Series power from Hamburg

Helge Albers, CEO of MOIN Film Fund: "2022 is clearly starting with a strong upswing in high-end series. With the new series projects, the industry is impressively demonstrating the potential that lies dormant in the Hanseatic city. In future, we will see more and more series from Hamburg on the major streamers and media libraries. We have launched six alone with the current funding round. The documentary series "Reeperbahn Special Unit 65" shows what can come out of this: in 2020, we were able to support it with the recently introduced series funding - and now it is being presented to an international audience of professionals at the Berlinale."

SPONSORED SERIES

Directors Stephan Rick sends Fahri Yardim in the high-end seriesDie Quellen des Bösen (500,000 euros, Wüste Medien, Hamburg) to the former border region of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania. In 1993, an East German investigator and her new West German partner hunt a serial killer whose trail leads them into the abysses of the German-German past. The script for the thriller series was written by Hamburg-based Catharina Junk ("Mittagsstunde") and Elke Schuch. The team will be filming in Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein for around two weeks this year. Six episodes are planned.

The drama seriesDavos (300,000 euros, Letterbox Filmproduktion, Hamburg) by Directors duo Anca Miruna Lăzărescu and Jan-Eric Mack is set in the devastated Europe of the First World War. In contrast, the noble mountain resort of Davos appears to be an oasis of peace. But in reality, a relentless war of agents is raging here, in which the nurse Johanna is caught between the fronts. Jeanette Hain and David Kross are expected to play the leading roles in the six-part series. The script was written by Adrian Illien and his co-authors Julia Penner, Michael Sauter and Thomas Hess. Three days of filming are planned in Hamburg.

More series material comes withHeligoland 513 (250,000 euros, UFA Fiction, Potsdam): Under the Directorship of Robert Schwentke (including "Flight Plan"), a small community of survivors of an apocalypse that has overtaken the rest of the world and plunged it into chaos are holed up on Heligoland in the near future. Schwentke wrote the script for the eight-part series together with Florian Wentsch and Veronica Priefer as well as Matthew Wilder and Yves Hensel. The team plans to spend around three weeks filming in the production region.

While the Beetz brothers are currently on the road at the Berlinale with their series "Reeperbahn Special Unit 65", the next neighbourhood project is already in the starting blocks: TheFC St. Pauli - non-established since 1910 (40,000 euros, Gebrüder Beetz Filmproduktion, Hamburg) is the name of the new documentary series about Hamburg's football club, on which the Hamburg-based team of authors Christian Bettges, Ina Kessebohm and Paul Wiederhold are working.

60,000 euros for project development go to the drama seriesPassepartout (Leitwolf Filmproduktion, Hamburg) by Script Writers Johannes Rothe, Florian Vey and co-writer Ipek Zübert, in which the lives of a young con artist, a star gallery owner and an art forger are thrown completely off the rails after the brutal theft of a painting.

Screenplay funding is available for the drama seriesLife (40,000 euros, Fortune Cookie Film, Hamburg) by Ipek Zübert, which tells a family story about several generations of women in Hamburg.

THE OTHER SUBSIDISED FILMS

With Hermine Huntgeburth, Nora Fingscheidt and Ute von Münchow-Pohl, three great Hamburg Directors have also received Fundings. The projects at a glance:

WithThe Heinzels - New caps, new mission (460,000 euros, Akkord Film Produktion, Hamburg), the latest animated adventure of the little brownies is in the starting blocks. Hamburg director Ute von Münchow-Pohl is once again taking her place in the director's chair. The German-Austrian co-production will be animated entirely in Hamburg. The script is by Jan Strathmann.

Production funding totalling 300,000 euros goes to the animated filmTafiti - Off through the desert (300,000 euros, Tradewind Pictures, Cologne) by Director Nina Wels. 175 days of animation filming took place at the Red Parrot Studios in Hamburg. The script, based on a children's book series, was written by Julia Boehme and Nicholas Hause.

In Hermine Huntgeburth's new dramaFellinger (180,000 euros, Pandora Film Produktion, Cologne), a waiter wants to write a novel during the pandemic. He gets in touch with the country's most important editor. The book is by Friedrich Ani. There will be several days of filming in the funding region.

Systemsprenger Director Nora Fingscheidt takes over as Director of the film adaptation of the novelThe Outrun (150,000 euros, Weydemann Bros., Hamburg). In the drama, Hollywood star Saoirse Ronan plays a young woman who has just come out of rehab and returns to the place where she grew up. Fingscheidt co-wrote the script with novelist Amy Liptrot.

Directors and Script Writer Bruno Dumont's new filmL'Empire (75,000 euros, Red Balloon Film, Hamburg) enters the science fiction genre and shows the parallel world behind the tranquil façade of a fishing village ruled by knights of interplanetary empires.

Fundings in the area of project development are available for two more films: Adina Pintilie, who won the Golden Bear in 2018 with "Touch Me Not", is working on her new projectDeath and the Maiden (70,000 euros, Manekino Film, Hamburg) about a couple in a relationship crisis. The biopicDolores (bauderfilm, Berlin) by Directors Marc Bauder about one of the greatest resistance fighters of the Second World War is being funded with 35,000 euros. Bauder wrote the script together with Martin Behnke. The comedyHunting season (Tobis Film, Berlin) by Aron Lehmann is being supported with 60,000 euros in Distribution.

A detailed overview of all projects funded by the High End Committee can be found here.

The High End Committee is responsible for films and series with production costs of over 3.5 million euros.

The funding decision was made on 4 February by Christian Granderath, Murat Isgüder, Nataly Kudiabor, Wenka von Mikulicz, Caroline von Senden and Helge Albers.