Hubert Bals Fund announces winning film projects from the South

38th International Film Festival Rotterdam
January 21 – February 1, 2009

PRESS RELEASE November 6, 2008

Hubert Bals Fund announces winning film projects from the South The Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), Rotterdam’s fund designed to support films from the South, has announced financial contributions to 25 film projects in 19 countries for a total amount of 362,500 Euro. These include new films by acclaimed independent filmmakers Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Pablo Larraín, Rodrigo Moreno, Raya Martin, Tariq Teguia and Sinisa Dragin as well as many projects by first time filmmakers. A rich harvest of around thirty new films supported by the HBF will be selected for the upcoming 38th International Film Festival Rotterdam, including those that picked up top prizes during the Fall 2008 festival season.

Two projects receive financial support in the HBF’s post production category and will both be selected for Rotterdam 2009. Algerian filmmaker Tariq Teguia is supported to finish Gabbla (Inland) on 35 mm. Inland, his second feature film, already screened at the past Venice film festival.
Sinisa Dragin (Serbia) won a Tiger Award 2002 for Everyday God Kisses Us on the Mouth (2001). His If the Seed Doesn’t Die, about sensitive religious issues in the Balkans, was launched as CineMart Project 2004. Supported by the Hubert Bals Fund, the film will get its world premiere in Rotterdam.

In the digital production category, funding goes to five projects. Renowned Argentinean short film and video installation maker Sebastian Diaz Morales is selected for his project El camino entro dos puntos (The Way Between Two Points) about life in a oil extraction town. Philippine talent Raya Martin, who will present his Now Showing in IFFR 2009, receives funding for his digital project How to Disappear Completely, a documentary style film following a group of actors trying to survive in the jungle. This project runs parallel to the making of his also Hubert Bals Fund supported project Independencia.
Indian filmmaker Sidharth Srinivasan, whose low budget feature The Divine Vision was banned by the Indian censor, receives support for his project Soul of Sand, a radical and potentially controversial film that deals with issues central to the rapid urbanization of Indian metropoles.

This selection round, the Hubert Bals Fund supports script development stages of new projects by already renowned filmmakers: Pablo Larraín (Tony Manero) prepares Post Mortem; Rodrigo Moreno (El Custodio) works on Reimon and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s Primitive – Uncle Boonmee is a multimedia project to be developed into a feature film, an arts installation as well as two short films. After his short films retrospective in IFFR 2007, Kleber Mendonça is now selected for support of his début feature film project The Surrounding Sounds.

The Hubert Bals Fund supports the development of two initiatives in Uruguay and Peru to screen recent national and Latin-American independent films. ‘Efecto Cine’ organizes 80 screenings in about 40 cities all over Uruguay from January to April 2009. ‘Red de microcines para el Peru’ (Network of micro cinemas for Peru) is involved in setting up cinema groups that introduce and screen independent films in neighborhoods and communities throughout Peru.
Furthermore, HBF will give out a Hubert Bals Fund Award of 5,000 euro for the Best Project presented at the forthcoming Film Bazaar (Nov 26-29) organized alongside the International Film Festival of India in Goa.

Hubert Bals Fund supported films have picked up top prizes at all the important Fall 2008 festivals. In Venice, San Sebastian, Vancouver, Rio de Janeiro and Pusan, Haile Gerima (Teza), Yesim Ustaoglu (Pandora’s Box), Emily Tang (Perfect Life), Matheus Nachtergaele (The Dead Girl’s Feast) and Yang JinEr Dong) took home awards or special mentions. All filmmakers are expected to present their works during the next Rotterdam edition.


The line up of the IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund Fall 2008 Selection Round in full:

Post production
If the Seed Doesn't Die ; Sinisa Dragin ; Serbia
Gabbla (Inland) ; Tariq Teguia ; Algeria

Script development
Aujourd'hui (Today) ; Alain Gomis ; Senegal
Berini chakre (Berina's Chakras) ; Faruk Loncarevic ; Bosnia-Herzegovina
La castración (The Castration) ; Iwan Lowenberg ; Mexico
Malaya Women Project (The Persistence of Memory) ; Francis Xavier Pasion ; Philippines
O lixo nosso de cada dia (Our Daily Garbage) ; Philippe Barcinski ; Brazil
Histórico de Violência (The Surrounding Sounds) ; Kleber Mendonça Filho ; Brazil
El placer es mio (It's My Pleasure) ; Elisa Miller ; Mexico
Post Mortem ; Pablo Larraín ; Chile
PRIMITIVE 'Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives' ; Apichatpong Weerasethakul ; Thailand
Reimon ; Rodrigo Moreno ; Argentina
Surlarin Iki Yakasi (Two Sides of the Ramparts) ; Kazim Öz ; Turkey
Wajda ; Haifa al Mansour ; Saudi Arabia
Xia Ri Tian Chang (A Long Afternoon Nap) ; Chen Tao ; China
El sueño de Sor Juana (Sor Juana's Dream) ; Gregorio Rocha ; Mexico

Digital production
18 cigarrillos y medio (18 and a half Cigarettes) ; Marcelo Tolces ; Paraguay
El Camino entre dos puntos (The Way Between Two Points) ; Sebastian Diaz Morales ; Argentina
How to Disappear Completely ; Raya Martin ; Philippines
Gesher ; Vahid Vakilifar ; Iran
Maati ke Mol (Soul of Sand) ; Sidharth Srinivasan ; India

Distribution and special projects
- Efecto Cine, a travelling cinema: an alternative distribution system for national and Latin-American films ; Uruguay
- Red de microcines para el Peru (A Network of micro cinemas for Peru), neighborhood or community screenings of independent Peruvian and Latin-American films.
- Hubert Bals Fund Award for Best Project (5,000 euro) to be handed out at the Film Bazaar (Nov 26-29, 2008) in Goa, India

(end of list)

Profile of the Hubert Bals Fund Along with CineMart, the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) is part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). The 38th IFFR will take place January 21 – February 1, 2009. Year-round news on IFFR, HBF and CineMart can be found on the festival website www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com.

The Hubert Bals Fund is designed to bring remarkable or urgent feature films and feature-length creative documentaries by innovative and talented filmmakers from developing countries closer to completion. The Hubert Bals Fund provides grants that often turn out to play a crucial role in enabling these filmmakers to realize their projects. Although the Fund looks closely at the financial aspects of a project, the decisive factors remain its content and artistic value. Since the Fund started in 1989, close to 750 projects from independent filmmakers in Asia, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America have received support. Approximately 80% of these projects have been realised or are currently in production. Every year, the IFFR screens completed films supported by the Fund.

The Hubert Bals Fund is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dutch non-governmental development organisations Hivos-NCDO Culture Foundation, the DOEN Foundation, Dioraphte Foundation and Dutch public broadcasting network NPS.

Grants and selection rounds
Annually, the Hubert Bals Fund has close to Euro 1.2 million at its disposal and is able to make individual grants of up to Euro 10,000 for script and project development, Euro 20,000 for digital production, Euro 30,000 for post-production or Euro 15,000 towards distribution costs in the country of origin. Selection rounds take place twice a year and have application deadlines on March 1 and August 1.

Training, workshops, the Hubert Bals Fund Awards
The Fund supports training initiatives for filmmakers in Ethiopia, Vietnam and Costa Rica. In Armenia and now in India, the Hubert Bals Fund participates in co-production meetings. On these occasions, Hubert Bals Fund Awards are granted to the most promising film projects.