An incentive for foreign distributors
In application of the new scheme launched last May by German Films (following last year's increase in budget and extended size and duties) to encourage foreign distributors from all over the world buy German features and documentaries, the funding committee has just met for the third time and decided to support Luther (Eric Till) and The Ninth Day (Volker Schlöndorff) in Spain, Napola (Dennis Gansel) in the United States, 7 Dwarves (Sven Unterwaldt) in Slovenia, Sophie Scholl – The Final Days [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Marc Rothemund) in Great-Britain, and Love in Thoughts (Achim von Borries) in Japan. These add to four films the theatrical release of which German Films decided to finance this Summer: Barefoot [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (Til Schweiger) in Hungary and Russia, The Edukators (Hans Weingartner) in Argentina, The Cave of the Yellow Dog (Byambasuren Davaa) in Mongolia, and The Goebbels Experiment (Lutz Hachmeister) in the United States.
Thus, since the second session of the Distribution Support funding committee in July 2005, German Films has awarded almost 120,000 euros to support the theatrical release of eleven German films in nine countries. 2005 being the pilot phase, the total budget for this year is €400,000.
The aid consists in a loan, with a maximum of €50,000 per film per land. If the film has not received any subsidy for this territory under the MEDIA Plus scheme, repayment can be made conditional upon its success. Up to €10,000 can be provided as a grant, provided this financial contribution is used for the financing of additional measures on top of the already planned release campaign. Once the selected distributors have entered the deal and received money, they must deliver a termly report on attendance with evidence and send copies of all advertising material used, press reviews, etc, that is, they must provide information on the reception of the film in their territory and prove the subsidy has been put to good use.
Guidelines and application forms are available on German Films.
(Translated from French)
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