Projects from Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Ecuador, Lebanon, Malaysia, Philippines, Senegal, and Turkey and up-and-comers Ana Cristina Barragán, Amanda Nell Eu and Lara Zeidan are part of the fortunate filmmakers to receive coin for their feature film projects via the Berlinale World Cinema Fund (now in its 43rd session). Of the nine projects highlights include Ecuador’s Barragán’s Amapola – which was part of the 2025 Venice Gap-Financing Market and may premiere at the upcoming Venice Film Festival. The Malaysia filmmaker behind Tiger Stripes has been lining up Lotus Feet for what will likely be a 2026 shoot. Set in 1938, Eu’s sophomore feature is about a second wife who struggles to adapt to life within a powerful family on a remote rubber estate, ultimately turning to violence to reclaim autonomy over her own body. Lebanese/Canadian filmmaker Lara Zeidan sets her debut feature Birthday back in Beirut looks at the events that break out before Razan turns fourteen years old. Here are the projects that will likely populate the A-tier film festivals in the years to come.
WCF Classic
Birthday – Lara Zeidan (Lebanon). Berlinale Talents 2019
Production: Road2Films (Lebanon), Sévana Films (France), Couronne Nord (Canada), Tabi360 (Jordan), Mayana Films (Germany)
Logline: Beirut, May 7, 2008: A regular after-school day for Razan, who turns fourteen tomorrow, is disrupted by gun battles that erupt throughout the city. Regardless, Razan’s teenage concerns remain unchanged as she tries to enjoy a normal birthday.
Funding: €60,000
Goodbye for Now – Kasım Ördek (Turkey)
Production: Parda Film (Turkey), Die Gesellschaft DGS – Michael Henrichs Filmproduktion (Germany), Kidam Production (France), The Film Kitchen (Netherlands)
Logline: Sevgi, a young woman in her early twenties, living with a gang in the ghetto of Istanbul, starts a dangerous search after her mother mysteriously disappears.
Funding: €35,000
The Guardian of the Green Ocean – Apolline Traoré (Burkina Faso)
Production: Les Films Selmon (Burkina Faso), Araucania Films (France), Productions Colorées (Canada)
Logline: Following the discovery of an oil source threatening her village, and with her past catching up with her, Inaya must embrace her destiny as a guardian to protect her forest, threatened by modernity. But this will come at the cost of her love…
Funding: €40,000
HUM (OVUG) – Don Josephus Raphael Eblahan (Philippines). Berlinale Talents 2024 / Talents Project Market 2025
Production: Daluyong Studios (Philippines), Prima Materia Pictures (USA), Oma Inge Film (Germany), Big Wave Films (Poland)
Logline: Esme, a native horse rider gifted with the rare ability to mimic animal sounds, guides Professor Arceo, an animal linguist tasked to track down an eco-terrorist in the forest.
Funding: €50,000
Little Phnom Penh – Chheangkea (Cambodia)
Production: NoMad Productions (France), Anti-Archive (Cambodia)
Logline: A Cambodian woman searches for connection and belonging as a daughter, wife, and mother—while a lost first love continues to find her across time and continents, from post-Khmer Rouge Phnom Penh to early 2000s California.
Funding: €35,000
Lotus Feet – Amanda Nell Eu (Malaysia). Berlinale Talents 2018 / Berlinale Co-Production Market 2026
Produced by Ghost Grrrl Pictures (Malaysia), Weydemann Bros. Film GmbH (Germany), KawanKawan Media (Indonesia), Flash Forward Entertainment (Taiwan)
Logline: British Malaya, 1938. A second wife struggles to adapt to life within a powerful family on a remote rubber estate, ultimately turning to violence to reclaim autonomy over her own body.
Funding: €40,000
WCF Europe
AMAPOLA – Ana Cristina Barragán (Ecuador). Berlinale Talents 2018
Production: Trópico Cine and Botón Films (Ecuador), Graal Films (Greece), Ciné-Sud Promotion (France), Klaxon Cultura Audiovisual (Brazil), Clara Films (Chile)
Logline: A group of teenage survivors of human trafficking live in a remote shelter hidden amidst lush mangroves, where they begin the slow process of healing while caring for the babies born to their captors. Between tenderness, fear and complicity, they forge deep bonds as their stay draws to an end and a strange eclipse approaches.
Funding: €40,000
Fagadaga – Yoro Mbaye (Senegal)
Production: Astou Production (Senegal), In Vivo Films (France), Yzanakio (Canada)
Logline: Ousseynou survives by selling “Fagadaga”, stale bread discarded by the capital, to the people of his village, serving a corrupt employer to feed his family. When his sister-in-law Nafi reopens a traditional bakery, his business is threatened, forcing him into a moral battle between loyalty, survival, and self-respect.
Funding: €40,000
Waiting for Winter – Farid Ahmad (Bangladesh). Berlinale Talents 2022. Documentary film
Production: Noyakar Productions (Bangladesh), House on Fire (France)
Logline: Bangladesh is the largest delta of the world where floods become devastating during summer. When winter arrives, an island emerges beside the Jamuna River and Sahana, a homeless mother, serves there as cheap labor, caught in a modern slavery system. She fights to get back to a safe place with her two children before summer comes back again. Funding: €25,000
