New features by Lars von Trier (Manderlay), Philippe Haim (The Daltons/La Vraie Vie Des Daltons) and Sebastian Schipper (Ein Freund Von Mir) are among the film projects awarded over Euros 3.8m by Filmstiftung NRW in its latest round of funding.

The largest sum - Euros 1,858,970 - was allocated to Haim's new screen adaptation of the adventures of Lucky Luke which will be produced by UGC Images with Germany's Integral Film and Spain's Sogedasa.

The Euros 27m production, which will begin shooting at Cologne-Ossendorf's MMC studios from January 27, will feature Til Schweiger as the eponymous hero Lucky with the comedian duo Ramzy Bedia and Eric Judor as the Daltons.

Meanwhile, Euros 1m is being invested in X-Filme creative pool's production of Sebastian Schipper's Ein Freund Von Mir, his second feature after his 1999 debut as director with Gigantic (Absolute Giganten).

Euros 612.089 will be stumped up for the second part of Lars von Trier's American trilogy, Manderlay, starring Chloe Sevigny, Jeremy Davies and Stellan Skarsgard. Cologne-based Pain Unlimited is the German production partner on this European co-production where Zentropa Entertainment has attracted such companies as Sweden's Memfis Film, France's Ognon Pictures and the Netherlands' Isabella Films to board the project.

Other projects receiving production funding in this round include Keren Yedaya's Or, to be produced by Potsdam-based Flying Moon Filmproduktion with Israel's Transfax Films, France's Bizibi Productions and German public broadcaster ZDF; and Doris Metz's low budget documentary Schattenvaeter (prod: PanEuropeanPictures P.E.P.) about the lives of Matthias Brandt and Pierre Guillaume in the shadow of their fathers Willy Brandt and Guenter Guillaume.