Avanti, NRW! “Harvest” and “Riefenstahl” in Venice’s Competition – a total of four Filmstiftung-backed productions being screened

Four Filmstiftung-backed productions have been invited to screen the 81st Venice Film Festival (28 August to 7 September), with two of them in the Competition: the multi-award-winning director Athina Rachel Tsangari may hope to win a Lion with her tragicomic version of a western in “Harvest”, produced by Cologne-based Match Factory Productions (MFP). The documentary “Riefenstahl”, directed by Andres Veiel and produced by Vincent Productions, will be showing ‘Out of Competition’ and uses newly accessible documents from Leni Riefenstahl’s personal estate to shed light on the origins and impact of her work. The Georgian filmmaker Dea Kulumbegashvili will also be in the Competition with “April”. In 2021, she received the Baumi Script Development Award from the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, the Baumgartner family and Pandora Film for the film’s treatment.

“Gecenin Kıyısı” (“Edge of Night"), the feature-length debut of KHM graduate Türker Süer, will screen in the Orizzonti Extra section. The German-Turkish co-production by Cologne’s MFP tells the story of two brothers in Turkey set against the backdrop of the 2016 coup. The German-Italian filmmaker duo TÓ SU, alias Martina Mahlknecht and Martin Prinoth, will be returning to Venice with their VR experience “Below Deck”: the Wim Wenders grant holders received an invitation to attend the Biennale College Cinema and had already presented the project at last year’s Venice Gap Financing Market.

Walid Nakschbandi, CEO of the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW: ‘Four invitations to the Lido – great news for the teams of the NRW-funded projects. Congratulations to Cologne’s Match Factory, who will be in Venice with no less than two films and have a chance of winning one of the coveted Lions with ‘Harvest’. I am also very happy for the well-known political documentary filmmaker Andres Veiel who has now turned his attention to Leni Riefenstahl. Congratulations to producer Sandra Maischberger and Andres Veiel! And we are looking forward to another exciting project with the return of the ‘Below Deck’ VR experience to Venice. Avanti, NRW!’

Venice Gap Financing Market with “No Good Men” and “The Blood Countess”

Two films supported by the Film- und Medienstiftung have been selected for the Venice Gap Financing Market. The Afghan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat received the Baumi Script Development Award in 2021 for her project “Kabul Jan”. She will now be pitching the film in Venice under the new title of “No Good Men” (Adomeit Film). “The Blood Countess” by Ulrike Ottinger will also be presented here. The co-production by Cologne-based Heimatfilm features a prominent cast including Isabelle Huppert, Birgit Minichmayr, Lars Eidinger and Sophie Rois.