The Berlin Today Award (BTA), the Berlinale Talent Campus's short film competition, is being expanded for its next edition which will see the films focusing on the theme of 'My Wall' to mark the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 2009.

Participants of previous Talent Campuses and those now selected for the 2008 edition will have until January 17 to apply to take part in the shooting of one of the short film projects with a running time not exceeding 10 minutes.

At the same time, in a departure from the organisation of the previous BTAs where a local production house from the Berlin-Brandenburg region had served as production coordinator, young up-and-coming production companies from all over Germany will be invited to be apply to supervise the production of the shorts.

As part of a producers' meeting held during the Talent Campus in February, 15 selected talents will have a chance to pitch their film ideas to the production companies, and five projects (instead of three as in previous years) will be selected.

The directors of these five projects will be invited to Berlin for a one-month residency to work on the development of the shorts which will then be produced in Berlin or elsewhere in Germany in summer/autumn 2008 and have their post in the Berlin-Brandenburg region.
The films will be premiered at the 2009 Talent Campus under the patronage of Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and director Wim Wenders as the competition's mentor.

While the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg will provide production support of around Euros 30,000 per film plus services in kind from industry partners, additional financing has been forthcoming for the expanded programme for the first time from the German Foreign Office.

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