In the 33rd jury session of the Berlinale World Cinema Fund (WCF), the juries made 12 funding recommendations for a variety of international projects, the Berlin Film festival announced on Friday. The varied projects represent the countries of Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Dominican Republic, Guinea, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Kyrgyzstan, Mozambique, Senegal, and Turkey. The current funding amounts to a total of €592,000, meaning that the funding volume has increased by 49.85% since the last funding round. The WCF is pleased to be able to support independent cinema even more strongly in times of crisis, and to promote the visibility of the world's cultural complexity. "Versatile documentary forms and feature films that also innovatively deal with genre elements stood out in the current funding round," said WCF Head Vincenzo Bugno, "The directors tackle political and social realities with strong film aesthetics." He added, "You can also discover projects that arise from unusual co-production structures and thus pave the way for further new cooperation opportunities." Since 2004, the WCF has been successfully supporting film production in regions characterised by an insufficient film infrastructure. This has taken place by virtue of its increasingly differentiated funding programme, whether it be the WCF, WCF Europe, WCF Africa, or WCF ACP, and advocating cultural diversity in German cinemas.
