Fassbender to take part in ‘Your Film’ project

DUBAI

Actor Michael Fassbender will be a competition juror for the Your Film Festival, to be held as part of this year’s Venice Film Festival, and will act as co-executive roducer for the winner’s next film, along with Ridley Scott.

Actor Michael Fassbender will be a competition juror for the Your Film Festival, to be held as part of this year’s Venice Film Festival, and will act as co-executive producer for the winner’s next film, along with renowned director Ridley Scott, festival sponsors Emirates Airlines and YouTube announced.

Your Film Festival, a global competition to “discover the world’s best storytellers,” invites directors, producers and writers from around the world to submit a 15-minute story-driven video of any format, style and genre, to youtube.com/yourfilmfestival, from Feb. 2 to March 31. Scott Free, Scott’s production company, will narrow the submissions down to 50 semi-finalists in the summer of 2012.

Those 50 videos will then be made available to the global YouTube community, who will be able to vote for their favorite, choosing 10 finalists. The makers of the 10 final films will travel to Italy on Emirates via Dubai, where their work will be screened at the 69th Venice International Film Festival in September. A grand prize winner will be selected by a special jury including Scott and Fassbender and will be awarded a $500,000 YouTube original production grant to work with Scott Free to create a brand new work.

“I was delighted to join this partnership alongside Ridley, YouTube, Venice and Emirates,” said Fassbender. “I’ve worked with incredible storytellers before and am excited to help find the next great one through the Your Film Festival.”

Fassbender’s involvement will mark a reunion of sorts, as he appears in the highly anticipated “Prometheus,” which marks Ridley Scott’s return to the director’s chair. This will also be Fassbender’s first appearance at the Venice Film Festival since winning the festival’s Best Actor award for his performance in “Shame,” which also garnered him a Golden Globe nomination.