New projects by Christian Petzold and Iain Dilthey are the among new features awarded a total of Euros 1.48m by State Minister for Culture and Media Christina Weiss in her ministry's latest round of film funding.

Petzold, who received the top German Film Award for The State I Am In two years ago, received Euros 200,000 production backing for his next project Gespenster which will also be produced by Schramm Film.

Cologne-based Tag/Traum Produktion has been granted Euros 100,000 for Anita by Dilthey, who picked up the Golden Leopard in Locarno in 2002 for The Longing (Das Verlangen).

In total eight feature films, two documentaries and four screenplays received backing.

Didi Danquart's Offset (noirfilm Produktion) and Valeska Grisebach's Sehnsucht (Peter Rommel Productions) received Euros 200,000 and Euros 150,000 respectively. Funding was also allocated to new projects by Angelina Maccarone (In Orbit, prod co: MMM Filmproduktion), Mirko Borscht (Main Frankfurt Oder, prod co: Credofilm) and Thomas Frydetzki (Max Und Moritz, prod co: Next Film).

In all, 74 feature-length film projects and 145 screenplays looking for funding were submitted to the ministry.