Dutch (Co-)productions Selected for Venice 2022

After Babi Yar. Context *(2021), Sergei Loznitsa returns to Venice with The Kiev Trial (produced by Atoms & Void), which will celebrate its world premiere Out of Competition at the Venice Film Festival. The Kiev Trial, also known as the “Kiev Nuremberg”, took place in January of 1946 in the Soviet Union, and was one of the first post-war trials convicting German Nazis and their collaborators. Using unique, previously unseen, archive footage, Sergei Loznitsa reconstructs key moments of the proceedings, including statements of the defendants and testimonies of the witnesses, survivors of Auschwitz and Babi Yar among them. The film lays bare the “banality of evil” and is devastatingly relevant today, as Ukrainian people are once again being subjected to the violence of barbarian invaders.

The Netherlands is especially well represented in the Venice Immersive program with three VR productions: Eurydice, a Descent into Infinity, The Miracle Basket* and Elele.

Director Celine Daemen’s Eurydice, a Descent into Infinity is part of the Venice Immersive Competition. Produced by Silbersee, it is a Virtual Reality opera, in which you follow Eurydice down an endless maze into the void. A hypnotic journey to an in-between space, between dust and eternity, where time fades and the laws of space become obsolete.

Dutch VR experience The Miracle Basket* by Abner Preis is included in Best of Immersive, the sub-section of Venice Immersive showing a selection of the best international XR - Extended Reality works. The project is produced by Valk Productions in co-production with Institute of Time. In The Miracle Basket, a grandfather narrates his carefree past where people lived in harmony with nature, until the arrival of a spaceship laden with consumerism put an end to it.

Institute of Time also produced Elele by artist Sjoerd van Acker, a sensory and intuitive VR experience featuring only your hands. With music from renowned electronic musician Max Cooper, it invites you(r hands) to take part in a dance performance and explore the beauty of your movements. Elele has been developed at and will be presented as part of the Venice Biennale College Cinema VR Program.

Queens** by French-Moroccan filmmaker Yasmine Benkiran and minority co-produced by KeyFilm (sales: Kinology) is selected as Closing film of the Venice Critics' Week sidebar, playing out-of-competition. With the police on their tail, a trio of women embark on a long escape that takes them across the rugged red terrain and flower-filled valleys of the Atlas Mountains towards the Atlantic coast.

For more information: www.labiennale.org/en/cinema/2022

*Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund.
**Film is supported by the Netherlands Film Fund, Netherlands Production Incentive.

Visuals: The Miracle Basket trailer, Queens poster