We con­grat­u­late Rein­hard Hauff on his 80th birth­day and wish him all the best, great health and a won­der­ful par­ty!

The tele­vi­sion mak­er, cin­e­ma direc­tor and hon­orary prize win­ner of the Ger­man Film Award left a last­ing influ­ence on the DFFB, estab­lished dur­ing his tenure from 1993 to 2005. Under the slo­gan “LOW BUDGET — HIGH ENERGY” he encour­aged stu­dents and employ­ees to achieve top per­for­mances, estab­lished two new cours­es of study with (scriptwrit­ing and pro­duc­tion), relo­cat­ed to the Filmhaus and trained many great film­mak­ers includ­ing Emi­ly Atef, Achim von Bor­ries and Lars Kraume. To this day, his pre­ten­sion and dri­ve are essen­tial for the academy’s pro­file and its stu­dents.

To say it with a pic­ture from our archive:

We deeply thank Rein­hard Hauff for all the ener­gy, cre­ativ­i­ty and per­se­ver­ance which con­tin­ues to influ­ence the stud­ies and film­mak­ers at the DFFB to this day!

An inter­view with Linus de Paoli (direc­tor) and Anna de Paoli (pro­duc­er and Head of Pro­duc­tion Stud­ies at DFFB) by Tan­ja C. Krain­höfer

– – – – –

With their col­lec­tive “Schat­tenkante” they bring dar­ing cin­e­ma from Ger­many into the world. If need be, even with­out sup­port and sta­tion help: Their new film A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL is cur­rent­ly shown in cin­e­mas. Anna and Linus de Paoli have pro­duced this fea­ture film past the usu­al struc­tures. An inter­view about genre film and inde­pen­dent film­mak­ing in Ger­many in gen­er­al.

 

Though essen­tial­ly a dra­ma  A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL is not shy when it comes to bor­row­ing Thriller- and Gore-Ele­ments. The film opened last week in Ger­man the­aters with four copies and a tour through sev­er­al cities. How did the audi­ence react to the sto­ry about the bril­liant but timid pro­tag­o­nist Piet and his prob­lem­at­ic rela­tion­ships with women?

Linus de Paoli (LdP): I was pos­i­tive­ly sur­prised by how well the film was received by the audi­ence. There are always some walk­outs at every screen­ing, which I under­stand. Our sto­ry is hard to swal­low at times. Our best expe­ri­ence was when some peo­ple who walked out came back in lat­er to see the end­ing and talk about the film any­way. That is what intrigues me most about film­mak­ing: the dis­course.

 

The fund­ing boards and TV net­works, on the oth­er hand, were not enthu­si­as­tic about the project, so you put it togeth­er as an entire­ly inde­pen­dent pro­duc­tion. How do you explain that atti­tude, since Net­flix and oth­er stream­ing por­tals are chalk­ing up con­sid­er­able suc­cess, often with dark and edgy for­mats – espe­cial­ly with younger audi­ences who don’t often go to the movies?

LdP: Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the net­works and fund­ing insti­tutes are not as open-mind­ed and coura­geous as they like to think. Their sys­tems are inflex­i­ble and their under­stand­ing of what is con­sid­ered “cul­tur­al­ly wor­thy” is lim­it­ed. Our last film DER SAMURAI was reject­ed by the net­work because it didn’t match the “pub­lic taste-guide­lines”. A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL was labeled “moral­ly ques­tion­able” by the BKM. It’s sad in this coun­try that the act of show­ing some­thing is often mis­tak­en with pro­mot­ing some­thing. For me, it starts to get inter­est­ing when things get ambiva­lent. Net­flix and oth­er por­tals are not nec­es­sar­i­ly wis­er – but cer­tain­ly more open.

 

Inde­pen­dent pro­duc­tion not only rep­re­sents the free­dom to tell sto­ries beyond the main­stream but also con­sti­tutes a seri­ous finan­cial risk. In addi­tion to defer­ments, spon­sor­ing, pay­ments in kind and count­less favors, you still had to come up with a cash bud­get of 160, 000 EUR. How did you go about it and what oblig­a­tions came with it?

Anna de Paoli (AdP): After try­ing out all pos­si­ble financ­ing alter­na­tives, we con­clud­ed: Every euro spent comes with cer­tain con­di­tions, no mat­ter where it comes from. Our co-pro­duc­tion with Hahn Film AG had three major advan­tages: all fund­ing came from the same source. It was imme­di­ate­ly avail­able when need­ed. And it guar­an­teed com­plete artis­tic free­dom. Our com­pe­tence was in deliv­er­ing high pro­duc­tion val­ue on a shoe­string-bud­get against cash flow. A win-win sit­u­a­tion. But it’s still true that both sides take full risk. And with­out the ded­i­ca­tion and the will­ing­ness of our team, which was only paid min­i­mum wage, the film would nev­er have been made.

 

Freddy/​Eddy pro­duc­er and direc­tor Tini Tüll­mann invest­ed 75,000 in her inde­pen­dent film and could only recoup 50% from the­atri­cal release, DVD and VoD – although it had inter­na­tion­al dis­tri­b­u­tion. How great are the chances that A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL will break even, or even make a prof­it?

AdP: Right now, we are still in the exploita­tion phase. Our world sales com­pa­ny Raven Ban­ner pro­vid­ed a best-case, mid-case and worst-case sce­nario. But even the lat­ter promised break-even. We are cau­tious­ly opti­mistic. The press can be very help­ful in pro­vid­ing wider pub­lic aware­ness of what we stand for. Though we are total­ly over­whelmed by the audi­ence reac­tion on our Ger­man cin­e­ma tour, we are not expect­ing it to gen­er­ate much prof­it and are hop­ing for a lucra­tive BluRay/​DVD/​VoD start. Our Ger­man dis­trib­u­tor For­got­ten Film is known for it’s taste­ful “fetish-edi­tions” with lots of extras. Nor do we share the opin­ion that phys­i­cal media is dying out. The increas­ing­ly-frag­ment­ed online mar­ket forces the con­sumer into sub­scrib­ing to mul­ti­ple stream­ing ser­vices and a nev­er-end­ing scav­enger hunt. The best way to guar­an­tee the per­ma­nent avail­abil­i­ty of your favorite film is still to buy a disc – and prob­a­bly the cheap­est too.

 

Many con­tem­po­rary Indie-direc­tors and pro­duc­ers of films like “KLAPPE COWBOY!”, “FREDDY/​EDDY” and “ÜBERALL WO WIR SIND” were unable to find a dis­trib­u­tor and end­ed up self-dis­trib­ut­ing their works. You were able to con­vince Salzge­ber and For­got­ten Film to dis­trib­ute your films – as well as Raven Ban­ner for world sales. How did this come about?

AdP: I tricked Raven Ban­ner a lit­tle in Cannes last year. They liked the film right away, but were afraid that it might scare buy­ers off. So, I turned the tables on them and told them to “go where the fear is”. As a com­pa­ny spe­cial­iz­ing in hor­ror and sus­pense, they couldn’t argue with that – and it was a con­vinc­ing argu­ment for sell­ing the film to the USA, Cana­da and Great Britain, where its top­ics are espe­cial­ly con­tro­ver­sial right now. For­got­ten Film shares our pas­sion for cer­tain films and fes­ti­vals like the “Terza Visione”. That cre­at­ed trust right from the start. It’s a spe­cial hon­or in itself when cinephiles decide to invest in your project. By the way, our first fea­ture film “DR. KETEL” was released with the sup­port of the “Moviemen­to” cin­e­ma in Berlin. They ran the film for months and helped pro­mote it nation­wide, mak­ing it eas­i­er for us to orga­nize a Ger­man cin­e­ma tour our­selves. It was then that we dis­cov­ered the incred­i­ble val­ue of hav­ing con­tact to pas­sion­ate cin­e­ma cura­tors /​ oper­a­tors. They know their audi­ence real­ly well. We wouldn’t want to have missed the expe­ri­ence of this the­atri­cal, par­tial-self-dis­tri­b­u­tion.

 

Your sto­ry takes place at a pan-Euro­pean elite cam­pus, where dif­fer­ent nation­al­i­ties come togeth­er and com­mu­ni­cate in Eng­lish. So, you could cast actors from sev­er­al coun­tries. What role did mar­ket­ing strate­gies play in that deci­sion?

LdP: None. But the lan­guage gave us an advan­tage in sell­ing the film to Eng­lish speak­ing ter­ri­to­ries. The deci­sion is pure­ly con­tent-relat­ed. In our present world, Eng­lish has become a uni­ver­sal lan­guage – espe­cial­ly online. So, I want­ed to take the idea one step fur­ther: The Euro­pean Union has merged into one giant coun­try. All that remains of the for­mer nation­al­i­ties is dif­fer­ent accents. I have an ambiva­lent point of view towards that, too. On one hand, a fan­tas­tic utopia, to which we’ve nev­er been clos­er his­tor­i­cal­ly. One the oth­er, what­ev­er great advan­tages and pos­si­bil­i­ties this open­ing has, it won’t pro­tect indi­vid­u­als from iso­la­tion. And even this world seems to have pret­ty tough exter­nal bor­ders.

 

After its world pre­miere at the Munich Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val last sum­mer, the film had an exten­sive, inter­na­tion­al fes­ti­val run. Did you fol­low a fes­ti­val strat­e­gy that was also part of a recoup­ment con­cept? For exam­ple. through screen­ing fees or prize mon­ey?

AdP: With fes­ti­vals we fol­low a strat­e­gy, yes. But it’s a cal­cu­la­tion with sev­er­al unknowns. The fact that we won a Ger­man Cin­e­ma New Tal­ent Award in Munich cre­at­ed great ener­gy and pre­vent­ed the film from being labeled as “dirty”. Hope­ful­ly, our ultra-sen­si­tive insti­tu­tions will begin to under­stand, that a film may raise moral ques­tions and chal­lenge pub­lic dis­course. But back to your ques­tion. Yes, screen­ing fees can con­tribute towards recoup­ment of distributor’s and sales agent’s invest­ment – and in the long run even pay off for us, because we nego­ti­at­ed a cor­ri­dor for the pro­duc­ers. We are well-con­nect­ed to the fan­ta­sy film fes­ti­val cir­cuit. A rather friend­ly and pas­sion­ate part of the scene and mar­ket, with close ties and bet­ter chances of mak­ing fair deals on an equal foot­ing – at least from our expe­ri­ence. Hope­ful­ly, the rest of the indus­try will soon real­ize that exploit­ing cre­atives has got to stop.

 

At the last edi­tion of Munch­n­er Medi­en­tag, Simon Amberg­er and Kobin­ian Dufter of Neue­su­per described the big play­ers, Ama­zon, Net­flix & co. as an unbe­liev­able chance. Although more than 90 per­cent of all pro­duc­tions are still ini­ti­at­ed with­out VOD-plat­forms, their enor­mous influ­ence on esthet­ics and sto­ry­telling is evi­dent. And they offer the young gen­er­a­tion of film­mak­ers a chance to par­tic­i­pate in shap­ing the cin­e­mat­ic world. Do you share that per­cep­tion?

LdP: Yes and no. I see stream­ing ser­vices just as ambiva­lent as tele­vi­sion. They are pri­mar­i­ly just anoth­er form for pre­sent­ing audio­vi­su­al prod­ucts. For ser­i­al for­mats, it seems to be ide­al, because con­sumers can get exact­ly what they want, when they want and as much of it as they want. This offers incred­i­ble chances, because the demand is high. And plat­forms like Net­flix can also become enablers for dar­ing fea­ture films. Roma is an inter­est­ing exam­ple. But they can nev­er replace, and should nev­er be mis­tak­en for, the expe­ri­ence of going to a real cin­e­ma. Time will tell how their influ­ence on esthet­ics and sto­ry­telling will change in the long run.

AdP: Not all that glit­ters is gold – also for a pro­duc­er. Stream­ing ser­vices have high expec­ta­tions of pro­duc­tion val­ue for often com­par­a­tive­ly low bud­gets with immense con­trol­ling expens­es. Cre­atives are exclu­sive­ly bound to projects for long peri­ods of time and have to work very hard on their own projects – or as guns for hire. New chances for artis­tic free­dom can only arise, when we stop chas­ing after gold all the time. We also have to strength­en inde­pen­dent, sus­tain­able pro­duc­tion struc­tures.

 

In the past, a lot of inde­pen­dent films were able to prof­it from the new play­ers through Amazon’s Fes­ti­val Stars pro­gram and Net­flix’ inter­est in Berlin-based films. Do you think this will cre­ate promis­ing options in the long run – also con­sid­er­ing the grow­ing hunger for con­tent of such oth­er plat­forms as Mag­ne­ta or Max­dome?

LdP: I can only spec­u­late. I guess com­pe­ti­tion among the big play­ers will increase and ulti­mate­ly start a con­tent war. Spe­cial-inter­est con­tent and niche films might become a cru­cial fac­tor when it comes to con­sumers decid­ing which sub­scrip­tions, they are will­ing to pay for. But maybe not. I could also imag­ine that self-pub­lish­ing/dis­tri­b­u­tion will become more pop­u­lar and offer a lucra­tive way around the typ­i­cal exploita­tion chains. Espe­cial­ly among inde­pen­dent film­mak­ers, I can sense grow­ing frus­tra­tion with the non-trans­par­ent and waste­ful way dis­trib­u­tors and sales com­pa­nies often oper­ate. Many believe that they could do a bet­ter job in pro­mot­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing their films than the estab­lished com­pa­nies, which also seem to lag behind the Zeit­geist.

 

In addi­tion to film school grad­u­a­tion projects, there seem to be ever more inde­pen­dent films being made in Ger­many. Do you think that there is a Ger­man indie-scene emerg­ing that is estab­lish­ing itself sep­a­rate­ly from the exist­ing film indus­try?

LdP:  Even with all the prob­lems and com­plaints we have, it is still a lot eas­i­er and cheap­er to get a film project going than in the days of cel­lu­loid. And that is a great thing. Nonethe­less, inde­pen­dent film pro­duc­tion is self-exploita­tion and very risky. You can do it for a few projects, but you need a lot of endurance and at some point, mon­ey to estab­lish your­self. Pri­vate investors or stream­ing ser­vices could be help­ful for projects with appeal beyond the Ger­man mar­ket. But right now, the Ger­man indie-film is nei­ther strik­ing nor com­pelling enough. I’m doing my best!

 

The wish for more film cul­ture and diver­si­ty is also one of the key demands of sev­er­al move­ments like the “Frank­furt Posi­tions Towards the Future of Ger­man Cin­e­ma”, or the recent­ly found­ed “Main Asso­ci­a­tion Cinephil­ia”. In your opin­ion, what mea­sures would be nec­es­sary to reach that goal?

AdP: It is most impor­tant that the wish for change over­comes the fear of change. Fort two years, we have par­tic­i­pat­ed and wit­nessed pas­sion­ate dis­cus­sions, where every­body in the room was on the same page until a “high­er author­i­ty” inter­vened – be it one’s own asso­ci­a­tion, a network’s com­mis­sion of edi­tors, or oth­er anx­ious col­leagues. Wor­ried about their pro­fes­sion­al exis­tence, many film­mak­ers retreat­ed from their posi­tions. But stick­ing our heads in the sand is no option. Die “Frank­furt Posi­tions” give spe­cif­ic ideas about pos­si­ble mea­sures. ” With this, every­thing is said! “ was Jea­nine Meerapfel’s (pres­i­dent of the Acad­e­my of Arts) sum­mery at the pan­el “Cul­tur­al Film Fund­ing Now!” on 5^th Feb­ru­ary, 2019. One year after the “Frank­furt Posi­tions” were pub­lished, it is a major goal to plan defin­i­tive steps. We’re work­ing on it at this year‘s edi­tion of Lichter Film­fest, but also on the first con­fer­ence of the “Main Asso­ci­a­tion Cinephil­ia” along­side “Pro Quo­ta Film”, many fes­ti­val pro­gram­mers and oth­er allies. We should know more after East­er.

 

Indie-pro­duc­tions often have a hard time when it comes to exploita­tion. What pos­si­ble options do you see to sup­port small­er pro­duc­tions?

AdP: That’s a big field. The sep­a­ra­tion of pro­duc­tion fund­ing from dis­tri­b­u­tion fund­ing is anoth­er demand in the “Frank­furt Posi­tions”. The com­plex­i­ty of the admin­is­tra­tion involved in han­dling fund­ing also needs to be revis­it­ed and sim­pli­fied. Oth­er­wise indie-pro­duc­tions are not able to han­dle it. Anoth­er prob­lem: The tra­di­tion­al exploita­tion win­dows require cost-inten­sive mar­ket­ing. Judg­ing from the behav­ior of our own con­sumers, we believe that films would prof­it from imme­di­ate avail­abil­i­ty in all pos­si­ble forms. Here, we agree with Net­flix. Word-of-mouth rec­om­men­da­tion could cre­ate a big­ger buzz – and even draw peo­ple into the cin­e­mas. There is a lot of poten­tial in syn­er­gy effects that has not so far been used so far and that could pos­si­bly inspire and boost cin­e­ma atten­dance. What else? Fes­ti­vals that take action and present small­er films in their own DVD/​VOD edi­tions. Pre­sent­ing a film at a mar­ket should be eas­i­er and cheap­er. We con­stant­ly main­tain a world­wide net­work of film­mak­ers and con­duct con­tin­u­ous exchange on our expe­ri­ences. Mean­while, we’ve gath­ered some exper­tise on dis­tri­b­u­tion and can help each oth­er out. Togeth­er we are strong.

 

You are cou­ple and soon expect­ing your third child. Could you tell me your secret on how to feed a kid from defer­rals?

LdP: Well, you don’t. We both have oth­er jobs that pay the rent and give us some secu­ri­ty, so that every oth­er year we can “afford” to real­ize a project. Anna works for the Ger­man film- and tele­vi­sion Acad­e­my (DFFB) as head of pro­duc­tion stud­ies. I’m a free­lance com­pos­er and part of the selec­tion com­mit­tee of the Per­spec­tive Ger­man Cin­e­ma sec­tion at the Berli­nale. Our friends in the indie-scene call us “bou­tique” film­mak­ers. I con­sid­er that a com­pli­ment. If we put the cam­era on the tri­pod, it’s only out of an urge to cre­ate some­thing spe­cial. To quote Anna: There is enough audio­vi­su­al crap in the world. We don’t need to con­tribute to the pile.

 

Do you con­sid­er your­self a direc­tor-pro­duc­er-duo?

AdP: Absolute­ly. We met at film school (also DFFB) where Linus stud­ied direct­ing and I stud­ied pro­duc­tion. We’ve been work­ing togeth­er since 2005 as the col­lec­tive Schat­tenkante, which then became our pro­duc­tion com­pa­ny. A YOUNG MAN WITH HIGH POTENTIAL is our third fea­ture and Linus’ sec­ond fea­ture-length work as a direc­tor.

 

What’s next for you? Are you already plan­ning a new project?

LdP: As I men­tioned ear­li­er, our next child is due in May. That’s a project alright. But I am also devel­op­ing two projects on the side. One of the is a hor­ror-film with the work­ing title Kruste(Crust). The oth­er, a los­er-bal­lade in the form of a com­e­dy, called Florow.

AdP: We’ve invest­ed the prize mon­ey from Munich for an ini­tia­tive called “Film macht Schule” (lit­er­al­ly: film makes school). Film­mak­ers, pre­dom­i­nant­ly female, meet with stu­dents in work­shops and are free to cre­ate con­cepts. It’s all about encoun­ters to help light a spark of cinephil­ia to ignite some­thing in the new gen­er­a­tion.

Begin­ning of April, MIDPOINT – a train­ing and net­work­ing plat­form for script and project devel­op­ment oper­at­ing under the aus­pices of the Acad­e­my of Per­form­ing Arts in Prague – invit­ed Ben­jamin Har­ris, the Head of Pro­gramme for Ser­i­al Eyes, to sit down togeth­er and to talk about what the 9‑month res­i­den­tial pro­gram has to offer and how to apply for the April 15 dead­line.

The orig­i­nal inter­view can be found here. Have a good read!

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MIDPOINT: What would be the typ­i­cal back­ground of a Ser­i­al Eyes par­tic­i­pant? Who is the pro­gram tar­get­ing?

Ben­jamin Har­ris: Ser­i­al Eyes is aimed at up-and-com­ing Euro­pean TV writ­ers who have worked pro­fes­sion­al­ly in their home mar­ket and are now ready to step up to an inter­na­tion­al lev­el. The ide­al can­di­date thrives on team­work and will want to work in a writ­ers’ room set­ting. We accept twelve peo­ple per year, so it’s a pret­ty inti­mate set­ting. You have to be will­ing to work with eleven oth­er peo­ple in close quar­ters for nine months! Appli­cants should have at least 1–3 years of pro­fes­sion­al expe­ri­ence as a screen­writer and should ide­al­ly have writ­ten at least one episode for a dra­ma or com­e­dy series for a TV chan­nel in their own coun­try. Alter­na­tive­ly, can­di­dates may also have suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a TV writ­ing pro­gram such as MIDPOINT TV Launch. Very impor­tant: can­di­dates must have a high lev­el of flu­en­cy in writ­ten and spo­ken Eng­lish. Ser­i­al Eyes is taught entire­ly in Eng­lish.

MP: Are Cen­tral and East­ern Euro­pean appli­cants wel­come?

BH: Yes, very much so. We encour­age appli­cants from Cen­tral and East­ern Europe, espe­cial­ly MIDPOINT TV Launch alum­ni. We now offer tuition schol­ar­ships for appli­cants from so-called low-capac­i­ty coun­tries (for a com­plete list of qual­i­fy­ing coun­tries please check our admis­sions web­page).

MP: How does the Ser­i­al Eyes train­ing work? Is it a day-to-day “school”?

BH: Ser­i­al Eyes is a full-time, res­i­den­tial pro­gram. That means par­tic­i­pants com­mit to liv­ing and study­ing in Berlin for the full 9 months. We car­ry a pret­ty packed, five-days-a-week sched­ule, espe­cial­ly in the first semes­ter, with all-day work­shops, sem­i­nars and writ­ers’ rooms. There are writ­ing peri­ods at reg­u­lar inter­vals in the course. But par­tic­i­pants should expect to be togeth­er with their peers on an almost dai­ly basis.

MP: What top­ics does the 9‑month pro­gram cov­er?

BH: Our focus is the writ­ers’ room expe­ri­ence. That means par­tic­i­pants learn the dynam­ics of the writ­ers’ room and prac­tice lead­ing a team of writ­ers. But we’re also a project incu­ba­tor that encour­ages a col­lab­o­ra­tive work­shop set­ting. Par­tic­i­pants are trained in nar­ra­tive tech­niques in ser­i­al writ­ing and the var­i­ous modes for con­ceiv­ing new series con­cepts. Each par­tic­i­pant devel­ops his/​her own TV series from ini­tial idea all the way to fin­ished project pro­pos­al and pilot script. They also col­lab­o­rate on group projects that are often writ­ten to a spe­cif­ic brief from one of our indus­try part­ners. Final­ly, our par­tic­i­pants must under­stand the exi­gen­cies and demands of the mar­ket­place and learn about var­i­ous Euro­pean mar­kets and their spe­cif­ic devel­op­ment and pro­duc­tion meth­ods.

MP: What spe­cial seg­ments apart from the train­ing at Berlin’s dffb does the pro­gram offer?

BH: Our study trips are meant to intro­duce par­tic­i­pants to dif­fer­ent mar­kets and the TV pro­fes­sion­als work­ing there. Through our col­lab­o­ra­tions with the Lon­don Film School and the Nation­al Film School of Den­mark, we spent time in Lon­don and Copen­hagen respec­tive­ly and explore the local TV indus­tries, learn about their work­ing meth­ods and meet with oth­er writ­ers, pro­duc­ers and com­mis­sion­ing edi­tors from those mar­kets. We attend the Berli­nale Dra­ma Series Days and the Series Mania TV fes­ti­val in Lille and con­fer­ence in Lille, France, and host net­work­ing mix­ers at those events so that par­tic­i­pants can build their pro­fes­sion­al net­works.

MP: What skills, con­tacts, knowl­edge do the par­tic­i­pants grad­u­ate with?

BH: Ser­i­al Eyes is a pres­sure cook­er. So one of the most impor­tant qual­i­fi­ca­tions that our grad­u­ates are rec­og­nized for in the indus­try is their dis­ci­pline and their abil­i­ty to work well under pres­sure. In addi­tion, Ser­i­al Eyes grad­u­ates have built up a sharp under­stand­ing of series sto­ry­telling. They know how to man­age a team of writ­ers and are very com­fort­able in a writ­ers’ room. Final­ly, they have amassed a net­work of indus­try con­tacts across Europe. They will know how to speak to agents, pro­duc­ers and com­mis­sion­ing edi­tors and will be able to pitch their sto­ries with ease and clar­i­ty.

MP: What are some notable suc­cess­es of the Ser­i­al Eyes alum­ni?

BH: Some notable alum­ni include Jana Bur­bach (Writer of Bad Banks for ZDF/​ARTE, Co-Cre­ator of Tribes of Europe for Net­flix), Den­nis Schanz (Cre­ator of Sky­lines for Net­flix), Alexan­der Lindh and Julia Pen­ner (Head Writ­ers of Druck/​aka Skam Ger­many for ZDF­neo), Lau­ra Grace (Writer on Das Boot for Sky Ger­many), Wik­tor Piatkows­ki (Cre­ator of Wata­ha–The Pact for HBO Europe), Isaure Pisani-Fer­ry (Co-Cre­ator of Vam­pires for Net­flix), and Ivan Kneze­vic (Writer on Hack­erville 2 for HBO Europe). There are many more who are doing fan­tas­tic work. The main thing is that pret­ty much every­body is work­ing as a writer and/​or pro­duc­er in tele­vi­sion and get­ting paid for it. That’s a big suc­cess in my book!

 

The appli­ca­tion dead­line for Ser­i­al Eyes 2019/​2020 is April 15, 2019. For more infor­ma­tion, please vis­it the admis­sion web­page.

What a Berli­nale! We are incred­i­bly proud of our stu­dents and alum­ni who pre­sent­ed so many great films in almost all sec­tions of the fes­ti­val. In only 10 days, 14 of their films were shown 60 times on the cin­e­ma screens of Germany’s capital—and there were award win­ners!

 

4 films screened in Forum or Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino

Sara Sum­ma, Miri­am Bliese, and Simona Kostova—three tal­ent­ed women direc­tors from the DFFB cel­e­brat­ed their fea­ture films’ respec­tive world and Ger­man pre­mieres at the Berli­nale. While Sara Sum­ma enjoyed a suc­cess­ful world pre­miere in Forum with GLI ULTIMI A VEDERLI VIVERE, Miri­am Bliese’s DIE EINZELTEILE DER LIEBE was pre­sent­ed to the audi­ence for the first time in Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino. DREISSIG by Simona Kos­to­va received its Ger­man pre­miere at the Berli­nale and—winner of this year’s Max Ophüls Prize—DAS MELANCHOLISCHE MÄDCHEN by Susanne Hein­rich made a guest appear­ance in Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino.
We wish our tal­ent­ed direc­tors con­tin­ued suc­cess!

 

Awards for DFFB grad­u­ates

We warm­ly con­grat­u­late our alum­na Angela Schan­elec who won the Sil­ver Bear for Best Direc­tor. With ICH WAR ZU HAUSE, ABER the Berlin direc­tor took part in the Berli­nale com­pe­ti­tion for the first time and impressed the inter­na­tion­al jury with ele­ments of the Berlin School—a film with long, spa­cious takes, and silence.

Con­grat­u­la­tions also go out to the team of SYSTEMSPRENGER, espe­cial­ly to direc­tor Nora Fin­gschei­dt and DFFB alum­nus and pro­duc­er Jonas Wey­de­mann, who were award­ed the Sil­ver Bear Alfred Bauer Prize by the jury. The prize has been award­ed since 1987 to com­pe­ti­tion fea­ture films that pro­vide new per­spec­tives on the art of film­mak­ing. The prize was named after the first direc­tor of the fes­ti­val Alfred Bauer. SYSTEMSPRENGER also received the Berlin­er Mor­gen­post Read­ers’ Jury Prize.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Com­pass-Per­spek­tive-Award, endowed with €5,000, was giv­en to a film with DFFB par­tic­i­pa­tion. We con­grat­u­late BORN IN EVIN by Maryam Zaree, who worked on the film with DFFB alum­na and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Siri Klug, for receiv­ing the award for the best film from the cur­rent pro­gramme of Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino.

We also con­grat­u­late DFFB grad­u­ate Ana-Feli­cia Scutel­nicu, who was award­ed the Kom­pagnon-Fel­low­ship for her treat­ment TRANSIT TIMES. The prize, joint­ly giv­en by Berli­nale Tal­ents and Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino, offers a fel­low­ship of €5,000 for inde­pen­dent script and project devel­op­ment, a men­tor­ing pro­gramme to strength­en the director’s cre­ative vision, as well as coach­ing to improve net­work­ing with­in the indus­try.

 

HAGAZUSSA cel­e­brates suc­cess dur­ing the Berlin Critic’s Week

A DFFB grad­u­ate was award­ed a cov­et­ed prize dur­ing the Berlin Critic’s Week—for her extra­or­di­nary work on HAGAZUSSA, our grad­u­ate and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Mariel Baque­iro received the prize for Best Cam­era giv­en by
the Ger­man Film Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion. We would like to con­grat­u­late HAGAZUSSA on win­ning this award, anoth­er prize to add to its col­lec­tion after the film received the FIRST STEPS AWARDS 2018.

 

Julian Radlmeier brings home the Gold­en Lola for the best unfilmed script

Anoth­er rea­son to cel­e­brate: DFFB alum­nus Julian Radl­maier was award­ed the Gold­en Lola 2019 for the best unfilmed script for his treat­ment BLUTSAUGER. The prize, endowed with €10,000, was pre­sent­ed at the recep­tion of the Ver­band Deutsch­er Drehbuchau­toren (VDD) by Moni­ka Grüt­ters, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and Media.

Wow! Con­grat­u­la­tions to all stu­dents and alum­ni on being invit­ed to par­tic­i­pate in the fes­ti­val and espe­cial­ly to the prizewin­ners! We are look­ing for­ward to the next sea­son and can only add one thing: Keep up the good work!

 

The Prize of Ger­man Film Crit­ics is the only Ger­man film prize award­ed exclu­sive­ly by crit­ics. The prize has an impres­sive rep­u­ta­tion, and is not based on eco­nom­ic, coun­try, or polit­i­cal cri­te­ria, but sole­ly on an artis­tic cri­te­ri­on. In the past, the prize was also award­ed to out­stand­ing films and direc­tors of the year; it was award­ed for the first time in 1956.

This year, the prize for the best cam­era was award­ed to DFFB grad­u­ate Mariel Baque­iro, pre­sent­ed by the Ger­man Film Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion. The award went to her work on HAGAZUSSA (D/​S: Lukas Feigelfeld, C: Mariel Baquiero, P: Simon Lubin­sky, Lukas Feigelfeld). Through her impres­sive images, Mariel cre­ates a fight­en­ing atmos­phere hat cap­ti­vates. Her cam­era work enables a deep immer­sion of the pro­tag­nist. In the whirlpool of psy­che­del­ic-ecsta­t­ic image sequences, action and reac­tion fall into one and make it dif­fi­cult for us to make a moral judge­ment — a real visu­al expe­ri­ence for the audi­ence. HAGAZUSSA already gained admi­ra­tion dur­ing the First Steps Award 2018, win­ning the Michael Ball­haus Award for the Best Cin­e­matog­ra­phy, which was endowed with a €10,000 award.

We con­grat­u­late Mariel on this new award!

DFFB alum­nus Julian Radl­maier and his screen­play ‘Blut­sauger’ has won the Gold­en Lola 2019 for the best unfilmed screen­play. At the recep­tion of the Ver­band Deutsch­er Drehbuchau­toren (VDD) (Ger­man Film Crit­ics Asso­ci­a­tion) held dur­ing the 69th Berli­nale, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment Com­mis­sion­er for Cul­ture and the Media, Moni­ka Grüt­ters, award­ed the prize to Radl­maier. The prize is endowed with a €10,000 award and is one of the most impor­tant prizes for screen­writ­ers in Ger­many.

The jury praised the script — which tells the sto­ry of a fake Russ­ian baron and the daugh­ter of a real Ger­man fac­to­ry own­er who make a vam­pire film on the Baltic Sea in 1926 — as “extrav­a­gant, bizarre, and hilar­i­ous”. The script con­tains flam­boy­ant dia­logues that inter­weave with mus­ings on social class­es, cre­at­ing par­al­lels to the mag­ic and cor­rupt­ibil­i­ty of cin­e­ma. We are very excit­ed at the thought of this enter­tain­ing script being made into a film. The prizewin­ner is also enti­tled to sub­si­dies of up to €20,000 for the real­i­sa­tion of the film.

We con­grat­u­late Julian Radl­maier — who also won last year’s Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino Kom­pagnon-Fel­low­ship for the screen­play of “Blut­sauger” — on this suc­cess!

UP.GRADE has always been close to the Berli­nale and peo­ple often ask if they can watch projects grad­ed by UP.GRADERs at the fes­ti­val.

So it’s our plea­sure to share with you a list of films grad­ed by UP.GRADERs that are play­ing this year — as well as all the films grad­ed (and even edit­ed) by our ter­rif­ic UP.GRADE lec­tur­ers!

 

Films grad­ed by UP.GRADERs

“Sys­tem Crash­er”
grad­ed by Petra Lis­son (2016–2017 UP.GRADER)
run­ning in main com­pe­ti­tion

It could have been worse
grad­ed by Kai Klassen (2015–2016 UP.GRADER)

“My Grand­pa is an Alien”
grad­ed by Fran Sokolić (2015–2016 UP.GRADER)

“Thir­ty”
grad­ed by Mag­da Nizel (2016–2017 UP.GRADER)

“Kids”
grad­ed by Artem Stre­tovich (2016–2017 UP.GRADER)

“I often think of Hawaii”, 1978
re-grad­ed/­mas­tered by Ana Maria Ormaza (2018–2019 UP.GRADER)

 

Colour assis­tance by UP.GRADERs

“Stitch­es”
colour assist/​ACES work­flow super­vi­sion by Fran Sokolić (2015–2016 UP.GRADER)

“Erased”
colour assist/​ACES work­flow super­vi­sion by Fran Sokolić (2015–2016 UP.GRADER)
Euro­pean Film Mar­ket

“The Diary of Diana B.”
colour assist/​ACES work­flow super­vi­sion by Fran Sokolić (2015–2016 UP.GRADER)
Euro­pean Film Mar­ket

 

Films grad­ed by UP.GRADE staff

“Dust”
grad­ed by Dirk Meier (Head of pro­gramme)

“I was home, but”
grad­ed by Dirk Meier (Head of pro­gramme)
run­ning in main com­pe­ti­tion

“The Last to see Them”
grad­ed by Edmond Lac­con (Joint Head of Pro­gramme)

 

Films grad­ed by UP.GRADE lec­tur­ers

“The Bicy­cle”
graded/​restored by Chris­tine Hiam (lec­tures on Grad­ing)

“Mal­ou”
graded/​restored by Chris­tine Hiam (lec­tures on Grad­ing)

“Easy Love”
grad­ed by Felix Hüsken (lec­tures on Resolve, ACES, Cal­i­bra­tion)

“Search­ing Eva”
grad­ed by Felix Hüsken (lec­tures on Resolve, ACES, Cal­i­bra­tion)

“Monos”
grad­ed by Lau­rens Orij (lec­tures on Colour sci­ence and Grad­ing)

“O Beau­ti­ful Night”
grad­ed by Philipp Orgas­sa (ARRI music video chal­lenge)

“The Pit”
grad­ed by Tobias Schaarschmidt (lec­tures on Cal­i­bra­tion and ACES)

Oray
grad­ed by Fabi­ana Cardal­da (lec­ture on HDR grad­ing, case study)

Progress in the Val­ley of the Peo­ple Who Don’t Know
grad­ed by Fabi­ana Cardal­da (lec­ture on HDR grad­ing, case study)

Cleo
grad­ed by Fabi­ana Cardal­da (lec­ture on HDR grad­ing, case study)

Armed Lul­la­by
grad­ed by Fabi­ana Cardal­da (lec­ture on HDR grad­ing, case study)

 

Films edit­ed by UP.GRADE lec­tur­ers

“A Tale of Three Sis­ters”
edit­ed by Cicek Kahra­man (lec­tures on Film Gram­mar)
run­ning in main com­pe­ti­tion

 

The 69th Berlin Inter­na­tion­al Film Fes­ti­val presents nine films cre­at­ed with the par­tic­i­pa­tion of DFFB alum­ni.

 

ICH WAR ZUHAUSE, ABER (I WAS AT HOME, BUT) from grad­u­ate Angela Schan­elec screens in com­pe­ti­tion. The film tells the sto­ry of a moth­er and her 13-year-old son, who returns home with­out a say­ing word after dis­ap­pear­ing for a week.

• Tues­day, 12.2., 16:00, Berli­nale Palast (World Pre­miere)
• Wednes­day, 13.2., 9:30, Friedrich­stadt-Palast
• Wednes­day, 13.2., 12:30, Haus der Berlin­er Fest­spiele
• Wednes­day, 13.2., 18:00, Friedrich­stadt-Palast
• Thurs­day 14.2., 15:30, Odeon, Berli­nale Goes Kiez

 

Alum­nus Jonas Wey­de­mann pro­duced SYSTEMSPRENGER (SYSTEM CRASHER) by Nora Fin­gschei­dt, which is screen­ing in com­pe­ti­tion. The dra­ma focus­es on a nine-year-old girl (Hele­na Zen­gel), who is prov­ing to be too much to han­dle for all the ped­a­gog­i­cal sys­tems involved in her case.

• Fri­day, 08.02., 15:30, Berli­nale Palast (World Pre­miere)
• Sat­ur­day, 09.02., 9:30, Friedrich­stadt-Palast
• Sat­ur­day, 09.02., 12:00, Haus der Berlin­er Fest­spiele
• Sat­ur­day, 09.02., 20:30, HAU Hebbel am Ufer (HAU1), Berli­nale Tal­ents
• Thurs­day, 14.02., 17:00, JVA Plötzensee, Berli­nale Goes Kiez (no tick­ets required)
• Sun­day, 17.02., 18:30, Berli­nale Palast

 

Max Linz’s film WEITERMACHEN SANSSOUCI (MUSIC AND APOCALYPSE) (cam­era: Car­los Andrés López) cel­e­brates its world pre­miere in Forum. The Insti­tute for Cyber­net­ics and Sim­u­la­tion Research is threat­ened with closure—this is the start­ing point for this satire about the trans­for­ma­tion of the uni­ver­si­ty sys­tem into a tur­bo-cap­i­tal­ist research machine.

• Tues­day, 12.02., 18:30, Del­phi Film­palast
• Wednes­day, 13.02., 13:45, CineS­tar 8
• Fri­day, 15.02., 20:00, Cubix 9
• Sun­day, 17.02., 19:30, Colos­se­um 1

 

Uli M. Schuep­pel presents DER ATEM (THE BREATH) (cam­era: Cor­nelius Plache) screen­ing in Panora­ma. The film shows a col­lec­tion of exis­ten­tial expe­ri­ences tak­ing place at night in Berlin—fragments of por­traits, stitched togeth­er to form a com­po­si­tion.

 

• Wednes­day, 13.02., 21:30, Zoo Palast 1
• Thurs­day, 14.02., 12:30, Cin­e­maxX 7
• Fri­day, 15.02., 22:00, Colos­se­um 1
• Sat­ur­day 16.02., 20:00, Inter­na­tion­al

 

David Dietl’s doc­u­men­tary BERLIN BOUNCER (cam­era: Eric Ferranti/​Raphael Bein­der, pro­duced by Mar­tin Heisler/​Gabriele Simon)—also pre­oc­cu­pied with Berlin at night—celebrates its world pre­miere in Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino. This doc­u­men­tary tells the sto­ry of three leg­endary Berlin bouncers—Frank Kün­ster, Smi­ley Bald­win and Sven Marquardt—working in the once-divid­ed city and in today’s night­club metrop­o­lis.

• Sun­day, 10.02., 22:30, Cin­e­maxX 1,
• Mon­day, 11.02., 22:00, Colos­se­um 1
• Sat­ur­day, 16.02., 20:00, Cin­e­maxX 1

 

Ute Aurand’s film RASENDES GRÜN MIT PFERDEN (RUSHING GREEN WITH HORSES) will screen in Forum Expand­ed. RASENDES GRÜN MIT PFERDEN (RUSHING GREEN WITH HORSES) is a col­lec­tion of short obser­va­tions and encoun­ters filmed between 1998 and 2018.

• Fri­day, 8.2., 16:15, Kino Arse­nal
• Sat­ur­day, 9.2., 17:00, Werk­stat­tki­no des silent green

 

The film UMWEG (DETOUR), direct­ed in 1982 by Ute Aurand and Ulrike Pfeif­fer, screens in Ret­ro­spek­tive.

• Tues­day, 12.2., 16:30, Cin­e­maXX 8
• Wednes­day 13.2., 21:30, Zeughauski­no

 

Screen­play grad­u­ate Ari­ana Berndl wrote the script for OH BEAUTIFUL NIGHT with direc­tor Xaver Böhm, and the film screens in Panora­ma. Although Juri is young, his life is dom­i­nat­ed by the fear of dying. Noc­tur­nal pan­ic attacks are famil­iar to him.

• Tues­day, 12.02., 20:00, Inter­na­tion­al
• Wednes­day, 13.02., 12:30, Cin­e­maxX 7
• Thurs­day, 14.02., 22:00, Colos­se­um 1
• Fri­day, 15.02., 17:45, CineS­tar 3
• Sat­ur­day, 16.02., 19:30, Zoo Palast 2

 

The cin­e­matog­ra­phy for BORN IN EVIN by Maryam Zaree, screen­ing in Per­spek­tive Deutsches Kino, was exe­cut­ed by DFFB grad­u­ate Siri Klug. The chil­dren who were born in Iran’s most noto­ri­ous prison Evin and then grew up in the West wit­nessed tor­ture, mur­der, and human rights vio­la­tions. Ger­man-Iran­ian actress Maryam Zaree is one of these chil­dren. When she learns that she was born in Evin, Zaree sets out to search for oth­er chil­dren also born there in order to bet­ter under­stand her own sto­ry.

 

• Sat­ur­day, 09.02., 19:00, Cin­e­maxX 3
• Sun­day, 10.02., 12:00, Colos­se­um 1
• Sun­day 10.02., 20:00, Cin­e­maxX 1

 

We wish you a fan­tas­tic fes­ti­val and film expe­ri­ence at the Berli­nale!