15/04/2025 - Also known as the mini-traité, the fund for binationally produced works is supporting three projects after its first meeting of the year

Director Élise Girard, who is receiving funding for Le sens de la vie

The Franco-German film funding commission for development and co-production – carried out jointly by the German FFA and the French CNC – has granted its newest round of funding. Through the fund, which is also known as the mini-traité, a total of €980,000 has been presented to three productions (one majority German and two majority French) after its first meeting of 2025.

The project with the largest amount of German funding support was Bilingual by Berlin-based Georgian director Alexandre Koberidze, which tells the story of a transnational search for two missing people: one in France, the other in Georgia. The film will be produced by Germany’s New Matter Films and France’s Tripode Productions. As part of the funding award, the production received €240,000 from the German side and €100,000 from the French side. Koberidze is best known for his 2021 film What Do We See When We Look at the Sky? [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexandre Koberidze
film profile], which was a German-Georgian co-production.

The fourth feature by Élise Girard, titled Le sens de la vie, was also rewarded. The film is set to star Vicky Krieps and Alex Lutz, and follows the single mother of a 13-year-old boy whose life is turned upside down when she meets the French prime minister on a business trip to Munich. The production previously announced that it is set to be filmed in Paris, Normandy and Bavaria in October. Germany’s Lupa Film GmbH and France’s 10:15! Productions will produce the project. It has received €140,000 from the FFA and €200,000 from the CNC.

The last project funded through the binational agreement was the debut feature by Léo Grandperret, a comedy with the title Deviens génial, with a script written by Grandperret himself and Sébastien Mounier. The film centres on a German-language teacher who decides to organise a school trip to Germany in order to get students excited about enrolling in his class, although tumultuousness ensues. German production company Alma Bäng – Ersfeld + Heinz GbR and French outfit Nolita Cinema are attached to the project, and casting for it is currently under way. The project received €100,000 from Germany’s FFA and €200,000 from France’s CNC.