Gangster rap with 1000 lines

It has long been impossible to imagine the German hip-hop landscape without Xatar, and now Fatih Akin is bringing his story to the big screen: InRheingold (700,000 euros, bombero international, Hamburg), the Hamburg-based Director and Script Writer traces the path of immigrant Giwar Hajabi, alias Xatar, from prison to successful musician and entrepreneur. The film will be shot in Hamburg for a good week, with the Hanseatic city acting as London this time. The gangster drama is based on Xatar's biography "All or Nothing", which was published in 2015.

Further production funding goes to1000 lines (300,000 euros, UFA Fiction, Potsdam) by Michael Bully Herbig, whose new film is a modern-day story of an impostor staged as a media satire: Freelance journalist Romero discovers inconsistencies in the award-winning reports of star reporter Lars Bogenius and triggers one of the biggest German press scandals with his revelations. Elyas M'Barek and Jonas Nay can be seen in the leading roles. The film is inspired by Juan Moreno's book "A Thousand Lies" and is being shot in Hamburg for around a week. The script was written by Hermann Florin.

Material for the whole family comes from Hamburg Media School graduate Martina Plura: InMy Lotta life 2 (300,000 euros, Lieblingsfilm, Munich) is Lotta's first school trip - and her emotional world is turned upside down. Martina Plura's sister Monika Plura (also HMS) is directing the family film, while Bettina Börgerding wrote the script. The leading role of Lotta is once again played by Meggy Marie Hussong from Schleswig-Holstein. There are 16 days of filming planned on an island in the North Sea.

250,000 euros in production funding goes to the Hamburg projectDirectorate 65 (Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion, Hamburg) by Directors Georg Tschurtschenthaler. The true-crime series about the turning point on the Reeperbahn in the 1980s will have 30 days of filming in the Hanseatic city. The script was written by Hamburg native Ina Kessebohm, with "4 Blocks" DoP and Hamburg native Matthias Bolliger behind the camera. The remake of a Danish film awaits us with the comedyHunting fever (200,000 euros, Tobis Filmproduktion, Berlin) by Directors Aron Lehmann: Marlene is to be dissuaded from a serious sex date by her friend Eva with a fake wellness weekend. Fittingly, ten days of filming are planned at a wellness resort in Schleswig-Holstein. The script was written by Lea Schmidbauer. The film is about a teacher in Istanbul who is accused of molesting his female pupils.On Barren Weeds (75,000 euros, Komplizen Film, Berlin) by the famous Turkish Director Nuri Bilge Ceylan. He co-wrote the script with Aksu Akin and Ebru Ceylan.

Screenplay funding totalling 40,000 euros for the St. Pauli series in the first session of the yearGreat freedom by the Hamburg-based "Skylines" author team Arne Ahrens and Oliver Karan.

Three productions receive distribution funding: Sven Unterwaldt'sCatweazle (80,000 euros, Tobis Film, Berlin) with Otto Waalkes in the leading role, the animated filmThe Olchis - Welcome to Schmuddelfing (65,000 euros, Leonine Distribution, Munich) by Jens Møller and Toby Genkel andFrance (17,500 euros, MFA+ FilmDistribution, Regensburg) by Bruno Dumont.

TheHigh End Committee is responsible for films and series with production costs of over 3.5 million euros. The funding decision was made on 9 February by Christian Granderath, Murat Isgüder, Wenka von Mikulicz, Caroline von Senden, Ipek Zübert and Helge Albers.

A detailed overview of all funded projects can be found here.

Photo: Jingming Pan/Unsplash