31/01/2011

The German film regulating body FFA has just granted €2.5m in production funding to nine top-rank projects.

Big names abound, starting with famous Austrian director Michael Haneke, who has received €250,000 for his surprisingly-titled project Love, scripted single-handedly as usual and produced by Berlin-based X Filme Creative Pool.

The project to have received the most funding (€500,000) is an animated adaptation by Til Schweiger of the highly popular diptych Rabbit Without Ears [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Rabbit Without Ears 2 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (champions of the German box office with over 6m admissions between them), which will incidentally soon get a third instalment. The animated movie, which is preceded by a comic book designed with illustrator Klaus Baumgart, has the same title, Rabbit Without Ears and Rabbit Without Ears 2. It is produced by Cartoon-Film, Warner Bros. and Barefoot Films and co-directed by Thilo Graf Rothkirch, head of animation company Cartoon-Film. The film has already received €800,000 from North Rhine-Westphalia’s regional fund.

A sum of €450,000 has been allocated to Danish director Bille August’s Nachtzug Nach Lissabon, produced by Studio Hamburg FilmProduktion. Meanwhile, seasoned German director Doris Dörrie, who attracted attention internationally with her superb Cherry Blossoms - Hanami [+see also:
trailer
film profile], has received €300,000 for the project Glück, produced by Constantin.

Christian Petzold, the acclaimed director of Yella [+see also:
trailer
film profile], has once more chosen a woman’s first name for the title of his next project, Barbara, produced by Schramm Film Koerner & Weber. The FFA has granted it €280,000.

Meanwhile, Hans-Christian Schmid, the brilliant director of Requiem [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
interview: Sandra Hueller
film profile] and Storm [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Alexander Fehling
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
film profile] (European Parliament LUX Prize 2009 competition), has obtained €200,000 for That's All (23/5 Filmproduktion).

Oleg Assadulin’s project Ausgerechnet Sibirien (co-produced by Jooya Filmproduktion and Berlin & Getaway Pictures) has received €250,000. The sequel to Niko and The Way to the Stars [+see also:
trailer
film profile], entitled Niko – Family Affairs and this time co-directed by Finland’s Kari Juusonen with Jorgem Lerdam, has been allocated €200,000, which will be managed by Hamburg-based Ulysses Filmproduktion.

Finally, Leopold Grün, who four years ago helmed The Red Elvis [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (selected at Berlin in 2007), has obtained €50,000 for Sterne über Wischershausen, produced by Rohfilm.

Applications for the FFA’s next production funding can be sent from today onwards, until the deadline of March 31.

(Translated from French)