Projects supported by the IDM Film & Music Commission Südtirol made their way into Locarno, Venice, and Toronto.
IDM is having a banner festival season, with backed titles turning up everywhere from the Swiss Alps to the Lido to the Toronto convention floor.
Angel Seekers (Cercatori d’angeli), the debut feature from director Leopoldo Pescatore, opens as a Special Event in the Locarno Kids Screenings section — a neorealist fable about volunteering.
At the 83rd Venice Film Festival, Manuel Wetscher’s coming-of-age debut Eklipse, set at the end of the 1990s, competes in Orizzonti.
In the same section’s shorts lineup, The Sense of Earth (Il senso della terra) — written and co-directed by Simone Massi with Alessandro Ingaria — screens out of competition, loosely inspired by the real-world operations to identify migrants who died in the Mediterranean and remained unidentified.
Also on the Lido: The Rope (La corda), Alberto Fasulo’s Nefertiti Film production recently shot in South Tyrol, has landed a slot at the Venice Production Bridge’s Gap-Financing Market.
Across the Atlantic, Irene Dionisio’s sophomore feature IDDA (“she” in Sicilian dialect — also how people in Catania refer to Mount Etna), starring Tecla Insolia and Romana Maggiora Vergano. The film, one of the few Italian features playing Toronto this year, it’s among the 12 world premieres in Platform, TIFF’s competitive strand for bold directorial vision and distinctive storytelling.
It’s a slate heavy on first and second features, and IDM Film & Music Commission Südtirol director Renate Ranzi notes the pattern with satisfaction: “We have a strong interest in projects with festival visibility, and supporting young talent is non-negotiable for us.” Paired with a focus on homegrown South Tyrolean projects and higher-impact productions with real economic return for the region, she says, “it creates a good mix” — proof of how much pull South Tyrol now has with European producers.
Case in point: Bianco, which wrapped shooting in the Alta Val Venosta this past winter. Director Daniele Vicari adapted the film from Marco Albino Ferrari’s book on the 1961 Frêney expedition, with Alessandro Borghi starring as mountaineer Walter Bonatti. It’s an international co-production between Be Water Film, Rai Cinema, The Project Film Club and Tarantula.
Two more titles from IDM’s second 2026 funding call are worth watching. Klimt (working title) is now in pre-production — the new film from Maura Delpero, fresh off the success of Vermiglio, winner of the Silver Lion/Grand Jury Prize at Venice 81, again an intimate family story addressing existential tension.
And Eden Sonate, shot between Bolzano and the Alta Val Venosta, is the latest project from South Tyrolean screenwriter, director and producer Ronny Trocker, whose previous film Human Factors (Der menschliche Faktor) played Sundance. Produced by Italy’s Dugong and Germany’s zischlermann filmproduktion, it braids together three stories about the search for — and loss of — happiness, set against a receding glacier.
The numbers behind all this: IDM Film & Music Commission Südtirol just turned 15, having backed 420 projects — features, series, documentaries, shorts — through three annual funding calls (the third 2026 call closes September 8), with €4.5 million a year on the table and more than 5,000 shooting days logged.
Renate Ranzi took over as director just over a year ago, and it’s been an intense one. “As a Fund, we’re living through a moment that’s both wonderful and challenging — in our last call, applications doubled. Last year we funded 36 projects across all three calls, generating a 266% return for the region. This year, we’d already selected 33 projects after just two calls.” That growth brings its own pressure: “We need to grow the local crew base, and we’re working on that now — starting with mapping what talent and resources already exist here.”
Two new initiatives launched this past year point to where IDM is headed next: a distribution fund and a music fund. The Distribution Fund, created off the back of Vermiglio’s awards run, backs IDM-supported producers competing for the Oscars, Golden Globes, Palme d’Or, Golden Lion or Golden Bear. The Music Fund — distinctive enough that it’s now baked into the organization’s name — is open to artists and music companies regardless of where they’re based, backing everything from single tracks to full albums with a €275,000 annual budget. Ten projects were funded in 2025; eight more in this year’s first call. The next call closes September 29.
“Our growth strategy isn’t just about the money,” Ranzi adds, pointing to networking and international partnerships as equally important. IDM’s annual INCONTRI conference is now a regular date on the industry’s calendar, and a new partnership with EAVE brought the second module of the 2026 EAVE Producers Workshop to Bolzano this year, drawing more than 50 producers, writers and industry professionals from 35 countries.
“Our goal,” Ranzi says, “is to keep building South Tyrol as a top-tier production location and deepen our dialogue with the international audiovisual industry.”
More at IDM Film & Music Commission Südtirol
Read more: Cinema & Video International Issue #208
