Hubert Bals Fund announces winners Fall 2012 Selection Round

42nd International Film Festival Rotterdam
23 January – 3 February 2013

PRESS RELEASE 14 November 2012

Hubert Bals Fund announces winners Fall 2012 Selection Round

The Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR) has selected twenty-five film projects that receive grants for script development, digital production, postproduction, distribution or workshops. In its Fall 2012 selection round, the Fund gives 330,000 Euro to projects from seventeen Asian, Eastern European, Latin-American and African countries. (See full list below)

From many strong applications for workshop initiatives, the Hubert Bals Fund chose to support the NAAS Training Workshop (Egypt), the Digital Cinema Workshops Series (Morocco) and Cinema Land (Vietnam). The NAAS workshop offers a training and networking program for art house and cine club managers in the MENA region. In Morocco, the Workshop Series aims to increase digital filming skills among young film professionals. Cinema Land offers filmmaking talents expertise and training in the Central-Vietnamese cities of Danang and Hue, where there are no such facilities as yet.

In the distribution category, the Hubert Bals Fund supports the plan to screen acclaimed director Riri Riza’s ATAMBUA 39° CELSIUS during open air screenings – the region has no cinemas - within the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara, where the film was shot.
ATAMBUA 39° CELSIUS received Hubert Bals Fund support for digital production earlier this year, recently premiered in competition at the Tokyo IFF and will see its European premiere during IFFR 2013. The film offers a sensitive portrait of refugees from East Timor and of their scattered families.

One of the eleven projects selected in the script development category is TARDE PARA MORIR JOVEN (LATE TO DIE YOUNG), second feature film project by Chilean filmmaker Dominga Sotomayor. Her very successful début feature film DE JUEVES A DOMINGO (THURSDAY TILL SUNDAY), also supported in script stage by the Hubert Bals Fund, won a Hivos Tiger Award in Rotterdam and subsequently screened in many film festivals worldwide. TARDE PARA MORIR JOVEN tells about members of an isolated community that see their existence threatened by a forest fire.
Also selected for script development support is Teboho Edkins, a promising new talent from South Africa, who prepares his first feature length film DAYS OF CANNIBALISM. Edkins previously made THE GANGSTER PROJECT, a 55-minute documentary/fiction hybrid that was selected for FID Marseille and IFFR 2012. In DAYS OF CANNIBALISM, Edkins again uses a clever mix of documentary and fictional elements to focus on the expanding trade relations between China and the African continent.

Milagros Mumenthaler, Golden Leopard-winner for her Hubert Bals Fund-supported first feature film ABRIR PUERTAS Y VENTANAS (BACK TO STAY), has been granted digital production support for POZO DE AIRE (AIR POCKET). This second film, backed again by the ‘Abrir’-team in Argentina and Switzerland, is a more low budget and experimental take on female lead characters and the notion of absence.

When finished in time, the films receiving postproduction grants are expected to screen at the 2013 International Film Festival Rotterdam. One of these is YANG TIDAK DIBICARAKAN KETIKA MEMBICARAKAN CINTA (WHAT THEY DON’T TALK ABOUT WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT LOVE), second feature film project by Mouly Surya, one the most promising female directors in Indonesia. Her film is a both sensitive and sensual examination of the dynamics among a group of teenagers played by visually and aurally impaired actors.

The harvest of newly finished Hubert Bals Fund-supported films will be screened during the next International Film Festival Rotterdam (23 January – 3 February 2013). The next application deadline for Hubert Bals Fund support is 1 March 2013. All information about the Fund may be found here.


The line up of the IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund Fall 2013 Selection Round in full:

Post-production & final-financing
NOCHE (NIGHT) / Leonardo Brzezicki / Argentina
O RIO NOS PRETENCE (RIO BELONGS TO US) / Ricardo Pretti / Brazil
O UIVO DA GAITA (THE HARMONICA’S HOWL) / Bruno Safadi / Brazil
ON MOTHER’S HEAD / Kusuma Widjaja Putu / Indonesia
YANG TIDAK DIBICARAKAN KETIKA MEMBICARAKAN CINTA (WHAT THEY DON’T TALK ABOUT WHEN THEY TALK ABOUT LOVE) / Mouly Surya / Indonesia
LARZANANDEYE CHARBI (FAT SHAKER) / Mohammad Shirvani / Iran
SOMETHING NECESSARY / Judy Kibinge / Kenya
PENUMBRA / Eduardo Villanueva / Mexico

Digital Production
A CORNER OF HEAVEN / Zhang Miaoyan / China
POZO DE AIRE (AIR POCKET) / Milagros Mumenthaler / Argentina

Script and project development
OTRA MADRE (ANOTHER MOTHER) / Mariano Luque / Argentina
TABIJA / Igor Drljaca / Bosnia and Herzegovina
ELON RABIN NÃO ACREDITA NA MORTE (ELON RABIN DOESN’T BELIEVE IN DEATH) / Ricardo Alves Jr. / Brazil
TARDE PARA MORIR JOVEN (LATE TO DIE YOUNG) / Dominga Sotomayor / Chile
OSCURO ANIMAL (OBSCURE ANIMAL) / Felipe Guerrero / Colombia
COURT / Chaitanya Tamhane / India
THE ROOM ON A TREE / Amit Dutta / India
EXTRAÑO PERO VERDADERO (STRANGE BUT TRUE) / Michel Lipkes / Mexico
TEMPESTAD (TEMPESTUOUS) / John Torres / Philippines
DAYS OF CANNIBALISM / Teboho Edkins / South Africa
RÜZGARLI BIR GÜNE AGIT (REQUIEM FOR A WINDY DAY) / Özcan Alper / Turkey

Distribution
ATAMBUA 39° CELSIUS / Riri Riza / Indonesia

Workshops
NAAS Training Workshop / Egypt
Digital Cinema Workshop Series / Morocco
Cinema Land / Vietnam

(End of Selection)


Profile of the Hubert Bals Fund
The Hubert Bals Fund (HBF), along with the CineMart, is part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). The 42nd IFFR will take place January 23 – February 3, 2013. Year-round news on IFFR, HBF and CineMart can be found on 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, hundreds of projects from independent filmmakers in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe have received support. Approximately 80% of these projects have been realized 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, MEDIA Mundus, Dutch non-governmental development organization Hivos Culture Foundation, the DOEN Foundation and the Dioraphte Foundation and Lions Club Rotterdam: L’Esprit du Temps.

Grants and selection rounds
Annually, the Hubert Bals Fund 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, Euro 15,000 towards distribution costs in the country of origin or Euro 10,000 for special projects such as workshops. Selection rounds take place twice a year and have application deadlines on March 1 and August 1.

Hubert Bals Fund-supported films in IFFR and on DVD/VOD
Most of the films supported by the Hubert Bals Fund throughout the year are screened during the International Film Festival Rotterdam in attendance of the filmmaker. Subsequently, part of the HBF-supported films is released by the IFFR on DVD or VOD, available on www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com (VOD for viewers in the Benelux only).

(End of press release)

Note to the editor:
For more press information, please contact:
IFFR Press Office, Bert-Jan Zoet/Nancy van Oorschot, [email protected], tel 31.10.8909090