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Rafael Parente, Simon Amberger, Korbinian Dufter • Producers

“We’re enthusiastic about the current momentum in television industry”

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- German Films interviews producers Rafael Parente, Simon Amberger and Korbinian Dufter of the Munich-based outfit Neuesuper Filmproduktion to discuss their current projects

Rafael Parente, Simon Amberger, Korbinian Dufter • Producers
Rafael Parente, Korbinian Dufter and Simon Amberger (© Andreas Pfohl)

“We have always liked to work as a team,” says Rafael Parente, one of the three producers along with Simon Amberger and Korbinian Dufter, who set up the Munich-based Neuesuper Filmproduktion during their studies at Munich’s University of Television & Film (HFF) in 2010.

“And from the outset, we thought that it would be better to work as three producers together rather each of us trying to make it on our own,” Amberger recalls. “We were also very clear in our minds of the goal of wanting to make films for a wide audience,” Korbinian Dufter adds. “With some of our films, we have gone in the direction of arthouse. As in the collaboration with the latest feature film by Hans Weingartner, 303 [+see also:
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, which had its world premiere in the Berlinale’s Generation 14plus section in February. We will always search for both things: relevant content and an audience. That’s why we’re so enthusiastic about the current momentum in television industry.”

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The past seven years have seen Neuesuper’s producing trio evolving and adapting as its production output expanded. “At the beginning, we developed, financed and produced the projects together, but with time, we realised that things would be more efficient if each one of us had specific responsibilities,” explains Dufter who, for example, now oversees the company’s day-to-day administration and the financing of the projects as well as personnel issues.

“We have always seen Neuesuper as a vehicle to realize story ideas that we had developed ourselves,” he notes. “We see ourselves as creative producers working together in a team with the creatives: we are as much involved in helping to develop the screenplays for the shorts at the beginning of the company’s history as in brainstorming ideas for the pitches to advertising clients or to broadcasters.”

“Our goal is to be involved creatively from the earliest stages of our projects,” Amberger says, pointing out that Neuesuper is always open to becoming a production partner on third party projects. From the outset, the trio have sought to foster long-standing working relationships, particularly with screenwriters, to collaborate on their projects, like Niklas Hoffmann, Peter Kocyla, Benjamin Seiler, Frederick Schlofield and writer-directors like Boris Kunz, Jakob Lass and Jakob Erwa.

Niklas Hoffmann, for example, has worked with Neuesuper since 2014 as he studied Screenwriting at the HFF: he wrote the screenplay for the pilot for Blockbustaz and then wrote three episodes of the resulting series as well as serving as head writer for the sitcom. In addition, Hoffmann devised the concept and script for Hindafing together with Boris Kunz and Neuesuper producer Rafael Parente and returned to Blockbustaz last year for its second season where he penned four episodes and was responsible again as head writer. 

He is now working with Parente and another Neuesuper “regular”, Peter Kocyla, on developing the screenplay for another TV series in the making, Luden (Hamburg Hustling), with Jan Mojto’s Beta Film as co-producer. Meanwhile, writer-director Kocyla, who is also a graduate of Munich’s HFF and worked in the past on scripts for the ZDF series Die Chefin, devised the concept and penned the scripts for Eight Days.

“Our core team of writers is very open to the idea of working in a writers room,” Dufter says. “Previously, you would have an author working all alone and then getting occasional feedback from the producer or a commissioning editor. However, our strategy is to involve our authors increasingly in the decision-making process about, say, the casting or the choice of director. I think they can have a really positive influence because they are so close to the story.”

Neuesuper may be focused on working for television for the moment, but that doesn’t mean that they have turned their backs on cinema – indeed, a number of feature film projects are in development. “At the same time, we have developed considerable expertise in high-end TV and have an edge over other companies,” Amberger explains. “We all share a great passion about staying active in this particularly exciting segment for the foreseeable future.”

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