Filmmakers from Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Ukrainian are five recipients of the pilot version Displacement Film Fund, The Short Film Grant Scheme Cate Blanchett and the Hubert Balds Foundation at the International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR).
The Displacement Film Fund was established to advocate and fund the work of filmmakers with a track record of advocating for the work of displaced people or filmmakers and creating authentic storytelling about the experiences of displaced people. This was announced by UNHCR Ambassador Blanchett during Rotterdam this year.
This pilot version of the fund is supported by film industry executives, creatives, business leaders and philanthropists, but each nominated filmmaker receives a production grant of 100,000 euros. The completed project will have a world premiere at IFFR 2026.
The five recipient filmmakers and their projects are:
- Ukrainian film director Maryna Er Gorbach won the Best Director Award for World Film Dramatic Competition for her films at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Klondike. Her Project Silk Road (w/t) is a Ukrainian-European Road film about a young Ukrainian woman whose family has been torn apart by the war. While her children live in Europe, she and her husband work in children’s hospitals as the war progresses.
- The debut feature film of Somali-Austrian filmmaker Mo Harawe, The village next to paradise It was performed in 2024 with solid respect from the United Nations in Cannes. His project A whisper of a burning scent (w/t) is set on the day of a critical court hearing where a quiet man faces the elucidation of his marriage and the judgment of his stepchild, looking for comfort in what once gave meaning to his life.
- Syrian filmmaker Hassan Kattan, he is co-director Aleppo’s last man He was a finalist for the Academy Awards and won the Juju Award at the Sundance Film Festival. His project Allies in exile (w/t) is about two Syrian filmmakers, tied up by a 14-year friendship forged in the war, documenting shared asylum in the British system of asylum. One person has been given shelter and the other has returned to changed Syria, reflecting the impossible choices faced by refugees today.
- Iran’s independent filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulov was forced to flee to a safe house in Germany after being sentenced to eight years by the Islamic Republic following his film choice. Sacred Fig Seed In a major competition at Cannes in 2024. The film was nominated for an Academy Award. What project was set in his time after the death of an exiled writer. The death of an exiled writer is trying to fulfill his wish for his family to be buried according to his will, but respecting his demands leads to unexpected complications.
- Afghanistan filmmaker Shahrbanoo Sadat recently fled from Kabul to Germany. Her debut movie Wolves and sheep He won the Top Award in the 2016 Director’s 2-week section held in Cannes. Her project is Kabul Women’s Fitness (w/t). In the crumbling Kabul gym, the walls covered with greased muscular men and doors open only for a few hours each day to women.
Blanchett said: “While evacuation can disrupt careers, it does not reduce the willingness to tell urgent human stories for artists. In an age of growing division, films provide a powerful counterforce to remind us of our shared humanity.
“The Displacement Film Fund is based on the belief that films continue to be a positive change force in response to the urgency of the global crisis,” said IFFR Claire Stewart, managing director and Tamara Teishvili, director of the Hubert Barth Foundation.
Stewart will hold a panel discussion on the Evacuation Film Fund, which will be held on May 23rd as part of the official Cannes Film Festival program. The panel is alongside Grant winners Melina Air Gobach and Mo Harau, along with Rajendra Roy, the leading curator of films at the Museum of Contemporary Art (New York).
Thierry Flemer, the generation delegate for the Cannes Film Festival, added: “The Cannes Film Festival is proud to host the Evacuation Film Fund Panel, giving voice to artists whose journeys have been marked by exile and evacuation, and witnessing the world around us.”
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