FUNDING Germany
€6.3m for 16 prestigious projects
by Bénédicte Prot
14/05/2012 - The German Federal Film Board (FFA) has allocated €6,272,500 to 16 exciting new film projects, many by well-known filmmakers.
The feature film that received the most funding was The Cut, the last instalment in Fatih Akin’s “Love, Death, and the Devil” trilogy (after Head-on [trailer] and The Edge of Heaven [trailer, film focus]). This bombero international (Hamburg) production to star Tahar Rahim (photo), the lead actor from A Prophet [trailer, film focus] by Jacques Audiard, has received €800,000 in aid to its production and €75,000 as advance aid to its distribution.
Bernhard Rose received €700,000 for his international biographical production Paganini - The Devil's Violinist, submitted by its Berlin-based co-producer Summer Storm Entertainment. As for Alain Gsponer (My Words, My Lies - My Love [trailer]), he was awarded €650,000 for Das kleine Gespenst, to be produced in Munich by Claussen Wöbke Putz Filmproduktion.
Next, €500,000 went to established filmmaker Wim Wenders’s new project Everything Will Be Fine, written by Bjorn-Olaf Johannessen and produced by his production company Neue Road Movies Dritte Produktionen.
The FFA also poured €450,000 into the second instalment of Mike Marzuk’s Famous Five series, Fünf Freunde 2, produced by SamFilm. The first instalment, released at the end of January, is the second German title in this year’s German Top 10 (behind Türkisch für Anfänger [trailer]), with a million admissions. Another film series for children will also have a sequel: Hanni & Nanni 3 [trailer], directed by Dagmar Seume for UFA Cinema, received €400,000.
The same amount also went to Markus Goller (director of the popular Friendship! [trailer]) for Frau Ella (Pantaleon Entertainment), while Feo Aladag (winner of the 2010 LUX Prize for her first feature, When We Leave [trailer, film focus], which won awards the world over, from Berlin to Tribeca) was awarded €350,000 for Später im Sommer (Independent Artists Filmproduktion).
Another established filmmaker is also among those awarded funding: Jim Jarmusch, whose project Only Lovers Left Alive, submitted by Pandora, received €300,000 plus €75,000 as advance aid to its distribution. Finally, the only person to receive funding for script development was Valeska Grisebach (whose last film Longing was back in 2006) for Western (€27,500).
(Translated from French)
