MEDIA backs new films from Greenaway, Folman, and Loznitsa; Libya now eligible for European funding

The funding goes towards co-financing part of the European independent production companies’ costs for insurance, completion guarantee and credit financing.

With a total budget of €3m for this year, the i2i funding may not exceed 50% of a production company’s eligible costs (or 60% for countries with a low production capacity).

The maximum amount of support of € 50,000 was awarded to such projects as Sandra Nettelbeck’s Mr Morgan’s Last Love, Margarethe von Trotta’s Toronto title Hannah Arendt, Detlev Buck’s 3D film Measuring The World, Vincent Bal’s The Zig Zag Kid, and Simon Staho’s Flowers Of Desire.

Meanwhile, there is a good news for Libyan film professionals following the decision of the European Commission (EC) to include Libya among the beneficiary countries of current projects and programmes designed for the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership of 16 countries.

Libya had not been included beforehand “due to the political circumstances,” according to the EC. However, “in the light of the recent events of the Arab Spring and the new situation in Libya, Libya should now fully participate to the recent regional projects/programmes, which will continue in 2013 and beyond.”

Thus, Libyan audiovisual professionals will now be able to participate with nine other countries bordering the Mediterranean – Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, Lebanon, Morocco, Occupied Palestinian Territiory, Syria and Tunisia – in the activities of Euromed Audiovisual III Programme which has an overall budget of €11m over three years from 2011-2013.

This new development comes as 17 documentary projects by 24 filmmakers from eight Mediterranean countries were selected from a total of 84 submissions for the 2012 edition of the Greenhouse training programme for Mediterranean film school graduates and emerging filmmakers

A programme of three seminars will begin with one on dramatic narrative and main characters with such tutors as John Appel, Hans-Robert Eisenhauer and Nenad Puhovski, to be held in Jordan’s Aqaba from Aug 29 to Sept 3.

The projects selected include Mahmoud Omar’s Black Country (Egypt), Ohad Milstein’s H20 (Israel), Habib Battah’s Return To The Valley Of Jews (Lebanon), Tamer Aljmal’s Temporal Joy (Palestine) and Zeineb Khalfaoiu’s Couvre X (Tunisia).