After a record number of 399 entries, the Hubert Bals Fund has announced the winners of its 2012 Fall round which includes 10 projects from Latin America featuring new productions by Michel Lipkes (Mexico), Dominga Sotomayor (Chile, pictured right), Felipe Guerrero (Colombia, pictured left) and Milagros Mumenthaler (Argentina), among others. The Hubert Bals Fund is an initiative of the International Film Festival Rotterdam that provides grants to international cinema projects in various stages of completion.
Winners of the Script and Project Development grant include Extraño pero verdadero / Strange but True by Mexican filmmaker Michel Lipkes; Oscuro animal / Obscure Animal directed by Felipe Guerrero from Colombia, Mariano Luque’s Otra Madre / Another Mother from Argentina, and Chilean director Dominga Sotomayor’s Tarde para morir joven / Late to Die Young, who was previously awarded the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam Film Festival for her debut feature film De jueves a domingo / Thursday Till Sunday.
Digital Production includes a grant won by Argentine director Milagros Mumenthaler, for her newest production Pozo de aire. Previously awarded the Golden Leopard at the Locarno Film Festival for her debut feature film Abrir puertas y ventanas / Back to Stay, Pozo proves to be a much more experimental project using family portraits to focus on the notion of absence.
Films awarded on their last leg of production are Noche / Night by Leonardo Brzezicki from Argentina; Penumbra directed by Eduardo Villanueva from Mexico; and two films from Brazilian directors, Ricardo Pretti and Bruno Safadi, O rio nos pretence / Rio Belongs to Us and O uivo da gaita / The Harmonica’s Howl, respectively.
