NFF+HBF scheme backs projects from Palestine and Panama

The NFF+HBF Co-production Scheme, a joint venture between the Hubert Bals Fund and the Netherlands Film Fund, awards production funds to HBF Development-supported projects with an attached Dutch co-producer.

Palestinian filmmaker Muayad Alayan has screened at IFFR on several occasions, with the HBF-backed The Reports on Sarah and Saleem (IFFR 2018), and most recently A House in Jerusalem (IFFR 2023). His latest project, Conversation with the Sea, follows 60-year-old Kamal from Jerusalem who receives an order from an Israeli court demanding he pay a large sum for an unpaid social security debt on behalf of his son Wael, who was supposed to have drowned 20 years earlier. The project is awarded through its Dutch co-producer KeyFilm B.V.

Ana Elena Tejera (Panquiaco, IFFR 2020) tells an anti-colonial story of displacement in the Panama Canal Zone in her latest HBF-project Corte Culebra. The film follows a Panamanian soldier who enters the zone for the first time, uncovering the hidden history of communities displaced during US occupation and imagining a reconnection with ancestral lands after its return.

Presented at CineMart 2025, the film is awarded through its Dutch co-producer GROM Productions B.V.

Argentinian auteur Lucrecia Martel is a previous recipient of the scheme with her vital political documentary Nuestra tierra, which likewise also explores remnants of colonialism and the rights of Indigenous people. The film – winner of Best Film at BFI London Film Festival 2025 – screens at IFFR 2026 in the Harbour programme.

Header image: Muayad Alayan & Ana Elena Tejera