Rank Order

Beneficiary: Matthew James Borg

Reference number: MCG05-26-9764

Project Title: Taħt Tapit: Official Music Video

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: Taħt Tapit is a narrative music video for an original song exploring mortality, humility, ego and the temporary nature of material ambition. Developed with acclaimed Maltese actor, writer and director Mark Doneo, the video follows an emotionally detached man who has created an AI-generated holographic world to preserve an idealised memory of his deceased daughter. Within a neglected room, purple-hued dandelions, birds and particles gradually emerge around him. A damaged dandelion hair clip, the only object he treats with care, appears perfectly restored on the holographic girl, revealing their connection and contrasting imperfect reality with perfected memory. When the artificial world collapses, he is left holding the damaged clip and confronting grief, mortality and his own withdrawal from life. The contained, performance-led production concentrates its resources on specialist VFX while advancing Matthew James’s practice in cinematic narrative storytelling.

Beneficiary: Christopher Pisani

Reference number: MCG06-26-9765

Project Title: Memorji

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: Memorji (Memories) is a musical project presenting a collection of original Funeral Marches composed by Christopher Pisani. Each composition is dedicated to family members, friends, and individuals who left a lasting impact on the composer’s life, transforming personal memories into a lasting artistic legacy. Through music, the project seeks to preserve and commemorate these stories, ensuring that the memories of those honoured continue to resonate with future generations. The collection represents a significant cultural contribution, as it is the first known anthology of Funeral Marches entirely composed by a musician from Birgu (Vittoriosa), a city renowned for its rich musical and band club traditions. The project will culminate in the production and dissemination of the album Memorji, making these original works accessible to audiences while celebrating local heritage, contemporary composition, and the enduring role of music in remembrance, reflection, and community identity.

Beneficiary: Joanna Demarco

Reference number: MCG07-26-9766

Project Title: Some Say They Don’t Die – Salt Printing

Amount awarded: €1,925

Project Description: Some Say They Don’t Die is a photographic and textual project exploring the significance of the threatened sea urchins (rizzi) in Malta, amid global species extinction. Moving away from mainstream ecological narratives, it examines what losing a species means personally, culturally, and metaphysically, gathering and visualising memories to reveal the overlooked value of creatures woven into everyday life. Photography sustains collective memory, preserving the threatened urchin’s presence. With microgrant support for the final project stage, I will transform digital images into salt prints using sea salt from Maltese water – a costly process essential to the project’s conceptual completion and to further my practice by activating my project for distribution. Both the urchin’s survival and the print’s formation depend on delicate balances of salinity and UV exposure, the salt prints therefore visualising this striving for equilibrium.

Beneficiary: Andrew Coleiro

Reference number: MCG10-26-9769

Project Title: Recording Marċi Brijjużi Andrew Coleiro

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: Il-Kompożitur Andrew Coleiro huwa wieħed mill-kompożituri magħrufa għall-marċi brijużi Maltin. Illum għandu 81 sena u jixtieq li jirrekordja sett ta’ marċi kollha kompożizzjonijiet ġodda għall- aħħar proġett li jixtieq li jagħlaq il-karriera tiegħu bħala kompożitur. Mro. Andrew Coleiro twieled fl-10 ta’ April 1945 f’ tas-Sliema. Fl-1975 kienet is-sena meta beda mal-Banda Duke of Connaught’s Own ta’ Birkirkara bħala Assistent Surmast fejn ukoll beda jgħallem l-alljevi. Wara kien ukoll inħatar Surmast tal-Banda Stella Maris Sliema u tal-Banda San Gejtanu tal-Ħamrun. Kien ukoll Surmast tal-Banda San Ġużepp ta’ Ħal Għaxaq u tal-Banda Kristu Re Raħal Ġdid. Fl-1993 inħatar Surmast tal-Banda Prekursur tax-Xewkija Għawdex fejn dam 5 snin sħaħ. Fis-sena 2002 fl-okkażjoni tal-25 sena surmast mal- Banda Karkariza, gie rrekordjat Double Compact Disk li jinkludi bosta marċi popolari li kkompona għall-Banda Duke of Connaught’s Own tul is-snin.

Beneficiary: Mark Azzopardi

Reference number: MCG12-26-9771

Project Title: Creating with Impact: Developing My Audiovisual Practice

Amount awarded: €2,985

Project Description: This project aims to strengthen and expand my audiovisual creative practice through investment in professional equipment, including a camera and high-quality microphones. As an educator, broadcaster, content creator and communications professional, I work across different forms of storytelling and digital media. The new equipment will allow me to independently produce higher-quality audiovisual content, experiment with new creative approaches and develop more ambitious artistic projects. The project will culminate in the creation of a series of original audiovisual works exploring storytelling, people, culture and contemporary issues through an engaging and accessible format. The investment will enhance my technical and artistic capabilities, reduce reliance on external production resources and provide greater creative control over the production process. Ultimately, the project seeks to develop my artistic practice while creating meaningful, professionally produced content for audiences in Malta and beyond.

Beneficiary: Keith Diplock

Reference number: MCG14-26-9775

Project Title: Live and Studio Musician Development

Amount awarded: €2,952

Project Description: Live and Studio Musician Development is a focused development project aimed at strengthening my practice as a live and studio drummer. Building on previous formal music training, band and recording experience, and current studio-based development in Malta, the project will establish the core equipment needed to work more independently across rehearsal, recording and performance settings. At present, much of my development relies on borrowed or externally available equipment, which limits my ability to practise consistently, collaborate readily with other musicians and apply studio learning independently. The project will support the purchase of professional acoustic, recording and hybrid drum equipment, enabling me to develop my sound, improve consistency and recording technique, and broaden my practical experience. The project will lead to documented live and studio work, increased collaboration with Malta-based musicians and a more sustainable, self-sufficient professional music practice.

Beneficiary: Mina/Jack Tolu

Reference number: MCG24-26-9787

Project Title: Tools for Graphic Novel + Documentary Production

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: In summer 2025 I started work on an artistic project that works on memory and archive with two main outputs: a short documentary, and a graphic novel. This project will piece together the history of a Mediterranean family through the Post WWII decades of decolonization. With a particular focus on Libya in the 1960s, and Malta in the 1970s. In the past year I have: researched and developed the project; worked on roughs and thumbnails for the graphic novel; digitisation and recording for the documentary. The first year of the project was also developed at workshops, residencies, and exchanges. I am using many of my own tools and resources but need supplemental ones in order to complete the project over the next year. The ACM Micro Grant would support me to buy the necessary tools and supplies to see the project through it’s next phase – production.

Beneficiary: Shaun Farrugia

Reference number: MCG26-26-9787

Project Title: Single Hole In the Boat – Marketing Budget

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: I am applying for support from Arts Council Malta for my new unreleased single, “Hole in the Boat”, which I plan to release independently. The funding will be used directly towards marketing and digital advertising around the release. This will include targeted social media campaigns aimed at reaching listeners who are most likely to connect with the style of the song, based on similar artists, genres and audience interests. The aim is to give the single the strongest possible reach, bring new listeners to my music and continue growing my audience as an Independent Maltese artist.

Beneficiary: Sean Borg

Reference number: MCG39-26-9806

Project Title: Wiċċi għad-Dawl

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: The project involves the production, recording, mixing and mastering of a new collection of original songs in Maltese. The songs draw on a range of influences, including singer-songwriter, rock, folk, jazz and soul, and explore different themes and musical styles. Working collaboratively with different musicians and creatives, the project will develop these songs into fully produced studio recordings while exploring new approaches to arrangement and production. The collection aims to bring together a varied body of Maltese-language songs within a cohesive recorded project.

Beneficiary: Adrian Grech

Reference number: MCG46-26-9878

Project Title: Sad Pancake – Studio Recording of Five Songs

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: This project will support the professional studio recording and production of five original songs by Malta-based alternative/indie rock band Sad Pancake. The five tracks form the first stage of the band’s debut full-length album and will transform original material developed through song writing, rehearsals and live performance into professionally produced recordings. The project will provide access to a professional recording studio and producer expertise, enabling the band to refine, record and produce each composition to a high artistic standard. The recording process will allow Sad Pancake to develop its existing repertoire beyond the live setting and establish a professionally produced body of original work. The five completed recordings will constitute a significant step in the band’s artistic development and will form the first completed component of its debut full-length album, contributing to the band’s longer-term objective of releasing its debut LP.

Beneficiary: Joel Parnis

Reference number: MCG47-26-9883

Project Title: Duel Citizen: A Musical Between Memory & Migration

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: Duel Citizen is a new original Maltese musical exploring migration, identity and belonging through the story of one Maltese-Australian family across three generations. Beginning with a family’s migration from Malta to Australia in the 1960s, the musical moves across generations and continents through music, memory and storytelling. What begins as one family’s story becomes a wider exploration of the experiences shared by thousands of Maltese families whose lives have been shaped by migration, adaptation and the search for belonging. Blending original music with personal and collective memory, Duel Citizen asks what happens to our sense of home when we leave, what we inherit from the generations before us, and how we reconcile the different identities we carry. Following a public development workshop, Duel Citizen will receive its world premiere at Spazju Kreattiv in February 2027.

Beneficiary: Agnieszka Skalowska

Reference number: MCG64-26-9969

Project Title: Beyond Scale

Amount awarded: €3,000

Project Description: “Beyond Scale” is a large-scale abstract painting project exploring the relationship between physical scale and emotional experience. I will create a series of paintings approximately 2 × 2.5 metres, using colour, gesture, texture and composition to express intangible emotions through expansive visual forms. Working at this scale allows the paintings to become immersive spaces rather than simply objects to be viewed. The project explores how emotions can exist beyond language and measurement, and how scale and space influence our perception and emotional response. The completed works will be presented in an exhibition in October 2027, offering visitors a direct and sensory experience of large-scale abstract painting while supporting the development of my artistic practice.