Over the weekend, ten aspiring filmmakers traveled to the Venice Film Festival to pitch their ideas to a special jury featuring director Ridley Scott and actor Michael Fassbender. Those ten people were the finalists in the YouTube-Sponsored “Your Film Festival,” announced earlier this year. The finalists were whittled down from over 15,000 entries, and included two Australian and two American short films.
But it was a Spaniard, David Victori, that took the prize. His short film, The Guilt, won top honors from the panel. As the winner, he will receive $500,000 to launch a new YouTube project with the help of Fassbender and Ridley Scott’s production company, Scott Free Productions.
Check out the winning film below, and check out the other finalists’ work here.
“After the murder of Leo’s wife a single idea circles endlessly within his head: revenge.”
The 69th Venice International Film Festival begins tomorrow and features the premiere of 18 movies from across the world that will compete at the event. The festival will run from tomorrow until September 8th.
As the world’s oldest film festival, the Venice Film Festival’s goal is to raise awareness and promote international cinema as art, as entertainment, and as an industry. This year’s festival in particular appears to be a look back at the history of cinema and how it can be preserved. The director of the festival, Alberto Barbera, stated that this year’s festival is more restrained, with fewer films in competition, and that the festival’s retrospectives are important for film culture.
“It serves to raise an awareness among young people, of extraordinary films restored to their initial splendour and projected in the best possible conditions,” said Barbera. “Just to remember that the cinema, even the ‘old’ one, should be seen on the big screen, and that without the past there wouldn’t be a future for the movies.”
Four of the movies in competition are from U.S. directors. Ramin Bahrani’s At Any Price is set to premiere, as is Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder. Paul Thomas Anderson will debut his latest film, The Master, starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Amy Adams, and Jaoquin Phoenix. Spring Breakers, Harmony Korine’s new movie, will also be shown in competition. Spring Breakers stars James Franco, as well as Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens as sexy college girls who plan to rob a fast food shack for spring break money, but quickly fall in with Franco’s thuggish character.
The festival also features showings of some restored classic films and documentaries on cinema from the Historical Archives of Contemporary Arts of the Biennale. Restored classics scheduled to be shown include Heaven’s Gate and Ingmar Bergman’s Fanny and Alexander.
The finalists from the YouTube-sponsored Your Film Festival will be chosen at the Venice Film Festival. The winner of that competition stands to win $500,000 and a chance to create a project with Ridley Scott and Michael Fassbender. The finalists, who will be traveling to Venice this week, can be seen in the video below.
The results are in for the YouTube-sponsored Your Film Festival. Two American and two Australian filmmakers, along with others from six other countries have won a trip to the Venice Film Festival for a chance to win $500,000 and the priceless tutelage of some Hollywood elite.
March 31st was the deadline for submissions to the contest. When YouTube announced Your Film Festival, they said that is was a free-entry, free-form contest. That meant that submission from filmmakers could take one of any formats – short film, web-series episode, TV pilot – whatever. Voting took place in June, and the list of 50 finalists was cut to 10. Those ten will now compete for the grand prize in Venice.
According to the YouTube blog, over 3 million people voted for the Your Film Festival finalists, and they selected these ten entries:
88:88, Joey Ciccoline & Sean Wilson (USA)
Bat Eyes, Damien Power (Australia)
Cine Rincao, Fernando Grostein Andrade & Fernanda Fernandes (Brazil)
The Drought, Kevin Slack (USA)
El General, Diego Pino Zamora (Bolivia)
The Guilt, David Victori Blaya (Spain)
North Atlantic, Bernardo Nascimento (United Kingdom)
Super.Full., Niam Itani (Lebanon)
Scruples, Adrian Powers (Australia)
This Time, Ramy EL-Gabry (Egypt)
These finalists’ trip to Venice will include a pitch to director Ridley Scott, and the panel of judges will include actor Michael Fassbender. The grand prize winner will not only receive half a million dollars for future projects, but will get to work on that new project with Fassbender and Scott.
You can check out the finalists here. All of the films are under 15 minutes.
