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LONDON – The Berlinale World Cinema Fund jury has unveiled the five projects that will collectively benefit from just north of $200,000 (€150,000) in production funding.
Cuban filmmaker Carlos Machado Quintela‘s Benjamin o el Planetario, produced by Argentine banner Rizoma with German partner M-Appeal and Paraguay’s Paz Encina‘s German backed documentary Ejercicios de la Memoria both score $47,000 (€35,000).
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And Colombian director Oscar Ruiz Navia‘s Los Hongos and Guatemalan filmmaker Julio Hernandez Cordon‘s Te Prometo Anarquia both pick up $40,500 (€30,000) from the fund.
Rounding out the jury’s production picks is Egyptian Tamer El Said with his documentary In The Last Days of The City, which will receive $27,000 (€20,000).
The annual funding awards are decided on by a jury, which this year included film scholar and curator Viola Shafik (Germany/Egypt), documentary film producer Marta Andreu (Spain), distributor and producer Jan De Clercq (Belgium) and the fund’s project managers Sonja Heinen and Vincenzo Bugno.
The WCF jury made their selection out of 121 submissions from a total of 43 countries.
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Since its setup in October 2004, the Berlinale’s 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.
One fund achievement is that all of the WCF films completed to date have screened at cinemas or in the programs of international film festivals around the world.
Among the recent international successes were festival winners at the San Sebastian Film Festival and Busan’s movie shindig.
The German-Mongolian co-production Remote Control by Byamba Sakhya picked up the new currents Award at the 18th Busan Film Festival 2013, while the Venezuelan film Pelo Malo by Marian Rondon was awarded the Golden Shell at San Sebastian.
The jury also dished out $20,000 (€15,000) each for German distribution funding across Egyptian director Hala Lofty‘s Coming Forth By Day, Carne de Perro from Chile’s Fernando Guzzoni and Mexico’s Jose Luis Valle‘s Workers.
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.
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