New featurefilms by Antonin Svoboda, Michael Glawogger,and Rupert Henning are among 10 projects awarded over $1.6m (Euros 1.4m) bythe Vienna Film Fund.

The largestamount $542,609 (Euros 455,000) went to first-time director Rupert Henning'sadaptation of the satirical play Friendship(Freundschaft) which will be produced by Danny Krausz and Kurt Stocker's DOR-Film with Henning playing one of thelead roles opposite Erwin Steinhauer.

Slumming director Michael Glawoggerwhose dark comedy screened in Competition at Berlinalethis year, received $393,590 (Euros 330,000) for his next comedy, Contact High which is being produced byVienna-based Lotus Film with Germany's BojeBuck Filmproduktion.

Described as"a comical mixture of a comedy of mistaken identity and a road movie", this film will reunite Glawoggerwith Michael Ostrowski, the co-author of his previousfeature Nacktschnecken,and the actors from that film such as Ostrowski, Pia Herzegger, Georg Friedrich and Detlev Buck.

Productionsupport of $351,801 (Euros 295,000) was allocated to the black satire Patsch which willbe the next feature by COOP99's Antonin Svoboda (Spiele Leben) from ascreenplay by Christoph Grissemannand Dirk Stermann.

Funding was alsomade available for a number of documentary projects, including the leadingGeorgian filmmaker Nodar Managadze'sStalin On My Mind about the cultsurrounding the former dictator in his home country; Helmut Voitl'sportrait of the Russian rock scene from the 1960s to present day in Good Morning Last Hero, to be producedby Wega Film with Germany's Schwenk-Film;and Barbara Kaspar's study of the life of the NewYork writer-performance artists Kathy Acker in Harte Maedchen Weinen Nicht as a co-production between Linz-basedFischer Film and Germany's Cameo Film

At the sametime, Austria's public broadcaster ORF has announcedthat it will invest around $1.24m (Euros 1.06m) in two features (Friendship, Contact High) and twodocumentaries (Good Morning Last Hero, Harte Maedchen Weinen Nicht) as part of theFilm/Television Co-Production Agreement.