Waiting for Winter by Bangladeshi director Farid Ahmad, a 2022 Berlinale Talent, has been awarded €25,000 by the World Cinema Fund in its Europe category (WCF Europe). Ahmad’s project is the sole doc recipient among the nine selections.
The overall selection was made from 373 submissions from 75 countries. Total funding amounts to €365,000 euros. Additionally, over the past months, three German cinema releases have been backed by the World Cinema Fund, with total support amounting to 28,000 euros.
The logline of Waiting for Winter reads: Bangladesh is the largest delta of the world where floods become devastating during summer. When winter arrives, an island emerges beside the Jamuna River where Sahana, a homeless is caught in a modern slavery system. She fights to return to a safe place with her two children before summer comes back again.
The 43rd jury session marks the first presided over by Sata Cissokho, who took over as head of the World Cinema Fund at the end of 2025.
“We have received a record-breaking number of applications and high-quality projects. While the process of recommending only nine projects for funding is not easy, it asserts the importance and relevance of the World Cinema Fund’s support to cultural diversity through a variety of topics, perspectives and forms,” comments Cissokho, who was joined on the jury by film critic and curator Ali Benzekri (Morocco); festival director Susanne Bieger (Germany), and producer and festival programmer Tatiana Leite (Brazil).
The World Cinema Fund is part of Berlinale Pro, which also encompasses the European Film Market, the Berlinale Co-Production Market and Berlinale Talents. Berlinale Pro is described as “the festival’s comprehensive industry infrastructure, serving as an incubator, promoter and supporter of the global film industry in all phases of film development, production, as well as in sales and distribution.”
