The Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein Film Fund has allocated over$4.8m (Euros 3.15m) to new feature projects by Fatih Akin, Tom Tykwer and Hans Weingartner as well as international co-productions by such filmmakers as Les Brodeuses directorEleonore Faucher, Norway's Sara Johnsen and Poland's Radek Wegrzyn.

The largest sum - $1.24m (Euros 800,000) - went to Akin for his latest project, the comedy Soul Kittchen, which his company Corazon International is set to shoot in Hamburg this autumn with a cast headed by Adam Bousdoukos, Moritz Bleibtreu and Alexandra Maria Lara.

Akin is also one of the directors with such colleagues as Hans Weingartner, Tom Tykwer, Isabelle Stever and Dominik Graf for the omnibus project Deutschland 09 which received $310,000 (Euros 200,000) support at the latest funding session. The production by Berlin-based Herbstfilm is inspired by the 1978 film Germany In Autumn and will see the filmmakers using different formats and filmic styles to give their personal snapshots of the political and social climate in autumn/winter 2008.

Meanwhile, the Hamburg has reaffirmed its continuing support for European co-productions by backing Eleonore Faucher's Gamines which is based on the autobiography by French actress Sylvie Testud; the Norwegian-German co-production of Sara Johnsen's portrait of four lost twentysomethings in Upperdog; and Radek Wegrzyn's comedy Father, Son & Holy Cow, starring Zbigniew Zamachowski and Agata Buzek, to be produced by Hamburg-based Detail Filmproduktion.

In addition, this funding round saw support allocated to Ulysses Filmproduktion's animation feature project Thor - The Edda Chronicles and Stefan Krohmer's made-for-TV docudrama Dutschke about the student leader and political activist Rudi Dutschke.

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