La Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, announced an important addition to the Biennale College – Cinema, the higher education workshop addressed to emerging filmmakers to develop and produce microbudget feature films.

For the 6th edition (2017-2018), it was decided to embed a section reserved for Italians into the international Biennale College – Cinema project.

Therefore, today Tuesday March 7th, a first new call will be launched on the website www.labiennale.org, reserved for teams composed exclusively of a director and a producer with Italian nationality.

The call for the Biennale College – Cinema – International will appear after the Italian call, in mid-May 2017 (through July 2017).

The Italian call, which will open today through April 18th, for teams composed of directors making their first or second film, associated with producers who have made at least three audio-visual works, or one feature-length fiction film, or a documentary, distributed and/or presented at Film Festivals.

Eight micro-budget projects will be selected and will be invited to participate in a development workshop, held in English, between July 10th and 16th, 2017 in Venice.

At the end of the workshop, a further selection of three projects will be made, and announced during the 74th Venice International Film Festival 2017 (30 August – 9 September).

The three Italian projects will enter the next phase along with the nine projects selected for the international call, and will take part in a further ten-day workshop to be held in Venice in October 2017.

Of these twelve projects, three (including one from the Italian section) will earn the support of the Biennale to cover production costs (for a maximum of 150,000 euro). The three feature-length films made during the process will be screened at the 75th Venice International Film Festival 2018.

The Biennale College – Cinema, now in its 6th edition, is supported by the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism – General Direction Cinema.

Biennale College is a strategic activity that also involves the Dance, Music and Theatre Departments of the Biennale di Venezia, and seeks to promote young talents by offering them the opportunity to work side by side with the masters to develop “creations”.