Salut Cousin! director Merzak Allouache is amongst a host of film-makers from developing counties to secure funding from the International Film Festival Rotterdam's Hubert Bals Fund.

Allouache was awarded support for L'Autre Monde, which explores the social and political situation in Algeria through a young woman's search for her fiance.

Other projects to secure development funding include: Pablo Perelman's Chilean project Cazador De Sombras (Shadow Hunter), loosely based on a novel by an Austrian priest-anthropologist who lived in the remote Tierra del Fuego in the 1920s; Gustavo Corrado's Garua (Little Rain), the story of an Argentine murderer in Paris; Abderrahmane Sissako's Heremakano, about life in an African town through the eyes of a young boy; Operacion Condor, the feature debut of Argentine documentary film-maker David Blaustein; Aluizio Abranchez's Brazilian drama As Tres Marias (The Three Marias); and Sabiha Sumar's Pakistan title Veru.

Projects awarded grants for post-production include Fernando Meirelles and Nando Olival comic take on Brazilian maids, Domesticas (Maids); Daniel Burman's Esperando Al Mesias (Waiting For The Messiah), the story of a young Jewish man in Buenos Aires; Alexander Bashirov's Russian project Lubov Ne Prodayotsa; and Buddhadeb Dasgupta's Uttara (The Wrestlers), from India. A distribution award went to Chikin Biznis, a South African comedy directed by Ntshaveni wa Luruli.