New feature films from Stephen Daldry, Lukas Moodysson, Srdjan Koljevic and Wolfgang Murnberger are among the projects receiving backing from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) and Filmstiftung NRW in their latest rounds of production funding totalling $6.4m (Euros 4.6m.)

Daldry's adaptation of Bernhard Schlink's dramatic love story The Reader, which begins shooting in Berlinlater this year with a cast headed by Nicole Kidman and young German actor David Kross (Tough Enough) with Ralph Fiennes and Hannah Herzsprung (Four Minutes), received Euros 400,000 from MBB.

The film will be co-produced by Neunte Babelsberg Film. Senator Film has acquired rights to the film for Germany and Austria.

And $280,000 (Euros 200,000) was allocated to Lukas Moodysson's German-Swedish-Danish co-production Mammoth which will be the first project to be handled by the recently established Berlin arm of Zentropa Entertainments under producer Maria Koepf.

Production funding was also handed out by MBB to, among others, Mediopolis Film for Srdjan Koljevic's next project The Woman With A Broken Nose, with Serbian, Hungarian and Slovenian partners; to Boje Buck Produktion for Leander Haussmann's romantic comedy Robert Zimmermann Wundert Sich Ueber Die Liebe; and to Cartoon Film for Thilo Rothkirch's animation sequel Lauras Stern In China.

Meanwhile, the Filmstiftung NRW awarded $1.4m (Euros 1m) to Wolfgang Murnberger's big-screen live-action version of Boy Lornsen's 1967 children's fantasy classic Robbi, Tobbi Und Das Fliewatuut.

The co-production between Berlin-based box! film, Neue Kinowelt Filmproduktion and Cologne's MMC Independent will begin shooting this autumn at the MMC studios with Benjamin Meyer, Andreas Schmidt, Michael Mendl und Josef Hader.

The Dusseldorf-based funder also provided backing for Irish film-maker Stephen Burke's comedy Happy Ever Afters, starring Padraic Delaney, Emily Blunt, Eva Birthistle, and Donal O'Kelly, to be produced by Tatfilm with Newgrange Pictures and Matador Pictures.

And Najwa Najjar's German-French-Palestinian co-production Pomegranate & Myrrh between Cologne-based Rif Film with France's Alma Films and Palestine's Ustura Films aslo benefits.

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