07-11-2012

Berlinale World Cinema Fund: Latest Funding Decisions and Success in 2012

    At the 17th jury session of the World Cinema Fund (WCF), four new film projects were selected for production funding.

    Since its establishment in October 2004, the WCF has granted production or distribution backing to a total of 106 projects, selected from 1,879 submissions from Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Central and Southeast Asia, and the Caucasus. All of the WCF films completed to date have screened at cinemas and/or in the programmes of noted international film festivals, demonstrating the initiative's international success.

    Latest Funding Decisions

    The WCF jury made their selection from 95 submissions from a total of 37 countries and awarded production funds totalling 140,000 €. The jury members are film scholar and curator Viola Shafik (Germany/Egypt), documentary film producer Marta Andreu (Spain), distributor and producer Jan De Clercq (Belgium), and WCF project managers Sonja Heinen and Vincenzo Bugno.

    Production funding:

    Flapping in the Middle of Nowhere, director: Diep Nguyen Hoang (Vietnam), production: VBLOCK Media, Vietnam. German Partner: Filmallee. Feature film. Funding: 50,000 €

    Historia del Miedo, director: Benjamin Naishtat (Argentina), production: Rei Cine SRL, Argentina. Feature film. Funding: 30,000 €

    Remote Control, director: Byamba Sakhya (Mongolia), production: Guru Media, Mongolia. German partner: Majade. Feature film. Funding: 30,000 €

    South Facing Wall, director: Elvent Kutlug Ataman (Turkey), production: Detail Film, Germany. Feature film. Funding: 30,000 €
    WCF Review 2012
    The World Cinema Fund (WCF) has had a history of success since its establishment in 2004. WCF-funded films are invited to major film festivals annually and enrich the landscape of international film, as the 2012 review confirms.

    This year, seven WCF films have premiered at international film festivals so far, including Fernando Guzzoni's Carne de Perro (Chile), which received the New Directors Award at the San Sebastian Film Festival, and Tres by Pablo Stoll (Uruguay), which premiered at Cannes before being screened at Munich, Toronto and Amsterdam, among other festivals. El Bella Vista by Alicia Cano (Uruguay) premiered at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and participated at festivals in San Sebastian, Chicago and Zurich. Turkish director Yessim Usataoglu showed Araf - Somewhere in Between at Venice, and I'm Going to Change my Name by Maria Saakyan from Armenia screened at the BFI London. Polvo by Julio Hernández Cordón (Guatemala) premiered at the Locarno Film Festival and later screened at Toronto, and Chilean director Esteban Larraín presented The Passion of Michelangelo in Rome.

    Two WCF films that screened in the Berlinale programme were selected by their origin countries for the 2013 Academy Awards in the category "Best Foreign Language Film": Death for Sale by Faouzi Bensaidi (Panorama 2012) is Morocco's nominee, and Rosario García-Monteros's Las malas intenciones (Generation 2011) was submitted by Peru.

    The World Cinema Fund is an initiative of the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Berlin International Film Festival, funded by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, in cooperation with the Goethe Institut, with the support of the Federal Foreign Office.

    Published in Festivals
    More in this category:« Black Nights Film Festival unveils EurAsia competition line-up Award-winning films, classics and special screenings at the Festival on Wheels »