YouTube and Ridley Scott’s Scott Free Prods. have tapped 10 finalists with 15-minute videos for the newly minted Your Film Festival at the Venice Film Festival.
The finalists will be flown to the Venice festival, where their work will screen with winner receiving a development deal with Scott Free Prods. and a $500,000 grant. The films were voted on by more than three million YouTube users after Scott Free narrowed down the initial 15,000 submissions to 50 semi-finalists.
The grand prize winner will be chosen by a jury that includes Scott and Michael Fassbender. The winner will receive $500,000 to create original online content with Scott Free and Fassbender acting as executive producers.
“These ten finalists have achieved something quite remarkable and are all clearly talents to watch,” Scott said. “People may be surprised to know that making a short film is very difficult, but these filmmakers have all succeeded in realizing their visions and I congratulate them on this achievement.”
The finalists are “88:88,” Joey Ciccoline & Sean Wilson (USA); “Bat Eyes,” Damien Power (Australia); “Cine Rincao,” Fernando Grostein Andrade & Fernanda Fernandes (Brazil); “The Drought,” Kevin Slack (USA); “El General,” Diego Pino Zamora (Bolivia); “The Guilt,” David Victori Blaya (Spain);
“North Atlantic,” Bernardo Nascimento (United Kingdom); “Super.Full.,” Niam Itani (Lebanon); “Scruples,” Adrian Powers (Australia) and “This Time,” Ramy EL-Gabry (Egypt).
The initiative reunites YouTube with Scott Free following their partnership to help create the documentary “Life In A Day,” which debuted at last year’s Sundance festival.
