06/03/2007

While the German film industry is still basking in the Oscar win of Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s The Lives of Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Florian Henckel von Donners…
interview: Ulrich Muehe
film profile] (see Focus), the FFF Bavaria has decided to grant the considerable sum of €8,458,000 to 29 film projects, two of which mark the return of past Oscar winning German directors, Florian Gallenberger and Caroline Link.

Gallenberger – winner of the 2001 Oscar for Best Short with Quiero ser (I Want to Be...) and behind the more recent Shadows of Time [+see also:
interview: Florian Gallenberger
film profile] (2004) – is currently working on a historical drama entitled John Rabe. The film is about a German businessman who, à la Oscar Schindler, helped to save thousands of Chinese from the 1937 Nanjing massacres in Japan.

The Hofmann & Voges Entertainment production – which will star Ulrich Mühe of The Lives of Others fame – has been granted the most generous sum by FFF Bavaria (€1.4m).

Link – winner of the 2003 Best Foreign Language Film Oscar for Nowhere in Africa [+see also:
trailer
film profile] – has received backing for her new film, Im Winter ein Jahr (lit. “One Year in Winter”), the screen adaptation of a novel, produced by Uschi Reich for Bavaria with Constantin Film.

Meanwhile, Wiedemann & Berg (The Lives of Others) will be producing a comedy entitled U 911, on which Sven Unterwaldt and Atze Schröder will collaborate once again (the director and star of 7 Dwarves respectively).

Other projects selected were the debut feature Feuerherz by Luigi Falorni, co-director of The Story of the Weeping Camel (nominated for a Best Documentary Oscar in 2005); Hexe Lilli, a children’s film by Stefan Ruzowitzky (who recently presented The Counterfeiter [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] at Berlin) from the slate of Blue Eyes Fiction; and Friedliche Zeiten (lit. “Peaceful Times”) by Neele Vollmar (Urlaub vom Leben), a Firma Royal Pony Film production.

Completing FFF Bavaria’s prestigious selection is Hardcover, which brings together The Treasure of the White Falcons director Christian Zübert and its producers Tom Spieß and Sönke Wortmann (still basking in the success of Germany: A Summer's Fairytale).

(Translated from French)