The Film and Media Foundation NRW hands out €2.2 million

10/12/2018 - The German regional fund has announced the recipients of 15 grants

Director Jakob M Erwa, who has received €750,000 for the production of his next feature, Valeska (© Simon Moestl)

In its last session of this year, the Film and Media Foundation NRW (North Rhine-Westphalia's regional film fund) has handed out a total of €2.185 million to 15 projects. Of this amount, €1.75 million have been awarded for the production of three fiction films, €160,000 for the production of two documentaries, €80,000 for the development of four scripts and €195,000 for the distribution of six movies.

Austrian filmmaker Jakob M Erwa has received €750,000 for the production of his next feature, Valeska. An adaptation of Valeska Réon’s autobiographical novel, the story, set in the 1980s, will focus on a big secret harboured by the titular hairdresser-turned-model: that she actually used to be a man. The cast will include Udo Kier, Katja Riemann and Justus von Dohnányi. The film is being produced by Vistamar.

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Uli Edel’s Ostend – 1936 has also received €700,000 worth of support. Based on the writings of Volker Weidermann, the film will depict the love story between writers Joseph Roth and Irmgard Keun, who met during their exile in Ostend. They were both part of a group of intellectuals that also included Stefan Zweig. The leading roles are to be played by Lars Eidinger and Stefan Kurt. The movie is being produced by Rexinfilm.

Hanno Olderdissen’s Lassie Come Home, an adaptation of Eric Knight's children's novel of the same name, was also among the fiction projects selected to receive funding. The feature, scripted by Jane Ainscough, will focus on the adventures of Flo and his Collie, Lassie. The project has received €300,000 worth of support and is being produced by Henning Ferber Filmproduktions GmbH.

One of the documentaries that have received production grants is Marten Persiel’s The Way We Were, a dystopian film that looks back on the 2010s and 2020s (from the vantage point of 2051). Wim Wenders, Noah Saavedra and Markus Imhoof have agreed to appear before Persiel’s camera. The project has received €80,000 and is being produced by Flare Film.

The same amount has been awarded to Rubén Abruña’s documentary project Shit Happens, which draws attention to the inadequate way in which several countries are dealing with faeces. It will examine how ceasing to regard faeces as waste could end up saving the world. The documentary is being produced by Thurn Film.

Four grants, each of €20,000, have also been awarded for script development. The recipients are Julia Charakter, for Maria Sibylla Merian – The Woman Who Loved Insects; Denis Moschitto and Daniel Rakete Siegel, for Shock; Wolfgang Groos and Alexander Dydyna, for All Areas; and Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay, for Hysteria [+see also:
interview: Mehmet Akif Büyükatalay
film profile].