Final Cut in Venice: call for the 10th edition opens

Launching on the website of La Biennale di Venezia, is the call for the 10th edition of the Final Cut in Venice workshop, which will take place from September 3rd to 5th 2022 as part of the Venice Production Bridge of the 79th Venice International Film Festival (31 August – 10 September 2022).

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 10th edition of Final Cut in Venice will consist of a three-day workshop (September 3rd th to 5th 2022) on the Lido di Venezia during the 79th 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 organised on September 5th 20221.

Over the course of its nine years of activity, Final Cut in Venice has received submissions of over 546 works-in-progress and has selected and presented 52 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, there is:

• 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, which won the Silver Bear – Grand Jury Prize at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival.
• Ghost Hunting (Final Cut 2017) by Palestinian director Raed Andoni, which won the Glasshütte Original Documentary Award at the 2018 Berlin Film Festival
• Talking about trees (Final Cut 2018) by Sudanese director Suhaib Gasmelbari, which won the Glasshütte Original Documentary Award and Audience Award at the 2019 Berlin Film Festival.
• The debut documentary Makongo by Elvis Sabin Ngaibino (Final Cut 2019), which 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, was awarded the Premio Biennale di Venezia at Final Cut 2019, which won the Amplify Voices Award, Honorable Mention at Toronto IFF 202, the Golden Dove at DOK Leipzig 2020 and the Gran Prix for documentaries at the Festival d’Amiens 2020. 

The 79th Venice International Film Festival, directed by Alberto Barbera and organized by La Biennale di Venezia, will be held on the Lido from August 31st to September 10th 2022.

The Prizes for Final Cut in Venice 

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.

For the sixth year in a row, La Biennale di Venezia will offer a cash prize of € 5,000 to the best film in post-production; the 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.

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, Internet platforms.