You can find support for blockbuster productions anywhere in the world, of course, but we particularly liked Babelsberg and Berlin,” says Joel Silver. “Studio Babelsberg has developed into one of the most important film centres in Europe,” says Lloyd Phillips. “Few other countries can offer the same possibilities.” The two Hollywood producers know what they’re talking about. They’ve just completed million-dollar productions in Studio Babelsberg – because Babelsberg has the technology of the future, Berlin has great attraction as a film city, and the costs are internationally competitive. In choosing Berlin, the two producers are very much part of a trend. Over half of all US feature films are now produced outside the States. And more and more major American studios like Warner Bros., United Artists and Sony Columbia are choosing Babelsberg.
2007 was Studio Babelsberg’s most successful year since it was privatized in 1992. Twelve national and international feature films were produced. Turnover went up fivefold and annual profits rose to six million euros. International stars such as Tom Cruise, Kate Winslet, Susan Sarandon, Matt Damon and Bud Spencer made films in the studios, which have a long tradition. Furthermore, Studio Babelsberg won an Oscar for the production The Counterfeiters and three Oscars for the co-production The Bourne Ultimatum. 2008 is also turning out successfully. Work on the science-fiction thriller Pandorum began in August. It was the fifth million-dollar production after Ninja Assassin, The Reader, Hilde and Crash Point Berlin. And since October Querentin Tarantino has been making Inglourious Basterds with Brad Pitt and a cast of international stars.
But times have not always been so rosy for Studio Babelsberg. As the oldest major film studio in the world it can look back on a glorious past full of great names like Fritz Lang and Josef von Sternberg, Metropolis and The Blue Angel starring Marlene Dietrich. But then the famous Ufa became Defa in GDR days, and after German reunification it became Studio Babelsberg – albeit with only moderate success. It was not until Carl Woebcken and Christoph Fisser took over the business from the French Vivendi group and restructured it in 2004 that things started to look up. The new owners concentrated on feature films, expanded capacity and positioned the studio as a premium service provider on the European market. Today at least two or three large-scale productions can be made in parallel. More than 28,000 square metres of studio space are permanently available for feature-film production. Studio Babelsberg is up there on the A-list of European studios alongside Pinewood Shepperton in London and Barrandov Studios in Prague, and is now the very heart of the German film industry.
Clusters, each with a different focus, have formed in Munich, Hamburg and Cologne. Whereas Babelsberg concentrates on feature films, the core business of Bavaria Film in Munich lies in the production of TV programmes. Some 30,000 minutes of broadcasts are produced every year. With an annual turnover of 250 million euros the Bavaria Film Group is one of the biggest in the industry. Studio Hamburg produces mainly telenovelas, large shows with live audiences and daily soaps. With its fleet of modern outside-broadcast vehicles it is a market leader among technical service providers in the film and TV industries. One third of German TV productions come from Cologne. Over 15,000 people in the cathedral city work in the audio-visual media sector. Some 35,000 people are employed in the film industry throughout Germany. However, the borderlines between the two fields are quite blurred, since many of the people working in the film industry are freelancers, and there is an increasing amount of cooperation between the film industry and television on large-scale productions. More and more of these are finding their way into the cinemas. In 2007 the number of German feature-film premieres was 50% higher than five years ago. In the first half of 2008 the German film industry reached a market share of over 33%.
The industry has been given a major boost by the German Film Fund (DFFF), initiated in 2007 by Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann. The Fund has an annual budget of 60 million euros and has so far awarded 110 million euros in subsidies to 179 projects. This in turn has attracted private investment of over 700 million euros, so that the leverage effect for the German economy is six times the amount of the subsidies. The production costs of DFFF-subsidized films total a billion euros, giving Germany the kind of competitive system of incentives that already exists in many other countries. Not only German films receive funding, but also international productions with German participation. “The reason why the German Film Fund is so successful,” says Minister Bernd Neumann, “is that it benefits almost all areas of the film industry – from producers to studios, from equipment manufacturers to freelance staff in the film market.” In addition, the Film Fund has already made Germany more attractive as a filmmaking location and boosted international cooperation. The Fund gives the German film industry financially strong partners, supports international know-how transfer and, last but not least, ensures sustainable growth.
