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Film und Medien Stiftung NRW➝News➝News➝80th Venice International Film Festival opens its doors: Filmstiftung-backed VR film "Upwind" by Florian Siebert in the Venice Immersive Competition

80th Venice International Film Festival opens its doors: Filmstiftung-backed VR film "Upwind" by Florian Siebert in the Venice Immersive Competition

  • Immersive VR experience by Düsseldorf’s Neonreal with Wotan Wilke Möhring, Luise Befort, Moritz Führmann and many more 
  • Venice Production Bridge with German focus 
  • "Below Deck": Wim Wenders Grant Holders at the Venice Gap Financing Market 
  • Venice Film Festival: 30 August to 9 September 2023

The 80th Venice International Film Festival opens its doors on Wednesday, 30 August. The Venice Immersive competition will be presenting the VR experience "Upwind" by Florian Siebert, produced by Düsseldorf-based Neonreal and featuring Wotan Wilke Möhring, Luise Befort and Moritz Führmann, among others. The Venice Immersive competition is the film festival’s XR – Extended Reality section which is dedicated exclusively to immersive media and considers all forms of creative expression that can be found in "extended reality". The festival was one of the first worldwide to include such a section into its programme.

Venice Production Bridge and Venice Immersive Market 2023 (31 August to 5 September)

Germany and Québec are the focus of the third edition of Venice Production Bridge this year. The industry event also includes the Venice Immersive Market which gathers all of the immersive activities during the festival on Immersive Island (Lazzaretto Vecchio). Companies and institutions will be showcasing their activities in the Exhibition Area, including the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW which will also have a presence at the umbrella stand organised by German Films and some of the regional film funds in Germany (Filmstiftung, FFF Bayern, Hessen Film & Medien, MBB, MDM, MOIN!, Nordmedia). Selected production companies from Germany will be presenting their VR/XR/AR projects here, including Ciné-Litté and Fantastic Foe from NRW.

In addition, German Films will be joined by the participating regional film funds in hosting the VR panel "Meet the German Creators" and the panel on "German XR Gaming: Exploring the Potential and the Market of Narrative Games in XR", which will include the NRW-based producer Imaad Manzar, Co-founder & Design Lead of Fantastic Foe, as one of the speakers.

The Country Focus will also see German Films and Québec’s Société de développement des entreprises culturelles (SODEC Québec), which promotes Québec’s cultural sector at home and abroad, organising a series of events including a discussion with the internationally successful directors Edward Berger and Philippe Falardeau (Canada).

"Below Deck": Wim Wenders Grant Holders at the Venice Gap Financing Market

The XR-Experience "Below Deck", which received the Wim Wenders Grant in 2022, will be presented at the "Venice Gap-Financing Market". The German-Italian filmmaking duo TÒ SU, Hamburg-based set designer and artist Martina Mahlknecht and HfbK graduate Martin Prinoth, immerse themselves in their documentary-feature hybrid in the unknown world of Filipino low-wage workers on cruise ships. The film addresses the dreams and fears of the below-deck crew in the booming aspirational cruise industry.