The 4 projects selected for the Biennale College Cinema 2019/2020

Four projects have been selected to move on to the production phase for the films of the 8^th edition (2019/2020) of the Biennale College Cinema. The teams, consisting of a director and a producer, will be participating in Venice today through Friday December 6^th in the first of two workshops. As announced, the new feature of this edition of the Biennale College Cinema is that the number of films to be supported by La Biennale has been increased to four projects, of which at least two must be by women directors.

Biennale College Cinema is an initiative of La Biennale di Venezia that promotes new talents in cinema by offering them the opportunity to work side by side with the masters to make micro-budget feature-length films. Biennale College is a complex and innovative experience that engages every Department of La Biennale di Venezia.

The four projects were chosen subsequently to the first workshop for the 12 projects selected from around the world (coming this year from Australia, Brazil, China, Finland, France, Italy, Macedonia, Portugal, Spain, and United States).

The following are the four projects listed in alphabetical order by title:

• Fucking with Nobody (Finland)
  Director: Hannaleena Hauru 
  Producer: Emilia Haukka
• La Santa Piccola (Italy)
  Director: Silvia Brunelli (winner of the Eurimages grant for this 8th edition)) 
  Producer: Francesca Maria Scanu
• Last Minutes (Spain)
  Director: Pedro Collantes
  Producer: Daniel Remón
• Mon Père, Le Diable
  Director: Ellie Foumbi (USA)
  Producer: Joseph Mastantuono (France)

The following is a brief description of the 4 projects:

Fucking with Nobody – The lives of 5 characters working the Finnish Film Industry cross paths through one fake marriage project.

La Santa Piccola – Three teenagers live in a sunny neighborhood in Naples, with their tiny life dreams. There is also a baby girl whom everyone calls “the holy baby” because she sees the Virgin Mary. She could be the one who brings a miracle to make their dreams come true, but that hope is just a lie that will end with the summer, as the neighborhood awaits another new saint to believe in.

Last Minutes – This is the story of four different encounters that take place minutes before someone’s departure from life. Each of these encounters happens to be the last human interaction of one of the characters before leaving this world. Unknowingly at death’s door, the characters who populate the film experience rage, love, lust, tenderness, greed or empathy, witnesses to the blissfully ignorant passage of time towards death.

Mon Père, Le Diable – An antisocial African refugee’s quiet existence in a sleepy mountain town in the south of France is upended when she suspects that the new priest at her church is the warlord who slaughtered her family.

The 4 chosen teams will then participate in another workshop scheduled for the month of January 2020, that will lead to the possibility of actually making the four micro-budget films, funded with a grant of 150,000 euro each, to be presented at the 77^th Venice International Film Festival.

So far, over the course of the first seven editions, 22 feature-length films have been made by the Biennale College Cinema as a result of the 1,640 applications submitted from every corner of the world. Since 2016, it has also organized the Biennale College Cinema – Virtual Reality, which so far has produced five VR projects presented at the Biennale Cinema 2017, 2018 and 2019.

The Biennale College Cinema, organized by La Biennale di Venezia, enjoys the support of the Ministry for the Cultural Heritage and Activities – General Direction Cinema. Biennale College Cinema is sponsored by the Università Telematica Pegaso. Biennale College Cinema relies on the academic collaboration of IFP in New York and the TorinoFilmLab. The Director is Alberto Barbera, the Head of Programme is Savina Neirotti.

Biennale College Cinema enjoys the support of Eurimages, the cultural fund of the European Council, which covers the costs of travel, hospitality and training for a woman director (Eurimages Residency Grant).