31/07/2017 - The FFA is fostering 12 feature-film projects, including buddy comedies, biopics and bestseller adaptations, with approximately €3.5 million

This spring, the Federal Film Board (FFA) in Germany set out new guidelines for allocating its film support. Due to the growing number of films in Germany that can no longer be released theatrically, the FFA has decided to focus its production support on projects that have a great deal of potential for a theatrical release. For the first time, the new selection criteria have been applied by the committee in charge of granting production and script support. Altogether, 12 projects are being supported with almost €3.5 million, including the new features by Andreas Dresen (Grill Point [+see also:
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film profile], Cloud Nine [+see also:
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film profile]), Detlev Buck (Tough Enough [+see also:
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film profile], Measuring the World [+see also:
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film profile]), Til Schweiger (Rabbit Without Ears [+see also:
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film profile]) and Jan Ole Gerster (Oh Boy [+see also:
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interview: Jan Ole Gerster
film profile]). 

Buddy comedies, biopics and bestseller adaptations have been greenlit for production support. German star actor-producer-director Til Schweiger is receiving €520,000 for his buddy comedy Klassentreffen. Produced by Barefoot Films, the comedy is about three forty-somethings who still need to learn to grow up. Meanwhile, German writer-director Detlev Buck will shoot Wuff [+see also:
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film profile], a rom-com about six different dog owners whose pets are turning their lives upside down. Berlin-based DCM Pictures gets €500,000 in production support for the movie, which is scripted by Andrea Willson.

German filmmaker Andreas Dresen will depict on the big screen the contradictory life of digger operator and singer-songwriter Gerhard Gundermann. Cologne-based production outfit Pandora Film will produce the biopic, entitled Gundermann [+see also:
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film profile], which is being supported with a cash injection of €470,000. Meanwhile, Jan Ole Gerster is set to direct the tragicomedy Lara [+see also:
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interview: GoCritic! Interview: Jan-Ol…
interview: Jan Ole Gerster
film profile], about a mother who is wondering why her son didn’t invite her to his most important piano concert. Schiwago Film will produce the project, which has been allocated €350,000 in production support.

Additional funded films include the teen comedy The Most Beautiful Girl in the World [+see also:
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film profile] by Aron Lehmann, the animated action-adventure Meine Freundin Conni – Conni auf großer Fahrt by Ansgar Niebuhr, the comedy Wie gut ist Deine Beziehung? [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Ralf Westhoff and the drama No Name Restaurant by first-time directors Stefan Sarazin and Peter Keller. Finally, Austrian writer-director Nikolaus Leytner will adapt the bestseller The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler, which is set in 1937: in it, a 17-year-old leaves his village to start as an apprentice in a tobacco shop.