The Venice Production Bridge has seen a rapid growth over the years with an increasing number of accredited professionals and is considered a “must”

among the industry events, what about the upcoming edition?

It is true that we are welcoming around 3,000 professionals but as we are unfortunately still living with the pandemic, it is alway difficult to predict what will be the situation during the market. I am nevertheless optimistic and I do think we will go over the 1,026 professionals we had onsite in our last year hybrid edition. Even if we will have a hybrid VPB, compare with 2020 more projects and events will take place on-site and for instance, all producers of the Venice Gap Financing Market selected projects including the VR ones will be in Venice.

One of the most awaited and original programs is the Book Adaptation Rights Market where producers can meet publishers and literary agents, why is this event so unique?

The uniqueness of the Book Adaptation Rights Market stands in the fact that we are organizing one-to-one meetings in order to allow the publishers to know better the producers and what they are looking for, their sensibility, their taste. The publishers (and the producers) have understood that they weren’t here to sell one title but to set up a long time relationship which brings them to be constantly in contact throughout the year. Of course some deals had been concluded here in Venice but we are as happy when 7 months after we receive a phone call from a publisher telling us that he has sold the option rights on a brand new novel.

Is the number of producers looking for original intellectual properties increasing?

Yes indeed and because we have now all the streaming platforms which are heavily looking for I.P. and their relationship with producers is going both ways.

Netflix or Amazon for instance are sometimes proposing I.P. to the producers they are used to work with and sometimes, it is the contrary, the producers

are coming with bradn new ideas to them. That’s also why the Book Adaptation Rights Market is working so well, we have directly the streamers who

are meeting the publishers. At the same time, the number of films, TV series, VR which are produced every year is increasing so everyone is looking for new stories.

The Venice Production Bridge will be held as an on-site event with specific components taking place digitally, are virtual events a passing fad or here ere to stay?

The covid-19 forced us to adapt this new reality and we discovered that hybrid events could be beneficial for everyone. For instance, we found out that streaming live our panels on the VPB Live Channel increased the professional audience and we are keeping this option for this year as well as our online box office booking system to our screening rooms as well as our conference rooms. One thing which won’t stay online is a co-production market. A producer needs to physically meet its potential partner as they have to understand each other and to decide whether they are going to work together for sometimes several years. It is less obvious for just sell and buy activities in which most of the screening and negotiation can be done online.

In your opinion, what will be the long-term effects of the pandemic on global film industry?

Of course, for the sustainability and the climate conservation, it would be better to increase the online business but don’t forget that we are all in this business in order to physically meet people and to share our emotions together. The long-term effects are that we are going to travel less and avoid the real uncesserary trips, the virtual production will probably increase in the coming years (and that’s why we are organizing a dedicted panel on this new business model) and all festivals and markets will keep a plan B in case of new pandemics.



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