14/07/2023 - Twelve projects connecting European producers to other global territories have received awards of €60,000 each

Touting stories “from a doping weightlifter, runaway slaves, a high-school swimming team and LED-crucifix salesmen, all the way to a vacuum-cleaning ghost”, IFFR’s Hubert Bals Fund has announced the yearly awardees for its HBF+Europe strand, including new support for projects currently in post-production. With the Creative Europe – MEDIA programme as its primary backer, the scheme has granted 12 projects €60,000 each, all of them at various stages of production.

Since its establishment in 1988, the Hubert Bals Fund (named after the festival’s founder and first director) has focused on uplifting filmmakers from countries with limited or restricted film financing and infrastructures; following on from this, HBF+Europe pairs European producers to work as co-producers on projects spread across Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and parts of Eastern Europe.

The majority of the 12 awarded filmmakers are coming off acclaimed shorts, and have also received support from other co-production labs and funds. Payal Kapadia (winner of the Cannes Golden Eye in 2021 for A Night of Knowing Nothing [+see also:
film review
interview: Payal Kapadia
film profile]), Uta Beria and The Maw Naing make up the small proportion of directors with a feature already under their belt.

Previous Hubert Bals Fund-backed filmmakers include Apitchatpong Weerasethakul, Sergei Loznitsa, Dea Kulumbegashvili and Rungano Nyoni. This year’s Cannes Film Festival had a strong turnout from the fund’s recent grantees, with Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring) [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] featuring in the main competition, Amanda Nell Eu’s Tiger Stripes [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Amanda Nell Eu
film profile] taking home the Critics’ Week Grand Prize and Thien An Pham’s questing epic Inside the Yellow Cocoon Shell [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] nabbing the Caméra d’Or.

In full, the 2023 HBF+Europe Minority Co-production Support selection comprises All We Imagine as Light [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Payal Kapadia (France/India/Netherlands/Luxembourg), Cotton Queen by Suzannah Mirghani (France/Germany/Palestine), Elephants in the Fog by Abinash Bikram Shah (Nepal/France), Quatro meninas by Karen Suzane (Brazil/Netherlands), Si no ardemos, cómo iluminar la noche by Kim Torres (Costa Rica/Mexico/France), Tear Gas by Utah Beria (France/Georgia/Belgium), A Useful Ghost by Ratchapoom Boonbunchachoke (Thailand/Singapore/France) and A Winner is Seen at the Start by Zhannat Alshanova (France/Netherlands/Bulgaria/Norway/Kazakhstan).

Meanwhile, the HBF+Europe Post-production Support selection is made up of Athlete by Semih Gulen and Mustafa Emin Büyükcoskun (Turkey/Romania/Germany), Holy Electricity [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tato Kotetishvili
film profile] by Vakhtang (Tato) Kotetishvili (Georgia/Netherlands), Una sombra oscilante [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Celeste Rojas Mugica (Argentina/Chile/France) and The Women by The Maw Naing (Myanmar/France/Singapore/Norway/South Korea).