11/04/2005

Last March, Jean Perret (director of the Festival ‘Visions du Réel), Martial Knaebel (director of the Fribourg Festival) and Walter Ruggle (director of the distribution company Trigon Film) announced the creation of a new fund, Visions sud est. This new support fund designed for productions from Eastern and Southern countries takes over the functions of Montecinemaverità, a similar foundation created in 1992 by Marco Müller —who is currently the director of the Mostra in Venice but who was then director of the Locarno Festival— the activities of which have been frozen since the Autumn 2004.

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The new fund currently has a budget of 322,500 euros —mainly from the Development and Cooperation unit (DDC) which depends from the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs— dedicated to full-length features. In the beginning, the fund will grant 32,250 euros (each) to seven or eight fictions and 12,900 euros to one or two documentaries. A project is eligible only provided the associate producer is from the same country as the producer (or co-producer, even a minority one, as is sometimes the case with African-French coproductions). The subject of the movie must also relate to the country it is from and have an interest in terms of cultural exchange between Northern and Southern, Eastern and Western societies. The Fribourg Festival and Visions of the Real have agreed to show the works supported by the fund, and trigon-film will ensure their distribution in Switzerland.

(Translated from French)