Key Highlights
- Related Stories News International Insider: Berlin Gets Political; Screenings Come To London Town; Andrew Arrested Festivals Director Tobias Nölle On Making Berlinale Film 'Tristan Forever' On Very Remote Island: "It's Super Freeing" - EFM DocSalon Its funding model is rare among European funds for Global South productions, in that the recipients are obliged to spend 90% of the money they receive in the country of production, rather than in Germany or on German cast and crew.
- Watch on Deadline “It’s moving the discussion around ownership… the power dynamic between the main producer and the German producer is very different from that of many other European funding schemes,” says Cissokho.
- She is taking up the baton in the wake of a bumper year for the fund, which saw 16 grantees make it into major festivals in 2025, including Cannes Critics’ Week Grand Prix winner A Useful Ghost and Cannes Un Certain Regard selection Aisha Can’t Fly Away.
- There were two WCF-backed films in this edition of the Berlinale – Indonesian director Edwin’s Sleep No More in the Berlinale Special Midnight sidebar and Narciso by Paraguayan director Marcelo Martinessi in Panorama.
- The WCF Day, taking place in the second week of the festival, featured a conversation with French Senegalese director Alain Gomis, whose drama Dao played in Competition, as well as focuses on South-East Asian cinema, and a talk on international sales opportunities for films hailing from the regions covered by fund.
