2002 Student Academy Award winner Grace Lee (Barrier Device) is among four filmmakers - and three films, nominated from over 110 entries from all over the world to have the chance to make a short film about the German capital for the Berlin Today Award.

While Korean-American Lee's project will be searching for the ultimate currywurst in Best Of The Wurst, Swiss directorial duo Stephanie Chuat and Veronique Reymond focus on an encounter between a tramp and a tourist guide in A Place To Stay, and Lebanese-born Myrna Maakaron's Berlin & Beirut will be a film essay combining images and scenes from her native city with those of Berlin.

Thanks to support from Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg and local film industry companies, each of the three projects will have budgets of Euros 70,000 to go into production in Berlin at the end of August.

Directors Andreas Dresen (Grill Point), Esther Gronenborn (alaska.de) and Volker Schloendorff (The Legends Of Rita) will serve as mentors, with Berlin production house credofilm as executive producer.

The completed shorts will then receive their premiere during the Berlinale Talent Campus in February 2004, and the best short of the three will be selected by next year's mentors to be named winner of the Berlin Today Award.