03/11/2005

'Fantastic' is the epithet Hortensia Völckers, artistic director of the German Federal Cultural Foundation, used to describe the first year of the WCF (World Cinema Fund), a scheme launched by the Foundation and the Berlinale, and recently joined by the Goethe Institute. Indeed, since the project started in October 2004, 20 projects of 367 submitted by 52 countries have received production or distribution funding, three of which (Paradise Now [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Saratan, Naoussé) have been completed and screened with success at many festivals.

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At the end of this 'pilot' year, the jury (of four members including Dieter Kosslick, director of the Berlinale) met for a third round of funding, allocating funds to 4 projects for production aid and one feature for distribution aid.
So, production funding was granted to Faro, la reine des eaux (€60,000), in which Salif Traoré (from Mali) confronts tradition and modernity (German coprod.: Bärbel Mauch Film), Ghoussoun (€65,000), an Israeli-Palestinian film by Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti, The Feather Man (€25,000), in which the Palestinian director Azza El Hassan shows an atypical Israeli spy in Beirut (German coprod.: Ma.ja.de), and Songs from the Southern Seas (€80,000), shot by Marat Saralu in Kyrgyzstan and co-produced by Rohfilm.
The distributor Kool Film was allocated €7,500 to circulate The Man Who Copied by Jorge Furtado (Brazil).

(Translated from French)