In its first funding round of the year, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) has handed out over €5.8 million to 20 projects in progress; 49 applications were originally submitted with a total requested amount of €14.2 million. Out of these 20, 12 films and three series were awarded production funding, while five movies were awarded development funding.

€600,000 in production funding have gone to Toter Mann (lit: “Dead Man”) by Sebastian Schipper, best known for his one-shot crime-thriller Victoria [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Sebastian Schipper
scheda film] (2015). With a screenplay by Eike Schulz and starring Slavko Popadic (star of the Apple TV+ series Berlin ER [+leggi anche:
recensione
scheda series]), the film will be produced by Iconoclast Films Germany.

Another project (€200,000) in receipt of production funding is Alexandre Koberidze's Bilingual, which will be his next project after the Locarno prizewinner Dry Leaf [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Alexandre Koberidze
scheda film]. The Franco-German production follows two women, one in Georgia and one in France, and has previously been described as a detective narrative combined with romance. Bilingual is being produced by New Matter Films on the German side and Tripode Productions for France.

Berlin-based Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari, of With Hasan in Gaza [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Kamal Aljafari
intervista: Kamal Aljafari
scheda film] and A Fidai Film [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Kamal Aljafari
scheda film] fame, was selected to receive €50,000 in production funding with Beirut 1931, featuring himself as a producer. Beirut 1931 has been announced as a fiction film, expected to be shot in Jaffa. Maryam Zaree, an Iranian-born German actor known for Undine [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Christian Petzold
scheda film], System Crasher [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Nora Fingscheidt
scheda film] and Transit [+leggi anche:
recensione
trailer
intervista: Christian Petzold
intervista: Franz Rogowski
scheda film], will make her directorial debut with Opfer (lit. “Victims”), produced by Komplizen Film. Jonas Dassler has been announced as part of the cast, and Zaree will also write the picture. MBB awarded the film €300,000.

In terms of series production funding, MBB presented Die Barmherzigen (referring to the religious meaning of “the merciful” or “the compassionate”) with €400,000, helmed by Vietnamese-German director and DoP Ngo The Chau. Produced by UFA Fiction, the film will star and is co-written by Minh-Khai Phan-Thi. Sebastian Schipper will also direct the series Zwei vernünftige Erwachsene, die sich mal nackt gesehen haben (lit. “Two Sensible Adults Who Have Seen Each Other Naked”), awarded €800,000 in funding. The show is based on the novel of the same name by Anika Decker, who will also serve as showrunner. The book follows a divorced mother who falls in love with a man 20 years younger than her.

In the development funding strand, Tobis Filmproduktion has been given €500,000 for Julia von Heinz's Das Kind in dir muss Heimat finden (lit. “The Child Within You Must Find a Home”), an adaptation of the best-selling self-help book by Stefanie Stahl of the same name. With a screenplay by herself and her husband John Quester, the film stars Hannah Herzsprung, Fahri Yardim, Mala Emde, Emilio Sakraya, Martina Gedeck and Ulrich Tukur.

Finally, Jugend, produced by Lupa Film, will reunite Ina Weisse with the on-screen pair of Nina Hoss and Saskia Rosendahl, who starred in her Berlinale Panorama effort Cicadas [+leggi anche:
recensione
intervista: Ina Weisse
scheda film] last year. The project was awarded €100,000 in development funding.