MBB allocates €4.5m to numerous productions

by Bénédicte Prot

21/06/2007 - The Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg (MBB) regional fund has granted over €4.5m to 37 films and television films, €4m of which goes to 16 productions.

The highest funded project brings together Julia Jentsch (Sophie Scholl [trailer]) and Sebastian Koch (The Lives of Others [trailer, film focus]) in an adaptation by Hermine Huntgeburth (behind hit film The White Masai [trailer]) of Theodor Fontane’s 19th century classic Effi Briest. The story about a heroine reluctant to follow the social conventions of her era will be shot mostly in the Berlin-Brandenburg region. Constantin Film has been given €1.2m to complete the film’s budget.

Wim Wenders received €150,000 for his new feature, Palermo Story, a tragicomic story of a man in his forties who wanders about Palermo as he goes through a mid-life crisis. Campino, singer of German rock group Die Toten Hosen, will play the lead. Wenders will produce the title through his company Wenders Images.

Meanwhile, Oscar-winning Munich-based filmmaker Florian Gallenberger is preparing John Rabe: The Good Man of Nanking, a "Schindler-esque" story of the Nanking massacre. The cast is certainly not short on talent, with well-known actors Ulrich Tukur, Daniel Brühl, Dagmar Manzel and Jürgen Vogel heading the bill. The MBB granted €200,000 to the film’s producers, Majestic Filmproduktions GmbH and Hofmann & Voges Entertainment.

Another Oscar-winning director, Caroline Link (2003 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Nowhere in Africa), received MBB backing for her new project, Aftermath. Bavaria Filmverleih-und Produktions GmbH has been granted €200,000 for the production of the family psychodrama starring Josef Bierbichler (Winter Journey [trailer]).

Film1 has received €450,000 for Matthias Emcke’s Phantomschmerz ("Phantom Pain”), in which Til Schweiger stars as a cyclist who loses a leg and learns to live with the handicap. Studio Hamburg Produktion has been given the same sum for the production of family film Florian Baxmeyer’s The Three Investigators and the Secret of Terror Castle.

Among the nine titles that shared the €340,000 of distribution funding are Robert Thalheim’s Cannes Un Certain Regard title And Along Come Tourists [trailer] (€50,000 to X Verleih) and Christian Petzold’s Berlinale winner Yella [trailer], starring Nina Hoss (€40,000 to Piffl Medien).

(Translated from French)