The Hubert Bals Fund of the International Film Festival Rotterdam has selected four film projects to receive support in its ‘digital production’ category. Liu Jiayin and Wang Bing (both from China), Paz Encina (Paraguay) and Eugenio Polgovsky (Mexico) receive grants to produce their low budget digital projects.
The other categories, including script development and postproduction grants, will be announced in two weeks.

Wang Bing’s CAI YOU RI JI (THE JOURNEY OF CRUDE OIL) documents in non-stop recording the oil extraction industry in the Gobi Desert. After his phenomenal portrait of heavy industry in decay, TIE XI QU: WEST OF THE TRACKS and this years’ HE FENGMING, Wang Bing now sets out to observe the very dynamic oil industry.
Liu Jiayin’s OXHIDE II continues her minimalist portrayal of a family and the decline of their business. Her début OXHIDE won many prizes, including at Berlin and Vancouver festivals, and was distributed in France by MK2.

Following her début feature film HAMACA PARAGUAYA, selected for Cannes 2006’s Un Certain Regard, Paz Encina’s new project, to be co-directed with Manuel Nieto Zas from Uruguay, will be UN SUSPIRO (A SIGH), about a brief moment in the lives of two brothers on the run for dictator Stroessner’s armed forces. Nieto’s LA PERRERA (THE DOG POUND) won one of Rotterdam’s Tiger Awards in 2006.

LOS HEREDEROS (THE INHERITORS) by Eugenio Polgovsky (Mexico) is a contemplative journey through the lives of the working children in the Mexican countryside who attempt to survive on a day by day basis as their ancestors did, locked in a perpetual cycle of inherited poverty. Polgovsky’s TROPICO DE CANCER (TROPIC OF CANCER) was awarded Best Documentary at the 2004 Morelia Film Festival and was selected for the 2005 Rotterdam Film Festival.

Annually, the Hubert Bals Fund has close to Euro 1.2 million at its disposal and is able to make individual grants of up to Euro 10,000 for script and project development, Euro 30,000 for post-production, Euro 20,000 for digital production or Euro 15,000 towards distribution costs in the country of origin. Selection rounds take place twice a year and have application deadlines on March 1 and August 1.

Along with CineMart, the Hubert Bals Fund (HBF) is part of the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR). The 37th IFFR will take place January 23 – February 3, 2008. Year-round news on IFFR, HBF and CineMart can be found on the festival website www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com.

The Hubert Bals Fund is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dutch non-governmental development organisations Hivos and NCDO, the DOEN Foundation and Dutch public broadcasting network NPS.