The Venice International Film Festival 2021 will place the spotlight on short format works in all their iterations: short films in competition, immersive reality works in selection, as well as numerous XR projects in the Gap Financing event at the Film Market, to be held from September 3 through 7.
Unifrance will be in Venice to accompany the French productions selected in the various festival sections: two short films and five VR works.
Two short films–an animation and a live-action drama–are competing in the Orizzonti section in 2021:
The Boob Fairy (photo of an illustration) shifts between two worlds in dialogue with other–that of a circus and a four-year-old girl. Two tableaus that are interconnected and resonate with the violence of two forms of slavery in our era: the conditioning implicit in the education of young girls to conform to a certain "femininity" and the training of wild animals for entertainment. An animated film by Léahn Vivier-Chapas, produced by Folivari and distributed by Miyu Distribution.
4 AM, directed by Mehdi Fikri and produced by Topshot Films, is set in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks of 2015 and portrays a night of clashes and confrontations in a suburban housing project.
As concerns XR works, they will be available for viewing in situ and on the Venice VR Expanded platform, as well as via the various satellites operating around the world. France is the most-represented country in this category in terms of the percentage of works selected, with five productions in competition.
The production company Floréal, winner of the Jury's Grand Prize for Best Immersive Work in 2020 for The Hangman at Home - VR (Single User) (the director Michelle Kranot is president of the 2021 XR Jury), will this year present Goliath: Playing With Reality, co-directed by Barry Gene Murphy and May Abdalla, an animated work narrated by the actor Tilda Swinton.
The company is also accompanying a project selected in the Gap Financing Market, Blood Speaks: Maya, the Birth of a Superhero by Poulomi Basu.
The Starry Sand Beach by Nina Barbier, a scientific tale in three parts produced by Lucid Realities, will also be presented in competition, alongside Bedlam by Mat Collishaw and End of Night by David Adler. Le Bal de Paris de Blanca Li by Blanca Li, an installation that merges music, dance, and virtual reality following the rhythm of two professional dancers, will be premiered in Venice.
On Saturday, September 4, from 1:00 to 2:00 p.m., UniFrance will host an on-site panel discussion on the French XR sector in the international scene with the aim of shining a light on French talent in the field of immersive content creation. Moderated by Liz Rosenthal, this discussion will include the presence of two prestigious participants: Antoine Cayrol (producer at Atlas V) and Mathias Chelebourg (director of Alice, the Virtual Reality Play and The Real Thing).
