07/01/2019 - The German Federal Film Board and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg announce the recipients of their latest grants

Late singer Leonard Cohen, whose biopic So Long, Marianne is directed by Johanna Stuttmann

The German Federal Film Board (FFA) and Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg have disclosed the recipients of their latest round of funding for 2018. A special “end of the year” grant was awarded by the Medienboard to the Charlie’s Angels reboot.

A total of €623,593 was allocated to eight projects by the German Federal Film Board. €410,000 went to the production of two features. Tomorrow the Whole World, a police drama directed by Julia von Heinz received the largest grant in its category (€310,000). The film, which is being produced by Seven Elephants, follows the story of a young woman who joins an antifascist group. While Marc Bauder’s Who We Were, a documentary focusing on seven contemporary scientists, received €100,000.

Furthermore, the FFA has invested a total of €60,000 in the penning of two scripts. One of the projects selected in this category is Johanna Stuttmann’s So Long, Marianne, a biopic about Leonard Cohen. The Austrian production received €25,000, while Are You Real, a musical about reversing gender roles, which is to be written by Helene Hegemann and Esther Preußler, received a grant of €35,000.

Two further projects have been chosen to receive funding for script development. Anna & Mercy, written by Jeannine Dominy, follows the story of two women who join forces to fight poverty, illness, the pharmaceutical industry and political corruption. The project received €99,870 and is being produced by Ringel Film. Moreover, the development of the script for Whole Half Brother by Clemente Gil-Fernandez has received €33,723 in support. The story of an ex-con real estate agent who fights with his half-brother over an inherited property will be produced by Neue Schönhauser Filmproduktion.

The German Federal Film Board has also supported two additional projects with a total sum of €20,000. Vanessa Walder’s Bayala – On Elves and Dragons and Sonja Kröner’s Husum Castle have received €10,000 each.

Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg has also invested €700,000 in the Charlie’s Angels reboot (co-produced by Babelsberg Studios) directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott and Ella Balinska, as well as a total of €374,000 in seven new media projects (four TV series and three innovative audiovisual projects).

The highest grant for new media projects (€95,000 worth of production funding) went to Deadlines, a new comedy series that will star the comedian and influencer Ines Anioli as a millennial whose life takes a strange turn when she inherits her best friend’s egg cells. The new web series is being produced by Turbokultur.

Three further series have received financial support: Fast Heroes Sixty, an anime-action TV series produced by Woodlock (€38,000 in production funding), #worthit, a mini-series directed by Pola Beck (Breaking Horizons) and produced by A Little Film Production (€50,000 in development funding) and The Finellis, a TV sitcom produced by Marjan Content Productions (€25,000 in development funding).

Finally, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg has handed out three grants to innovative audiovisual projects. The highest contribution in this category (€80,000) went to the PC game God in the Fen, produced by Sleepy Seed. Jungle, a VR experience produced by Jan Koester Animation for Oculus Go, was backed with €50,000, whereas the mobile audio game 0800 HERO, produced by Hands on Sound, has received a grant of €36,000.