Hubert Bals Development Support 2025: Funding News

International Film Festival Rotterdam’s Hubert Bals Fund has selected 15 projects for the latest round of its Development Support scheme, including the fund’s first ever supported project from Tanzania.

The selected projects also include new works from Senegal’s Mamadou Dia, Malaysia’s Amanda Nell Eu, Mongolia’s Jiang Xiaoxuan and projects from Cuba, Albania, Brazil, India, Mozambique, Rwanda, Syria and Kazakhstan. Each project will receive a grant of €10,000 to support the next steps in its development.

See more about the 15 selected projects below: 

HBF Development Support 2025 Complete Selection:

Amateur (Cuba, Spain)
Dir: Carlos Díaz Lechuga
Set in Barcelona during the 1992 Olympics, Cuban filmmaker Carlos Lechuga’s Amateur follows an impossible, forbidden love between two men from the Cuban sports delegation. His debut Melaza screened at IFFR 2013, followed by Santa y Andrés (2016) and Vicenta B (2022) which both premiered at TIFF.

The Appalling Human Voice Of The Animals (Greece, Albania)
Dir: Neritan Zinxhiria,
Following a mercenary in Byzantium, Neritan Zinxhiria is supported for his feature debut The Appalling Human Voice Of The Animals which proposes an archaeology of the future, driven by the tradition of ethnic songs and oral stories from Albania and Greece, his countries of origin. His Light Of Light (2023) screened in the Tiger Short Competition at IFFR 2023.

Boca da noite (Brazil)
Dir: Stephanie Ricci, Brazil
Brazilian filmmaker Stephanie Ricci’s project Boca da noite presents a vivid nocturnal portrait of São Paulo’s historic centre and its inhabitants, following the 70-year-old Areta’s adventure on the hunt for a 24-hour locksmith. Her short Quem se move screened in the IFFR 2025 Short & Mid-length programme, tracing the movements of a precarious young Brazilian in Lisbon.

Coumba (Senegal)
Dir: Mamadou Dia
Senegalese filmmaker Mamadou Dia’s HBF-backed debut, Nafi’s Father (IFFR 2020), won the Pardo d’Oro in Locarno’s Cineasti del Presente section in 2019. His latest project, Coumba, explores the place of rituals in an ever-changing society, following a detective returning to her hometown to investigate a murder tied to Coumba, a hoofed spirit, on the year’s first full moon.

Girl With A Camera (Hong Kong, China)
Dir: Xiaoxuan Jiang
Born and raised in Inner Mongolia, Xiaoxuan Jiang’s debut To Kill a Mongolian Horse had its world premiere in the Giornate degli Autori in Venice in 2024, where it won a Special Mention in the Authors Under 40 Award for Best Directing and Screenwriting. In her supported project Girl With A Camera, a young, ambitious scholar arrives at her remote field site in Inner Mongolia, where she has to confront the messy dynamics between scholar and subject.

The Immigrants (India)
Dir: Suman Mukhopadhyay
Suman Mukhopadhyay presents a tumultuous family history through The Immigrants set against the backdrop of the 1947 Partition of India. It will be his tenth feature film, following his IFFR 2025 Big Screen Competition title, The Puppet’s Tale.

Last Cow (Tanzania, Canada)
Dir: Amil Shivji
Tanzanian filmmaker Amil Shivij’s satirical project Last Cow is set in a remote Maasai village where a cow becomes a sensation after surviving an arrow to the neck, leading to a critique of conservation and tourism at the expense of indigenous communities and ancestral lands. Shivij’s feature Tug Of War (2021) screened at TIFF and was Tanzania’s second-ever submission to the Academy Awards. The project is co-produced by Ethiopian-Canadian producer and Rotterdam Lab alum Tamara Dawit.

Lotus Feet (Malaysia)
Dir: Amanda Nell Eu
Malaysian filmmaker Amanda Nell Eu is tackling the theme of motherhood through a fantastical body horror take with Lotus Feet, drawing on the tale of the Malaysian folk monsteress known as the Penanggalan that haunts pregnant women and newborns. Her acclaimed HBF-backed Tiger Stripes won the top prize in the Semaine de la Critique in 2024 and was a Dutch co-production with Ellen Havenith of PRPL, who will also co-produce the upcoming feature.

Moto (Malaysia)
Dir: Chris Chong Chan Fui
Chris Chong Chan Fu takes us into the heart of Kuala Lumpur with Moto, as the encounters of a motorcyclist show us a glimpse of humanity amid the rapidly developing metropolis. His film Karaoke (2009) screened in Cannes Quinzaine des Cinéastes, whilst his installation work Heaven Hell (2009) was exhibited at Eye Filmmuseum.

Mwadia (Mozambique)
Dir: Inadelso Cossa
Inadelso Cossa’s fiction feature debut Mwadia offers a surrealistic, magical realist reflection on Mozambique’s colonial past and present trauma, through a fable of a woman’s journey to save her husband. His award-winning The Nights Still Smell Of Gunpowder (2024) screened in Berlinale Forum and CPH:DOX, after his debut documentary Memory In Three Acts (2016) had its world premiere at IDFA.

Nobody To See Us (Kazakhstan, France, Moldova)
Dir: Renata Dzhalo
Renata Dzhalo’s feature debut On This Land premiered in Bright Future at IFFR 2025, a striking black-and-white exploration of feudal cruelties in an 18th-century Russian village. In her supported project Nobody To See Us, she draws on her mother’s story to explore the cruelty of early-2000s Russia, as Olya seeks to divorce a vanished husband from Guinea-Bissau, father of her child.

Orphaned Atlas (Indonesia)
Dir: Timoteus Anggawan Kusno
In 2025, IFFR presented a Focus programme on the Indonesian and Amsterdam-based visual artist and researcher Timoteus Anggawan Kusno whose work explores coloniality and its shadows. Set in a remote village surrounded by forest, his allegorical feature debut Orphaned Atlas will be a politically charged fable about state violence, inherited trauma, and the fragile resistance of memory.

The Rapture (Syria, Lebanon, Germany, Netherlands)
Dir: Farida Baqi
Syrian filmmaker Farida Baqi’s The Visual Feminist Manifesto, a lyrical ode to the lives of women within a patriarchal system, won the IFFR 2025 Youth Jury Award. She’s supported for her next project, The Rapture, which explores the sexual awakening of an Arab woman in her 50s.

Tears (Rwanda)
Dir: Moise Ganza
Rwanda’s past and present are the subject of Moise Ganza’s debut feature project Tears, told through the story of Mugema, a YouTuber obsessed with finding the self-professed Kibogo, a mystical journey through a world of peculiar characters, sacrifices, rituals, cursed objects and the living dead.

Where Shadows Wait (India, Italy)
Dir: Arya Rothe
Arya Rothe draws from her own upbringing in Where Shadows Wait as the 14-year-old Manu embarks on a magical realist journey to reconnect with her father in the last months of his life. Her co-directed project A Rifle And A Bag received a Special Mention in the Bright Future Competition at IFFR 2020.