The Venice Film Festival has moved to permanently replace its Sconfini program, which first launched in 2018 to highlight arthouse and genre films in an out of competition capacity.
The segment did not run last year as the fest scaled down its program for its pandemic-impacted 2020 edition, and it will now not return, with the void being filled by Orizzonti Extra (Horizons Extra), an offshoot of the competitive Orizzonti program that the fest said would “maintain some of the primary characteristics” of Sconfini.
The new strand will “offer a selection of works no limits of genre, duration and destination, as long as they last more than 60 minutes… each film must be accompanied and followed by encounters with the auteurs and cultural figures”. A jury will be appointed to award a prize to the best film in the section.
Submissions open today for the 78th edition of the fest, which is due to take place September 1-11. The event today confirmed the rest of the sections will remain the same, and also re-confirmed its programming team, with Director Alberto Barbera joined by: Paolo Bertolin, Giulia D’Agnolo Vallan, Bruno Fornara, Mauro Gervasini, Oscar Iarussi, Elena Pollacchi, Angela Prudenzi, Emanuele Rauco, Marina Sanna and, with more specific involvement, Gianluca Arnone, Violeta Bava, Angela Bosetto, Francesco Giai Via, Federico Gironi, Peter Shepotinnik, Alessandra Speciale and Carla Vulpiani.
