Russian director Ilya Khrzhanovsky's second feature Dau, which was pitched at last year's Connecting Cottbus market forum, is one of the new feature films to be backed by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg in its latest round of funding.

Khrzhanovsky's new project, which is based on the life of the great Russian physicist and Nobel Prize winner Lev Landau and described by the producers as "a passionate film about a passionate man", received the largest amount - $450,000 (Euros 350,000) - from the public fund at this session.

The tragi-comic drama will be produced by the director's own company Phenonen Films and co-produced with Berlin-based Essential Filmproduktion, the production arm of world sales agent The Coproduction Office, who had handled Khrzhanovsky's feature debut 4, which won the Tiger Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival in 2005, among many other prizes.

In total, the Medienboard awarded more than $2.3m (Euros 1.8m) to 25 projects. Olga Film received $385,000 (Euros 300,000) for Doris Doerrie's new feature Hanami, which will be shot at locations in Berlin, Bavaria and Japan from next spring, while $130,000 (Euros 100,000) development support was allocated to Luther producer NFP teleart for its next biopic based on the life and work of the humanist and scientist Albert Schweitzer.

In addition, slate funding was allocated to Hans-Christian Schmid's company 23/5 Filmproduktion to develop new projects, including his social drama Zweitausenddreizehn and Achim von Borries' children's film Mein Sommer Mit Molomok, and to Film1 to prepare four new films including projects by Sebastian Schipper and Zoltan Spirandelli.