27/06/2024 - Projects hailing from all over the world will be presented during the three-day event, while Luxembourg & Wallonia-Brussels and Japan will be the VPB Focuses

The 11th edition of the Venice Gap-Financing Market (running 30 August to 1 September) is set to unspool as usual during the 81st Venice Film Festival (running 28 August to 7 September), where the selected projects hailing from Europe and beyond will get to round off their financing by way of one-to-one meetings with international professionals.

61 projects in the final phases of development and funding, and hailing from all corners of the world, are set to be presented over the course of this three-day event, which is unfolding within the Venice Production Bridge film market. The team behind the co-production market claims to have received somewhere in the region of 320 projects, with the selection reflecting “the great diversity of backgrounds, stories, talent, genres and budgets associated with the projects presented”. The VPB Focuses for this year will be Luxembourg & Wallonia-Brussels, supported by the Film Fund Luxembourg and the Wallonia-Brussels Federation Film and Audiovisual Centre, and Japan, supported by Jetro.

The selection comprises 34 fiction and documentary feature film projects (including 6 VPB Focus projects), 16 immersive projects (11 European and 5 from the rest of the world, of which 4 are VPB Focus projects, spanning fiction films, documentaries, animated films and other interactive installation experiences, all of which have 30% of their budgets guaranteed), 3 Biennale College Cinema projects (at different phases of development and pre-production), and 8 Biennale College Cinema – Immersive projects (at different phases of development, from pre-production through to post-production).

There are 27 fiction film projects in the offing (19 European and 8 from the rest of the world), which will need to round off their finance packages with minority shares in these individual co-productions, and which already have 70% of their funding secured. Among these movies are new projects by filmmakers such as Chile's Theo Court (White on White [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Théo Court
film profile], awarded Best Director in Venice’s Orizzonti line-up), Afghanistan's Shahrbanoo Sadat (Wolf and Sheep [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Shahrbanoo Sadat
film profile], The Orphanage [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Shahrbanoo Sadat
film profile]), Tunisia's Erige Sehiri (Under the Fig Trees [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Erige Sehiri
film profile]), Portugal's Ivo Ferreira (Letters from War [+see also:
film review
trailer
Q&A: Ivo M Ferreira
film profile]) and Spain's Víctor García León (Vete de mí), to name just a few. There are 7 documentary projects in the selection (4 European and 3 from the rest of the world), which are both narrative and creative in nature (and which satisfy the same conditions as fiction films) and which include a new project by Sweden's Ester M. Bergsmark (awarded the Tiger Award at the IFFR for Something Must Break [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]).

Last but not least, the Venice Gap-Financing Market is also organising for the producer-director teams of these 61 projects to meet with decision-makers in the industry (producers, private and public funders, banks, distributors, sales agents, TV networks, streamers, VOD platforms, institutions, post-production companies…).

The full list of projects is as follows:

Films and documentaries

A Sweetness From Nowhere - Ester M. Bergsmark (Sweden/Norway) (documentary)
Production: Garagefilm International

Ama - Yuki Kawamura (Luxembourg/France/Japan) (fiction) (Focus on Luxembourg)
Production: Les Films Fauves, Good Fortune Films, Flag Pictures

Amoeba - Siyou Tan (Singapore/Netherlands/France/Spain) (fiction)
Production: Akanga Film Asia

Becoming Ema - Patricia Drati (Denmark/Spain/Slovakia) (documentary)
Production: Good Company Pictures

Better Class - Victor García León (Spain) (fiction)
Production: Buenapinta Media

Black Water - Aga Woszczyńska (Poland/Finland/Estonia) (fiction)
Production: Lava Films

Cuba & Alaska - Yegor Troyanovsky (Ukraine/France/Belgium) (documentary)
Production: 2Brave Productions, TAG Film

Death Has No Master - Jorge Thielen Armand (Venezuela/Canada/Italy/Luxembourg/Mexico/Spain) (fiction)
Production: La Faena Films, Volos Films Italy

Dengue - Prantik Basu (India/France/Netherlands) (fiction)
Production: Riverine Films, Jba Production, The Film Kitchen

Devolution - Nicolas Boucart (Belgium/Italy/Poland) (fiction) (Focus on Wallonia-Brussels)
Production: Tarantula Belgique

Dust - Anke Blondé (Belgium/Grecia/Poland/UK) (fiction)
Production: A Private View

Global Project - Ivo M. Ferreira (Portugal/Luxembourg) (fiction)
Production: O Som e a Fúria

Golem - Jiří Barta (Czech Republic/France/Slovakia) (fiction/animation)
Production: Hausboot

If I See a Rainbow - Zhao Hao (fiction) (China/France)
Production: Good Time Films

In Alaska - Jaap Van Heusden, Vinnie Karetak (Netherlands/Canada) (fiction)
Production: Ijswater Films

Jealous White Men - Ivan Granovsky (Argentina/Portugal/Italy/Brazil) (fiction)
Production: Frutacine, O Som e a Fúria, Ring Film, Biônica Filmes

La Baleine - Sylvère Petit (France/Spain/Belgium) (fiction)
Production: Les Films d’Ici Méditerranée

Last Night I Conquered the City of Thebes - Gabriel Azorín (Spain/Portugal) (fiction)
Production: DVEIN Films

Legìtima - Elisa Miller (Mexico) (fiction)
Production: Pimienta Films

Love Before Sunrise - Chen-Ti Kuo (Taiwan/Japan) (fiction)
Production: A Thousand Tree Films, J&K Entertainment Inc.

Marie & Jolie - Erige Sehiri (France/Tunisia/Qatar) (fiction)
Production: Maneki Films, Henia Production

Movie Kintsugi(wt) - Eva Knopf (Japan/Germany) (documentary) (Focus on Japan)
Production: Trixta Ltd., Amerikafilm GmbH

No Good Men - Shahrbanoo Sadat (Denmark/Germany/France/Norway) (fiction)
Production: Adomeit Film

The Blood Countess - Ulrike Ottinger (Austria/Luxembourg/Germany) (fiction) (Focus on Luxembourg)
Production: Amour Fou Vienna

The Good Life - Matt Winn (UK) (fiction)
Production: Funny Peculiar Ltd.

The Isle of the Demoiselle - Micha Wald (Belgium/France/Canada) (fiction) (Focus on Wallonia - Brussels)
Production: Stenola Productions

The Life of Simon Jashi - Dmitry Mamuliya (Georgia/France/Lithuania) (fiction)
Production: Millimeter Film

The Magic City - Pablo Guarise, Guillaume Maupin (Belgium/France/Sweden) (documentary) (Focus on Wallonia - Brussels)
Production: Naoko Films

The Reserve- Ezequiel Yanco (Argentina/Spain/Mexico) (documentary)
Production: Isoi Cine, Lacima, Fiasco

The Station - Sara Ishaq (Yemen/Jordan/France/Netherlands/Germany/Norway/Qatar) (fiction)
Production: Screen Project

Theft of Fire - Amer Shomali (Canada/Palestina/France) (documentary)
Production: Intuitive Pictures Inc.

Three Black Nights - Theo Court (Chile/Spain) (fiction)
Production: Quijote Films, El Viaje Films

Tristes Tròpicos - Gastón Solnicki (Austria/Argentina) (fiction)
Production: Little Magnet Films, Filmy Wiktora, Primo

Twins - Eva Neymann (Jordan/Poland/Netherlands) (fiction)
Production: Toy Cinema

Immersive projects

275 Million Births and Deaths - Zam Zadeh (Belgium/Netherlands)
Production: Cassette for Timescapes

A Cure for Straightness - Cameron Kostopoulos (USA/France)
Production: Kost, Floréal

Body/Memory - Stefano Casertano (Germany/Italy)
Production: Daring House

Collective Body - Sarah Silverblatt-Buser (France/USA)
Production: Atlas V

Demaré / a Sensory Journey into the Depths of the Ocean - Emilia Sánchez Chiquetti (Brazil/Argentina/Germany/Austria)
Production: Presencias, Detona Cultura

Dysmorphia: Playing with Reality - May Abdalla, Barry Gene Murphy (France/UK)
Production: Floréal, Anagram

First Virtual Suit - Kazuki Yuhara (Japan) (developed during BCCI 8) (Focus on Japan)
Production: CinemaLeap.inc

Harvest - Matt Shaw, William Trossell (UK)
Production: ScanLAB Projects

Lalalabyrinth (WT) - Pedro Harres (Germany)
Production: Reynard Films

Museva - Sergio Ghizzardi (Belgium/France) (Focus on Wallonia-Brussels)
Production: Domino Production

Resonanz - David Adler, Ioulia Isserlis (Germany/Denmark)
Production: Anotherworld VR

Tachychronia - Gwenael François (Luxembourg/Canada) (Focus on Luxembourg)
Production: Skill Lab

Tempus Alterna - Nimrod Shanit (Luxembourg/Canada) (Focus on Luxembourg)
Production: Blimey, a_BAHN

The Ancestors - Steye Hallema (Netherlands)
Production: The Smartphone Orchestra (WildVreemd)

Tiny People: Prologue - Ricardo Laganaro, Marcelo Marcati (USA/Brazil)
Production: ARVORE Immersive Experiences

When Brooklyn Was Queer- Yasmin Elayat, Wadooah Wali (USA/Australia)
Production: New Canvas

Biennale College Cinema projects

Buio, Dog Days of Summer - Camilla Carè (Italy) (fiction)
Production: Piroetta

Jaysan fiction - Aisha Sultanbekova (Kyrgyzstan)
Production: Koyon Media

The Forest - Bálint Kenyeres (Hungary) (fiction)
Production: Anabanana

Biennale College Cinema – Immersive projects

Edifice - Andreea Ion Cojocaru (Germany/USA)
Production: Numena

Emporia, The Mountain Mermaid - Kirstin Lee Grey Erasmus (South Africa)
Production: Different Immersive

Kitchen of Memories - Mattia Casalegno (USA)
Production: Flavor Five Studio

Library of Dreams - Jane Rzheznikova (Georgia/Germany)
Production: Less Media Group

Mnemosyne - Wuer (China/Japan)
Production: Wuerone Film Production

Mons Venus - Paula Orlando (Argentina)
Production: Groncho Estudio

Proprioceptive Memory - Ben Joseph Andrews, Emma Roberts (Australia)
Production: Pernickety Split

Unscrolling The Truth - Joanna Murzyn (Poland/India)
Production: Eternal Engine

(Translated from Italian)