Films from Israel's Eran Riklis and Hungary's Kornel Mundruczo are among the projects sharing more than $4.6m (Euros 3.7m) from Germany's Leipzig-based regional film fund Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM).

In its first funding session of 2009 MDM gave production support to Riklis' tragicomedy The Mission Of The Human Resource Manager, to be produced by Halle-based Pallas Film, and Mundruczo's The Frankenstein Project, which will reunite him again with Delta co-producer Essential Filmproduktion.

The largest single sum, $940,000 (Euros 750,000), went to Philipp Stölzl's historical drama Goethe! which charts Goethe's unrequited love for the 19-year-old Lotte.

Goethe! will be produced by Senator Film Produktion with the recently founded deutschfilm at locations in Thuringia and Görlitz from August.

Pallas Film also received backing for its Czech-Slovak-German co-production of Tomas Lunak's feature debut and graphic novel adaptation, Alois Nebel.

Alois Nebel is produced by Prague-based Negativ Film, Slovakia's Tobogang and the Dresden-based animation company Balance Film.

Another supported project was Baran bo Odar's drama Silence (Das Schweigen) which was pitched at last month's Berlinale Co-Production Market.

Silence is an adaptation of Jan Costin Wagner's novel of the same name.

The co-production between Cine Plus Filmproduktion and Munich-based Luethje & Schneider Film has Ulrich Thomsen, Devid Striesow and Sebastian Blomberg attached as the main cast. World sales are to be handled by Bavaria Film International.

In addition, MDM allocated distribution support for the theatrical releases of such films as Stephen Daldry's Oscar-winning The Reader; Bohdan Slama's The Country Teacher; Stephan Komanderev's The World Is Big And Salvation is Around The Corner; and Alain Gsponer's Lila, Lila.

All of the above had previously all been granted production funding by the Central German fund.

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