By Cornelis Hähnel. From today’s point of view the German film industry seems like a strange beast: On the one hand it is revered by a lot of people, but on the other, mainly from within its own ranks, German cinema has to face the accusation of being irrelevant and uninspired. This claim at least is false, when inspected closely. After all it was the brothers Skladanowsky’s “bioskop” machine, being presented November 1st 1895 in Berlin, that in fact won the race of the first public projection of “living photography”. Until the First World War cinema developed to become a major branch of the German industry, finding its artistic zenith in the 1920s. Today films like THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI (1920, Robert Wiene), NOSFERATU (1922, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau) or METROPOLIS (1927, Fritz Lang) are regarded as milestones of cinematic history.

With the National Socialists coming to power the German cinema became another tool of propaganda and ideology, even though the bulk of the produced films remained pure entertainment features. Immediately after the Second World War the German film industry came to a standstill, with all productions controlled by the administrations of the allied forces. After the lifting of the allied censorship in 1949 the Western German film industry founded a privately and centrally organized censorship office called FSK (Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle) as well as a film evaluation institution in 1951, the Filmbewertungsstelle, which had the obligation to support artistically ambitious movies (since 1957 it’s called Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden or FBW). The sentimental and bucolic “Heimatfilm”, which became so typical for the German 1950s, was a result of the retreat into private life and the shying away from politics in cinema – a tendency that came at the expense of artistic ambition. At the start of the 1960s, German cinema was in an existential crisis, not least because of the growing marketshare of American productions in local theatres.

With the Oberhausen manifesto in 1962 and its slogan „Daddy’s cinema is dead“ young German filmmakers rebelled against the desolate state of production and distribution. Among them were auteurs like Alexander Kluge, Edgar Reitz and Peter Schamoni, all of whom would leave their mark on the New German Cinema (Rainer Werner Fassbinder is generally regarded among that group as well). Their commitment to filmmaking based on craftsmanship resulted in the foundation of a Curatorium for Young German Cinema, which was responsible for improving subsidies for young filmmakers. The German parliament then passed a Film Sponsorship Law in 1967. Since then economic subsidies for film productions are being managed by the Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA), a sort of national film fund institution directly reporting to the government. In the early 1970s, several German provinces started to create their own Film Funds. First in line were the traditional production centres Berlin, Bavaria, Hamburg and North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 1974 the state-owned TV stations participated in film production as mentioned on a film and television treaty for film funding; since 1989 private TV stations contributed as well.

In Eastern Germany the DEFA, founded on May 17th 1946 and in the beginning controlled by the Sovjets, practically controlled the film industry. Germany’s first post-war film, Wolfgang Staudte’s was produced by the DEFA, which after the foundation of the Eastern German GDR in 1949 was passed into German hands step by step. Having been constructed in hommage to traditional studio structures, the state-owned DEFA produced 700 feature films, 600 TV movies, 750 animated films and about 2.300 documentary and short features until 1990. After the reunification in 1990 the privatisation agency sold the former DEFA studios in Babelsberg to the private sector. Today, the studio’s business is flourishing, with big names from Hollywood like Quentin Tarantino, Stephen Daldry or Roman Polanski standing in line to shoot and produce films there.

In the 1990s there was another round of discussions about the German cinema being caught between commercial and cultural interests. A special brand of big city romantic comedies was especially successful with the audience in these years, while at the same time a new generation of auteur filmmakers with a demonstrative artistic attitude emerged under the label of the Berlin School; among them were Christian Petzold, Angela Schanelec or Thomas Arslan. At the end of the millennium directors like Fatih Akin or Tom Tykwer finally managed to unite commercial success with critical acclaim.

In spite of different variations of film financing models and institutions, nowadays some form of film subsidies are more prevalent than others. Apart from additional funding like script support, distribution support or theatre support, the production support is the actual core of most film financing in Germany. This method is supposed to strengthen the national location factor while at the same time supporting artistically valuable but economically lesser successful genres like documentary or short films. There are extensive debut film financing programs, too.

Nationwide film financing is being paid for by a special government’s commissioner for film subsidies, by the Filmförderungsanstalt (FFA) and the Curatorium for Young German Cinema. Since 2007 there is a National Film Fund, initiated by the government’s commissioner for Culture and Media, which until 2012 will make the sum of 60 Mio. Euros available annually for the support of German film production. Until June 30th of 2009 221 films have already been funded with 136 Mio. Euros. Additionally there are regional film financing institutions tied to local productions. These are, amongst others, the Filmstiftung NRW, the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg or the Filmförderung Hamburg, all of which sport their own rules and regulations.

The national film fund FFA for example gives financial help to films longer than 79 minutes, based on two principles: First there is a system of reference points, which can be calculated from audience attendance, festival prizes and ratings from the film evaluation centre FBW. So this financial help comes after the theatrical run of the film. On the other hand there are selective financing helps in the form of money advances from 250.000 Euros up to 1 Mio. Euros. But these credits necessitate an equity contribution by the film’s producer of at least 15%. Short films of up to 15 minutes can get funding, if it has won a festival prize or a rating from the film evaluation centre FBW. Medium length films between 15 and 45 minutes can get funding following the same principles if it is the first project of this length the director is directly responsible for.

Another good way for filmmakers to acquire funds are endowed festival prizes. Some of the most important festival sites for young German filmmakers are the Berlin Film Festival (especially the section Perspektive Deutsches Kino), the Max-Ophüls-Preis in Saarbrücken, the Hof International Fim Festival and the Film Festival Biberach. For short films, these are the International Short Fim Festival Oberhausen, the Film Festival Münster, the Interfilm Berlin or the International Short Film Festival Hamburg. Like in most countries, short films are having a hard time in the German film industry: they’re hardly ever presented in theatres and only in niche programs on TV, which restricts this art form most of the time to the festival audiences. Feature films by young filmmakers on the other hand have a good chance to be shown on the theatre screen: thanks to committed small distributors more and more young German director’s movies find their way into the cinemas, even it is only for a short cinematic run with few copies.

Of course you can always just go on and make a film on your own and then try to get it played at festivals but, as in other professions, an education is definitely a plus. German film schools like the dffb Deutsche Film- und Fernsehakademie Berlin, the Hamburg Media School, the The Film & Television Academy (HFF) “Konrad Wolf” in Potsdam-Babelsberg, the University of Television and Film Munich, the ifs Internationale Filmschule Cologne, the Academy of Media Arts Cologne or the Baden-Württemberg Film Academy do no only offer necessary knowledge and equipment but also allow vital contacts to the media industry to develop during the training period.

The overall number of German productions in cinematic distribution has risen over the last couple of years, and the audience accepts them. According to the FFA, German-produced or co-produced movies accounted for 16,3 Mio. visitors in the first half of 2009, reaching a market share of 25,4%. After last year’s record number of 33,9% market share this is the second-highest rate since the FFA started to calculate those numbers. According to them of the 262 films in German cinemas 105 were German-produced, an increase of 22 over last year’s first half. The number of theatres meanwhile is still in decline: Until June 30th the number of towns or municipalities with at least one cinema decreased by another 30, reaching 985 and thus going underneath the 1.000-mark for the first time. In the same time the overall number of cinemas decreased from 1.804 last year to 1.746 in June 2009. Most of those closings concerned smaller venues and special screening sites.

Links

• BIRTHDAY (D 2008. Andrzej Król)
• BROTHER, BROTHER (D 2007. Lars Kreyßig)
• VON ENDE UND ANFANG (D 2009. Christoph Schuler)