € 2,500 on the occasion of its world premiere in an A-category festival.

Final Cut in Venice, together with the Venice Gap-Financing Market and the Book Adaptation Rights Market, is one of the initiatives offered by the Venice Production Bridge, the film market of the Venice International Film Festival which is conceived as an opportunity for meeting and networking with all categories of professionals involved in the production of films: producers, financiers, distributors, sales agents, public and private investment funds, banks, film commissions, broadcasters, and Internet platforms.