Cate Blanchett, during a panel event at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday, unveiled the five recipients and their projects of the second cycle of the Displacement Film Fund (DFF) short film grant scheme, including Bao Nguyen, Mohammed “Mo” Amer and Palestine 36 director Annemarie Jacir.
Rithy Panh and Akuol de Mabior round out the second-round list of recipients. Blanchett, star, producer and global Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, launched the scheme with International Film Festival Rotterdam’s (IFFR) Hubert Bals Fund.
The DFF, also backed by a coalition of film industry experts, creators, business leaders and philanthropists, was established in 2025 to “champion and fund the work of displaced filmmakers, or filmmakers with a proven track record in creating authentic storytelling about the experiences of displaced people.”
Each of the selected filmmakers will receive a production grant of €100,000 ($116,350), with their completed projects getting their world premieres at IFFR 2027, running Jan. 28-Feb. 7.
For the 2025 first edition of the DFF, Mohammad Rasoulof, Maryna Er Gorbach, Mo Harawe, Hasan Kattan, and Shahrbanoo Sadat were the recipients of the production grants. Their films Sense of Water, Rotation, Whispers of a Burning Scent, Allies in Exile, and Super Afghan Gym had their world premieres at IFFR 2026.
