Rotterdam Unveils 2025 Hubert Bals Fund Projects
This year's selection includes the first HBF-backed project from Tanzania, the satire Last Cow from director Amil Shivij, whose feature debut Tug of War screened in Toronto in 2021 and was Tanzania's official Oscar submission. It was picked for this year's Locarno film festival and will screen in the Open Doors sidebar.
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Other African projects this year include Mwadia, a magic-realist drama on Mozambique's colonial past and present trauma; the feature debut of documentary filmmaker Inadelso Cossa (The Nights Still Smell of Gunpowder); Tears, the debut feature from Rwandan director Moise Ganza; and Coumba, the new film from Senegalese director Mamadou Dia, whose HBF-backed debut, Nafi's Father, won the Golden Leopard at the 2019 Locarno film festival and was Senegal's official entry for the Oscars.
IFFR alumni talent can be found throughout this year's selection, with new features from Syrian director Farida Baqi (The Rapture), Indonesia's Timoteus Anggawan Kusno (Orphaned Atlas), Kazakhstan filmmaker Renata Dzhalo (Nobody to See Us), Malaysian director Amanda Nell Eu (Lotus Feet) and Brazil's Stephanie Ricci (Boca da noite) among the 2025 HBF recipients.
The selected directors will receive a €10,000 ($11,760) grant each to help develop their projects into finished features.
In addition to its regular fund, the HBF launched two new development schemes this year. Together with two-time Oscar winner Cate Blanchett, the HBF in January announced the Displacement Film Fund, offering grants of €100,000 ($104,000) each to five filmmakers, displaced by war or conflict, to make original shorts.
A jury, made up of Blanchett, Wicked star Cynthia Erivo, documentarians Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Flee) and Waad Al-Kateab (For Sama), director Agnieszka Holland (Green Border), Rotterdam festival director Vanja Kaludjercic, activist and refugee Aisha Khurram and Amin Nawabi [alias], the LGBTQ+ asylum seeker who was Rasmussen's inspiration for his Oscar-nominated documentary Flee, announced the first fund grantees in Cannes this year.
Also in Cannes, the HBF announced a cooperation with the three leading Brazilian film promotion bodies — Spcine, RioFilme, Projeto Paradiso — launching HBF+Brazil: Co-development Support, a three-year initiative to provide early development funding for up to nine fiction films, with €10,000 ($11,760) grants each. The submission deadline for HBF+Brazil projects, on IFFR.com, is Sept. 15.
Full list of 2025 Herbert Bals Fund development support projects
Amateur, Carlos Díaz Lechuga, Cuba, SpainThe Appalling Human Voice of the Animals, Neritan Zinxhiria, Greece, AlbaniaBoca da noite, Stephanie Ricci, BrazilCoumba, Mamadou Dia, SenegalGirl With a Camera, Xiaoxuan Jiang, Hong Kong, ChinaThe Immigrants, Suman Mukhopadhyay, IndiaLast Cow, Amil Shivji, Tanzania, CanadaLotus Feet, Amanda Nell Eu, MalaysiaMoto, Chris Chong Chan Fui, MalaysiaMwadia, Inadelso Cossa, MozambiqueNobody to See Us, Renata Dzhalo, Kazakhstan, France, MoldovaOrphaned Atlas, Timoteus Anggawan Kusno, IndonesiaThe Rapture, Farida Baqi, Syria, Lebanon, Germany, NetherlandsTears, Moise Ganza, RwandaWhere Shadows Wait, Arya Rothe, India, Italy
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