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.
During the Cannes event, where Japan is the Marché du Film’s 2026 Country of Honor, the DFF also unveiled that its inaugural collection of films will screen at Tokyo International Film Festival in October. Additionally, a theatrical screening has been confirmed at New York’s Film Forum in the fall, which will qualify the five films for Academy Award consideration.
Said Blanchett, DFF co-founder and leader: “The short form is a fantastic medium for these narratives, and the way audiences are connecting with the first five films is extraordinary. I’m heartened by the success of our first cohort and thrilled to be revealing the next group of artists to be supported.”
Added Clare Stewart, managing director of IFFR, and Tamara Tatishvili, head of the Hubert Bals Fund: “It is a privilege to return to Cannes with the Displacement Film Fund, following the remarkable journey we’ve embarked on with the first cohort and the success of their premiere screenings at IFFR 2026. The recipients of our second cycle once again reflect an extraordinary breadth of filmmaking talent – with each navigating their own personal experiences of displacement, and we are proud to help bring their vital stories into the spotlight. At a time of ongoing global uncertainty, our commitment to maintaining this fund only deepens, alongside our belief in championing film as a powerful force for encouraging empathy and positive change.”
Check out more details on the five grant recipients of the second cycle of the DFF and their projects:
Mohammed “Mo” Amer
The award-winning Palestinian-American comedian/writer/director is the star of Netflix’s MO, a semi-autobiographical series.
Project: Return to Sender (working title) (Palestine/U.S.)
“After receiving his refugee travel document, a Palestinian stand-up comedian embarks on the world tour of his dreams, but each new country presents increasingly absurd immigration hurdles that test his emotional and mental resolve.”
Annemarie Jacir
The Palestinian director, writer and producer has seen all four of her feature films being selected as Palestine’s Oscar submissions.
Project: Deconstruction (working title) (Palestine)
“Set in Haifa – a city built on layers of presence and absence, memory and reinvention – the short film Deconstruction follows a man navigating the in-between as the past is uncovered, rearranged, sold, and made new.”
Akuol de Mabior
The South Sudanese filmmaker grew up in Kenya and was born in Cuba. No Simple Way Home (2022), her feature-directorial debut, was the first South Sudanese film to screen at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Project: Traces of a Broken Line (working title) (South Africa/South Sudan)
“War breaks a lineage, forcing a mother to preserve what she can no longer pass down.”
Bao Nguyen
The Vietnamese-American filmmaker and founding partner of East Films, is known for his directorial work, including The Stringer, Be Water, The Greatest Night in Pop and BTS: The Return.
Project: How to Ride a Bike (working title) (U.S./Vietnam)
“A Vietnamese refugee father who never learned to ride a bike tries to teach his young son, and when he fails, begins learning in secret, confronting a lifelong shame he has carried since boyhood.”
Rithy Panh
The acclaimed Cambodian director, writer, and producer has explored memory, trauma and the legacy of the Khmer Rouge regime in his films, including The Rice People, The Missing Picture, Graves Without a Name, and Everything Will Be OK. The Missing Picture won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes and received an Academy Award nomination.
Project: Time… Speak (working title) (France/Germany)
“An exiled filmmaker returns to the broken fragments of his memory – shattered figurines, archives, and silences – to reconstruct through cinema a form of life in which the disappeared continue to speak.”
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