Visions Sud Est Fund

Overview

Visions Sud Est was a Swiss film fund that supported the production and post-production of feature-length films from countries with low production capacity in Africa, Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Founded in spring 2005, the fund was a joint initiative of four Swiss film festivals (Fribourg, Locarno, Visions du Reel in Nyon, and Internationale Kurzfilmtage Winterthur) and the trigon-film Foundation. Its sole financial partner was the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), which operates under the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs.

Since its launch, Visions Sud Est supported 198 projects. Of those, 167 films have been completed, and many have screened at major festivals including Cannes, Berlin, Venice, Toronto, and Sundance. Supported films have won awards such as the Golden Bear in Berlin, the Golden Shell in San Sebastian, the Camera d'Or in Cannes, and the Grand Prize at Cannes Critics' Week. More than half of the completed films have been distributed in Swiss cinemas by trigon-film.

The fund has now closed. The SDC discontinued its support as part of a broader reduction in cultural engagements. The final call for projects closed on August 1, 2025, with approximately 200 projects submitted. Decisions on the final selection were announced by mid-December 2025. The fund officially ceased operations at the end of September 2026. However, Visions Sud Est continued to sponsor two awards in 2026: the Visions Sud Est Award at Visions du Reel's industry platform and the Open Doors Grant at the Locarno Film Festival.

What It Funds

Visions Sud Est supported films at the production or post-production stage. The fund made two calls per year, with deadlines in February and July. It typically supported 10 to 12 new projects per cycle.

Production Support

Production grants were awarded based on documents attesting to the feasibility of the project. Shooting had to begin within 12 months of the award.

• Fiction films: up to 50,000 Swiss francs (CHF)
• Documentary films: up to 20,000 Swiss francs (CHF)

Production funding could cover field production expenses, equipment access, travel, key technical crew, and other costs associated with principal photography.

Post-Production Support

Post-production grants were awarded based on a first cut of the entire film and a post-production concept.

• Fiction films: up to 20,000 Swiss francs (CHF)
• Documentary films: up to 10,000 Swiss francs (CHF)

Post-production funding could cover editing, color grading, sound design, subtitling, and the preparation of international deliverables.

Additional Awards

Beyond its direct production and post-production grants, Visions Sud Est sponsored two festival prizes:

• Visions Sud Est Award at Visions du Reel: CHF 10,000 cash awarded to the best project from the Global South or Eastern Europe presented at the VdR Pitching, Work In Progress, or Rough Cut Lab
• Open Doors Grant at Locarno Film Festival: Co-sponsored with the City of Bellinzona, awarded to projects from the region selected for Locarno's Open Doors program

Eligibility

Film Format

Feature-length fiction and documentary films of at least 70 minutes were eligible. Short films were not eligible.

Nationality of Producer and Director

The applicant producer had to be established in one of the eligible countries and regularly produce films in those countries. The director also had to be from one of the eligible countries. The full list of eligible countries was maintained on the Visions Sud Est website.

Filming Location

Filming had to take place mainly in eligible countries and in the local or regional language.

Financing Required

At least 30% of the budget had to be secured when the application was submitted. Applicants had to demonstrate a concrete production budget and a financing plan showing the Visions Sud Est grant as one component of a broader funding structure.

Cumulation of Funding

A project could receive only one grant from Visions Sud Est, either for production or post-production, but not both. If a project had already received an Open Doors Grant at Locarno, the Visions Sud Est Award at Visions du Reel, or support from a local SDC office in the project's country of origin, it was not eligible for additional Visions Sud Est support.

Application Requirements

The application had to be submitted by the production company in the project's country of origin. The production company had to be officially registered in that country. Individual applicants were not accepted, as the fund could not grant a contribution to an individual.

Application Process and Selection

Visions Sud Est operated two rounds of support per year, with deadlines in February and July. Applications were submitted via a form on the fund's website. The selection process took 16 weeks from the deadline.

Submitted projects were evaluated by a jury of 5 experts. Jury members were free to make their own decisions and had to remain unanimous. Due to the volume of submissions, the fund did not provide reasons for its decisions.

Applications received after a deadline were considered for the next round. Once an application was verified as complete, the applicant received an email confirming that the project would be evaluated and specifying the date by which they would receive a response.

Notable Supported Films

Visions Sud Est backed films that went on to major international festival premieres and awards. Recent examples include:

• All We Imagine As Light by Payal Kapadia (India) - Cannes 2024 Grand Prix
• Tiger Stripes by Amanda Nell Eu (Malaysia) - Cannes 2023 Critics' Week Grand Prize
• Pepe by Nelson Carlo de los Santos Arias - Berlin 2025 Golden Bear
• Viet and Nam by Truong Minh Quy - Cannes 2025
• The Condor Daughter by Alvaro Olmos Torrico (Bolivia) - Toronto 2025 Centrepiece

At the 2026 Cannes Film Festival, two films in Un Certain Regard had received Visions Sud Est support: Ben'imana by Marie-Clementine Dusabejambo and Elephants in the Fog by Abinash Bikram Shah.

2025 Final Rounds

The fund's final two rounds in 2025 distributed significant support:

• June 2025 session: 230,000 Swiss francs across 4 fiction and 2 documentary films in production, plus 1 fiction and 2 documentary films in post-production
• December 2025 session: 280,000 Swiss francs across 4 fiction and 2 documentary films in production, plus 3 fiction films in post-production

Fund Closure

The SDC's decision to discontinue funding was part of a broader reduction in Switzerland's cultural engagement abroad. Project manager Madeline Robert confirmed that the fund explored ways to ensure follow-up for supported projects in collaboration with its festival partners, but no successor fund has been announced.

The fund's closure leaves a gap in the international documentary and fiction financing landscape for filmmakers from the Global South and Eastern Europe. Filmmakers who previously relied on Visions Sud Est may want to explore alternatives including the Hubert Bals Fund (Netherlands), the Doha Film Institute Grants, the IDFA Bertha Fund, and the World Cinema Fund (Berlin).

Who Should Apply

Visions Sud Est is no longer accepting applications. The information above is preserved for reference. Filmmakers from eligible countries who had projects in production or post-production with at least 30% of their budget secured and a registered production company in an eligible country were the target applicants. The fund was particularly suited to projects that had secured partial financing and needed an additional grant to reach completion or to cover international post-production and delivery costs.

Notable Awards and Recipients

Visions Sud Est was a Swiss-based film fund that provided grants to documentary and fiction filmmakers from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe. The fund was co-funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and managed in partnership with the Visions du Reel film festival in Nyon, Switzerland, and the Festival del film Locarno. The fund supported projects in production or post-production stages, with grants typically ranging from CHF 10,000 to CHF 50,000. The fund was particularly suited to projects that had secured partial financing and needed an additional grant to reach completion or to cover international post-production and delivery costs. The SDC's decision to discontinue funding was part of a broader reduction in Switzerland's cultural engagement abroad. Project manager Madeline Robert confirmed that the fund explored ways to ensure follow-up for supported projects in collaboration with its festival partners, but no successor fund has been announced. The fund's closure leaves a gap in the international documentary and fiction financing landscape for filmmakers from the Global South and Eastern Europe.

Who Should Apply

Visions Sud Est is no longer accepting applications. The information above is preserved for reference. Filmmakers from eligible countries who had projects in production or post-production with at least 30% of their budget secured and a registered production company in an eligible country were the target applicants. The fund was particularly suited to projects that had secured partial financing and needed an additional grant to reach completion or to cover international post-production and delivery costs. Filmmakers who previously relied on Visions Sud Est should explore alternatives including the Hubert Bals Fund (Netherlands), the Doha Film Institute Grants, the IDFA Bertha Fund, and the World Cinema Fund (Berlin). The Visions du Reel festival in Nyon continues to operate as one of Switzerland's most important documentary festivals, screening international documentary premieres and maintaining a co-production market that connects filmmakers with European buyers and co-producers.

Watch

See Also

For documentary filmmakers building international financing strategies, see Documentary Financing: Building Your Stack. For understanding European documentary markets and co-production structures, see Distribution Deals: What Filmmakers Need to Know. For planning a production schedule that accounts for international co-production timelines, use the Production Schedule Calculator.