Hubert Bals Fund

Solidarity capital: looking back at the Sarajevo Film Festival 🇧🇦

As well as catching up with plenty of supported filmmakers, projects and talents at the SARAJEVO FILM FESTIVAL last month, we were honoured to join the panel “Solidarity Capital: Alternative Financing for Independent Cinema.”

With shrinking public support, volatile markets and growing political pressures shaping the industry landscape worldwide, the discussion, joined by Head of the HBF Tamara Tatishvili, spotlighted collective, mission-driven financing initiatives.

The HBF was acknowledged as one of the few long-standing funds committed to supporting projects by filmmakers facing unrest and instability. We shared insights on our flagship support schemes and our crucial role as managing partner of the new Displacement Film Fund.

Later we caught up with Mehmet Bahadir Er, producer of Ukrainian filmmaker Maryna Er Gorbach's upcoming DFF-supported project.

HBF+Brazil: submit your project now! 🇧🇷

In partnership with RioFilme, Spcine and Projeto Paradiso, the HBF+Brazil: Co-development Support scheme is dedicated to supporting the early development of projects by second- and third-time filmmakers from Brazil.

In the pilot year, the scheme will support up to nine fiction film projects in early development, directed by a Brazilian filmmaker and with a Brazilian production company attached, offering grants of up to €10,000 each.

The deadline is 15 September 23.59 CEST.

Find out more and submit: https://iffr.com/en/hubert-bals-fund/funding-schemes/hbfbrazil-co-development-support

Hubert Bals Fund at FIDMarseille ☀️

We're delighted to see plenty of HBF presence (both new and old) at the 36th FIDMarseille, starting tomorrow (8–13 July).

🇵🇪 Estados Generales (2025) by Mauricio Freyre
Peruvian filmmaker Mauricio Freyre's Estados Generales has its world premiere after support from the HBF+Europe: Post-production Support scheme last year (Creative Europe). The sensual botanical journey screens in the First Film Competition.

🇸🇩 The Dam (2022) by Ali Cherri
Lebanese artist Ali Cherri presents a special screening of the HBF Development-supported The Dam in tandem with his exhibition Les Veilleurs at the Musée d’art contemporain de Marseille. The mystical film follows Maher, a bricklayer working on the Merowe dam in northern Sudan.

🇷🇴 Radu Jude Retrospective
The festival celebrates the back-catalogue of prolific, provocative Romanian director Radu Jude, including his debut feature The Happiest Girl in the World (2009), a bitter, gritty comedy co-produced by the Dutch Circe Films.

Find out more here: https://fidmarseille.org/en/