Leading the online screening experience additionally to its regular programming, the Venice Film Festival continues exploring the international audience beyond the traditional theatres. For a new edition, the Venice Sala Web will serve as the meeting point for film lovers worldwide, who will have the possibility to watch world premieres and follow the Biennale buzz on www.festivalscope.com/venicesalaweb2016. Only 400 tickets will be available for each film.
In addition to titles from the Orizzonti section and from Biennale College, the Venice Sala Web will expand for the first time to selected films from other sections, like THE ORCHID SELLER by 2015 Golden Lion winner Lorenzo Vigas. Reknown directors like Wang Bing from China and Parviz Shahbazi from Iran will join a line-up with the new works by Tim Sutton, Gastón Solnicki, Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth, whose previous film THE FIFTH SEASON screened in Competition at the Festival, winning the Young Cinema Award.
These 2016 world premieres will serve as a follow-up for a previous edition that saw the world premieres of multi-awarded films like Gabriel Mascaro’s NEON BULL and Anita Rocha da Silveira’s KILL ME PLEASE.
Four titles supported by the Biennale College will also be part of the Venice Sala Web line-up. The Biennale College is a higher education workshop for the development and production of micro-budget feature length films, and a launching platform for new talent, like Rania Attieh & Daniel Garcia with H. in 2014 and Anna Rose Holmer with THE FITS in 2015.
The 5th edition of this innovative project will be not only an opportunity for film lovers, but also for directors to find synergies with an audience of cinephiles, eager for new artistic surprises. That is how La Biennale sees it, in words of its director Alberto Barbera: “We believe film festivals can always find new ways to reach international audiences, and that is specially true thanks to the new technologies. Sala Web is a key example of it, as it allows filmmakers find their public beyond all frontiers, something impossible only a few years ago. As the first film festival in history, the Venice Film Festival needs to be part of this new story that is being told.”
Sala Web screenings will be hosted on a secure site operated by Festival Scope (www.festivalscope.com) on behalf of the Venice Film Festival. Festival Scope is the online platform where international film lovers can discover innovative new films from home, through exclusive events in partnership with the most prominent film festivals in the world.
Digital tickets for Sala Web screenings are on sale on Festival Scope. Users may register to buy tickets for the online screenings with all tickets priced at 4€ or a Festival Pass (2€ per film from 5 films). Once they have purchased a ticket for a chosen title, users will be able to screen the film once during a 10 day period beginning at 9pm (Venice time, GMT+2) on the day of the film’s official premiere at the Venice Film Festival.