During the 1990s, awave of young film-makers emerged in Argentina who gained comparison on thefestival circuit with similar movements in Iran, Hong Kong, Thailand, Finlandand South Korea.

Now severaldirectors from the group known as New Argentine Cinema - such as LisandroAlonso (The Dead), Martin Rejtman (Silvia Prieto) and Lucrecia Martel (Holy Girl) - are developing newprojects.

Others like DanielBurman and Rodrigo Moreno will unveil their latest features - Family Law and The Minder - at Berlin next week.

And films from PabloTrapero, Adrian Caetano, Ulises Rosell, Diego Lerman, Ariel Rotter, SandraGugliotta and Veronica Chen are rumoured for a possible Cannes slot.

But often thefinancing for such projects is likely to come from abroad. The devaluation ofthe peso in 2002 created tempting conditions favourable for co-productions andforeign companies.

More than 60 percentof Argentinian films, especially those directed by young film-makers, arefinanced in association with Spanish, French, British or German outfits.

Daniel Burman's Family Law is a Euros 1.7m co-productionbetween local company BD Cine and Classic Films (Italy), Paradis Films (France)and Wanda Vision (Spain), while Rodrigo Moreno's The Minder was made for Euros 700,000 with Pandora Film Produktion(Germany), Charivari Films (France), and Ctrol-Z Films (Uruguay) as foreignbackers.

Pablo Trapero'slong-awaited fouth film, Born And Bred,was co-financed by Axiom Films (UK), Paradis Films (France), Sintra Films(Italy), Wood Producciones (Chile), Videofilmes (Brazil) and Notro Films(Spain). Diego Lerman's Meanwhile,currently shooting, has strong support from French company PyramideProductions.

As it's almostimpossible to produce without money from Europe, independent Argentiniancompanies are now dependent on foreign cash, with Celluloid Dreams, BavariaFilm, The Match Factory and F For Films, among others, handling internationalsales for several homegrown features.

Rotterdam's HubertBals Fund, Berlinale's World Cinema Fund, French Fonds Sud, Ibermedia Fund,Sundance's International Film-makers Award and Sweden's Goteborg Film FestivalFund are also important foreign sources of financing for Argentinianindependent productions.

The Other, Ariel Rotter's second feature currently in production, was among thefilms selected for financing at last year's World Cinema Fund. With Euros 60,000, it received the most funding of the nine eligible projects.

Meanwhile RodrigoMoreno's The Minder won theSundance/NHK International Film-makers Awards (best Latin American script), andreceived financial support from Fonds Sud Cinema (France), Ibermedia Program(Spain), Hubert Bals Fund (Netherlands), Filmstiftung NRW and World Cinema Fund(Germany).

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