Venice Film festival

About

The aim of the Festival is to raise awareness and promote all the various aspects of international cinema in all its forms: as art, entertainment and as an industry, in a spirit of freedom and tolerance. The Festival includes retrospectives and homages to major figures as a contribution towards raising awareness of the history of cinema.

Official Selection:

• Main competition,
• Out of competition screenings,
• Orizzonti,
• Venice Classics.

Film market.

International and parallel sections:

• Settimana Internazionale della Critica,
• Giornate degli Autori.

Awards

An International Jury, composed of 9 personalities from the world of cinema and culture from various countries, excluding any person involved in any capacity in the creation of the invited films or who may have an interest in their distribution, will award the following prizes for feature-length films:

• Golden Lion for Best Film,
• Silver Lion for Best Director,
• Grand Jury Prize,
• Special Jury Prize,
• Coppa Volpi for Best Actor,
• Coppa Volpi for Best Actress,
• “Marcello Mastroianni” Award for Best New Young Actor or Actress,
• Award for Best Screenplay.

No joint prizes will be awarded, with the sole exceptions of the two Coppa Volpi awards and the Marcello Mastroianni award. Furthermore, each film may receive no more than one of the awards mentioned in the Regulations. However, in exceptional cases, and after consultation with the Festival Director, the Jury may confer the Coppa Volpi and Marcello Mastroianni awards to actors or actresses featured in films which have been awarded the Silver Lion, the Grand Jury Prize, the Special Jury Prize or the Award for Best Screenplay.

Orizzonti. An International Jury, composed of 7 personalities from the world of cinema and culture from various countries, excluding any person involved in any capacity in the creation of the invited films or who may have an interest in their distribution, will award the following prizes, with no joint prizes allowed:

• Orizzonti Award for Best Film,
• Orizzonti Award for Best Director,
• Special Orizzonti Jury Prize,
• Special Orizzonti Award for Innovative Content,
• Orizzonti Award for Best Short Film.

Venice Classics:

• Venice Classics Award for Best Restored Film;
• Venice Classics Award for Best Documentary on Cinema.

«Luigi De Laurentiis» Award for a Debut Film
Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement

Rules

• All films submitted must be recently produced, completed not prior to 9 September 2023, and must not have been presented earlier in any other format or length, not even as a work-in-progress, for any selection in previous editions of the Venice Film Festival.
• Under no circumstances may films that have had prior public screenings be presented at the Venice Film Festival. Derogations may be requested only for films presented exclusively in their country of origin. Works previously presented in competing or non-competing sections at other international festivals are also excluded, as are those already available on the web.
• VR Immersive Stories in competition may have been screened in public in their country of origin or, Out of Competition, in other International events.
• Subtitles language: English

Documents and Other Requisite Items

• Fill out entry form,
• Pay entry fees,
• upload the film file to our streaming service, exclusively through the link that will be indicated at the moment of registration, or send a copy of the film to the Festival,
• send an information sheet on the director and on the film, with an information kit including a synopsis, director’s notes and the film production context;
• for all non-Italian films, we request the submission of a copy sub-titled in Italian or in English (including films for which the original language version is in English).

Premiere Requirements

World premiere required.

Jury and Organizers

Festival director — Alberto Barbera.