EXCLUSIVE: TorinoFilmLab (TFL) has awarded its TFL Co-Production Fund 2026 to three projects: Martika Ramirez Escobar’s Daughters Of The Sea, Samir Karahoda’s Lost Frames and Sein Lyan Tun’s The Beer Girl In Yangon.
The fund comes with a €50,000 grant for each project, consultancy sessions by international experts and is backed by Creative Europe’s Media programme. It is aimed at international co-productions between countries that are part of the Media programme and those countries not participating in the strand.
Each of the selected teams will also participate in the 19th TFL Meeting Event that takes place from November 26-28 in Turin.
Daughters Of The Sea is the second feature by Filipina director Escobar whose 2022 debut Leonor Will Never Die won the special jury prize for innovative spirit at Sundance. It’s about three women, bound by the ocean that separates the islands of the Philippine archipelago, who must confront the missing pieces of their origins.
It is produced by Upside Down Entertainment & Recreation/This Side Up Manila from the Philippines, in co-production with Spain’s Oceanika. Alba Sotorra of Oceanika will be the beneficiary of the fund.
Lost Frames is the feature debut of Kosovar director Karahoda, whose shorts have previously played at Cannes, Toronto and Sundance. It’s about a videographer in a small town in Kosovo who accidentally loses the footage of a wedding, pulling him into a spiral of threats, debt and violence, while the fragile future he has built with his wife begins to collapse.
It is produced by Kosovo’s Ikone Studio, in co-production with Kosovo’s SK-Picture, Germany’s Donkey Film, Austria’s Donkey Studio, France’s Kazak Productions and Albania’s On Film Production. Mo Harawe and Alexander von Piechowski of Berlin-based Donkey Film are the beneficiaries of the fund.
The Beer Girl In Yangon is the feature debut of Burmese director Sein Lyan Tun. The project previously won two development awards in 2021 from the CNC and Swiss Films at Locarno Open Doors, was selected for L’Atelier de la Cinéfondation in Cannes in 2022, participated in the Meditalents, and received the Arri Award at TorinoFilmLab in 2023.
It is about 17-year-old Phyu who dreams of completing and singing on the radio the unfinished song of her father, a renowned songwriter imprisoned for criticising Myanmar’s military regime. She keeps pursuing her dream despite every studio refusing to record her, until the bar manager where she works offers to help. But her mother discovers that he is the informer who betrayed her husband, forcing Phyu to confront a devastating choice.
The film is produced by Indonesia’s KawanKawan Media, in co-production with France’s Vivo Films, Singapore’s Momo Film Co and Japan’s Loaded Films. The beneficiaries of the fund are Louise Bellicaud and Claire Charles-Gervais of In Vivo Films.
The three projects were selected from over 140 applications. Among the fund’s recently supported films were two in Cannes this year: 9 Temples to Heaven by Sompot Chidgasornpongse, selected for Directors’ Fortnight; and Titanic Ocean by Konstantina Kotzamani, which played in Un Certain Regard. Coming up, Erratics, the debut by Chilean filmmaker Thomas Woodroffe, is set to premiere this month at the San Sebastián film festival in the New Directors strand.
Greta Fornari, TFL funds curator and community coordinator, said: “With twice as many applications received in 2026 compared to the previous year—and many strong candidates among them—this year’s selection confirms how vital support for international co-production has become in today’s cinema landscape, enabling producers and filmmakers to create films with a strong international potential. “
The consultants working with the projects at this year’s edition are: Evelyn Rack, the German editor behind Sound of Falling; Danish sound designer and music supervisor Peter Albrechtsen; Romanian scriptwriter and script consultant Razvan Radulescu; and Italian audience design consultant Clara Miranda Scherfigg. Louise Marie Smith, founder and managing director of Neptune Sustainability, will also guide each film team in making their productions more sustainable.
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