On Tuesday, July 23, 2024, the President of the Biennale, Pietrangelo Buttafuoco, and the Artistic Director of the Venice Film Festival, Alberto Barbera, announced the line-up of this year's Festival. Now in its 81st edition, the Venice Film Festival remains true to its values and aims to raise the awareness of international cinema and promote it in all its forms as art, entertainment and industry in a spirit of freedom and dialogue.

RIEFENSTAHL (Vincent Productions) by Andres Veiel will be screened in the Out of Competition section. The German documentary film portrays the director, who always tried after the Second World War to deny her ideological closeness to the Nazi regime. Leni Riefenstahl only allowed one portrayal of her biography: her own. The estate of one of the most controversial women of the 20th century tells a different story.

The Orizzonti - Extra competition section will open with SEPTEMBER 5 (BerghausWöbke Filmproduktion, Constantin Film, Edgar Reitz Filmproduktion) by Tim Fehlbaum. The drama revolves around the sports team of the US broadcaster ABC, who suddenly have to switch in the middle of the night during the 1972 Summer Olympics in Munich from reporting on sports to live coverage of the Israeli athletes being taken hostage. The story focuses on Geoff, a young and ambitious producer, who wants to prove himself to his boss, the legendary TV director Roone Arledge. SHAHED (Arthood Film) by Nader Saeivar will also be shown in the section. The film is about Tarlan, who witnesses the murder of her friend Rana by her husband, an important figure in the government. When the police refuse to investigate the case, Tarlan decides to go public, putting her own family and herself in grave danger. The third German production in this section is GECENİN KIYISI (EDGE OF NIGHT) (MFP) by Türker Süer about two Turkish brothers who have to come to terms with their own convictions in a country during a period of political unrest.

Two other German productions will be screened in Orrizonti. HAPPY HOLIDAYS (Red Balloon Film) by Scandar Copti deals with the story of Palestinian woman Fifi, whose double life is revealed after a car accident in Jerusalem. The episodically involved stories show other characters in the Jewish-Arab cosmos also having to decide between truth, family and ideology. QUIET LIFE (Senator Film) by Alexandros Avranas centres on Sergei and Natalia, two political asylum seekers who have fled to Sweden with their two daughters Katja and Alina with the hope of starting a new, happy life. These hopes are dashed when their application is rejected.

The independent sidebar of Giornate Degli Autori will see the director Shahab Fotouhi presenting BOOMERANG (New Matter Films), a sociological snapshot of modern Tehran based on different fates, including a man in crisis, a marriage falling apart, and a couple of teenagers falling in love in public.

A total of 63 projects from 25 countries will be presented at Venice Immersive this year. The section is entirely devoted to immersive art and immersive media and includes all types of creative XR expression. Germany will be represented by the production BELOW DECK (TÒ SU) by Martina Mahlknecht and Martin Prinoth, which can be seen in Biennale College Cinema - Immersive - Out Of Competition. The VR theatre play combines documentary and fictional means to be able to have a look behind the luxurious façade of a cruise ship.

German Films will also host a panel for the programme on Venice Immersive Island (Lazzaretto Vecchio). Together with Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, MOIN Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein, Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung, FFF Bayern and Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, German Films will be addressing the subject of ‘Getting the Money Abroad: Opportunities and Challenges of International Coproductions With Germany in XR’ on Sunday, 1 September from 4:30 - 5:30 pm.

The German writer-director Julia von Heinz (TREASURE) will serve as a member of the International Competition’s jury. Chaired by Isabelle Huppert and together with seven other members, the Mostra jury will decide, among other things, on the winner of the Golden Lion.

Other German filmmakers will also be in various sections in Venice with international productions, including Albrecht Schuch who is in the acting ensemble of the Austrio-German production PEACOCK by Bernhard Wenger in Settimana Della Critica.