With the Lido industry sector known for over a decade since becoming an important element of the Venice Production Bridge, Venice’s gap filling market continues to provide fertile ground to financiers, distributors, sales agents, streamers and other industry experts, previewing raucous new projects seeking to complete finance.
Pascal Diott, head of the Venice Production Bridge, says that the first thing he tried to fill was a total market gap.
“When we created this Venice Gap Finance market 12 years ago, there was no such type of co-production market at the time,” Diott tells Variety. Similar industry events have largely focused on projects under development, but longtime producers have recognized from their first-hand experience that it was also extremely difficult to find the final 30% of the film’s budget.
According to DIOT, the Venice Gap Finance market has an impressive track record in the first decade and welcomes 80% of the 400+ projects to be completed within six months of being presented on Lido.
Its success owes to the fact that a market-selected project needs to implement 70% of its budget. Diott says it will be a more “safe” outlook for potential investors.
Recent participants include Zilbalodis’s Oscar-winning animation sense “Flow”, Diego Cespedes’ Cannes includes the admirers’ “Flamingo’s Mysterious Gaze”, Gaston Solniki’s “Sufflare”, and Gaston Solniki’s “Flamingo’s Mysterious Gaze”, starring Willem Dafoe, Willem Dafoe. Gala premiere at Toronto INTL. Film festival.
This year, organizers placed over 330 submissions, a record of the event. This is the fact that Diot is proof of its popularity in terms of the rise in producers that they have to clear to bring the film to the entire finish line. “I have more and more applications each year,” he says.
The loaded lineup includes features created by Luca Guadagnino of Portuguese’s Auther João Pedro Rodriguez (“Afonso’s Smile”), German-born Iranian filmmaker Emily Atef (“Cole Me”), Argentina’s Luis Ortega follow-up to the 2024 Golden Lion Contender, “Call Me Queen”), “Call Me Queen” English debut, “Afonso’s Smile”), and “Afonso’s Smile”). He directed the hotly talked about Sundance premiere called “Fremont” by British-based Iranian filmmaker Babak Jalali (“The Town of Nova Scotia”).
Diott says he aims for a “wide range and diversity” of choice, presenting established Autelies like veteran Austrian provocateur Ulrich Seidl (“distance”) with emerging talents like interdisciplinary artist Julian Knukus (“In the Black Fantastic”). However, the market chief notes that he is undergoing “an increasing number of projects by well-known supervisors,” pointing to the underlying financial uncertainty brought about by the current economic situation.
Atef, the final feature of the final feature, “Someday we’ll tell each other everything,” premiered at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival.
“It’s so tough,” says the award-winning director who arrives at Lido in “Call Me Queen” (pictured, Top), a ’90s drama filmed in Kenya about the unlikely friendship between an Irish journalist and a single mother from a slum. “I know a lot of filmmakers who can’t make a movie.”
Despite the challenges, Diot is looking for ways to help Venice’s gap filling market adapt to the times, including introducing more immersive projects away from “traditional films” in future editions.
He also argues that despite the hurdles, the event’s track record speaks for itself. “The goal is to help the film be completed and shown,” he says. “That’s why I’m really pleased with what we’ve achieved.”
