The 54th Inter­na­tion­al Hofer Film Fes­ti­val has come to an end, and once again there were many offer­ings from the DFFB. “Home of Films” is the mot­to of the fes­ti­val, and it describes the suc­cess of our stu­dents and alum­ni well.

Two of our stu­dent films cel­e­brat­ed their world pre­miere at this fes­ti­val:

BABY BITCHKA (D: Anna Maria Roznows­ka, S: Anna Maria Roznows­ka & Tama­ra Erbe, C: Malte Siepen, P: Tama­ra Erbe) tells the sto­ry of Sascha (crazy, sexy, alco­holic, 23) who falls in love with Alexan­der (crazy, sexy, alco­holic, 60). It is the sto­ry of two peo­ple who fall in love with their alter egos.

DUC NGUYEN (D: Clara Zoe My-Linh von Arn­im, S: Sebas­t­ian Lad­wig, C: Raban Jakob Friedrich, P: Lucas Thiem & Jan­na Fodor) tells the sto­ry of three Ger­man-Viet­namese teenagers on a noc­tur­nal search for a motor­bike-rid­ing phan­tom who is cre­at­ing hav­oc on Berlin’s motor­ways…

LEIB (D/​S: Mar­i­jana Ver­hoef, C: Ley­la Hoppe, P: Ele­na Zur­buch & Elis­a­beth Köller) cel­e­brat­ed its Ger­man pre­miere in Hof. The film tells the sto­ry of a mys­te­ri­ous crea­ture who, as a farm­hand, appears in the life of an old wid­ow­er to help her on her farm. How­ev­er, when the crea­ture begins to devel­op human feel­ings, their lives take a dif­fer­ent turn.

DFFB alum­na and pro­duc­er Lena Vur­ma was award­ed the VGF’s high­est-endowed Ger­man prize for young pro­duc­ers, the VGF Young Pro­duc­er Award, worth 60,000 euros, for the pro­duc­tion of the fea­ture film ADVENTURES OF A MATHEMATICIAN.

DFFB alum­nus Mar­cus Lenz scored anoth­er suc­cess with his film RIVALE, which received the Förder­preis Neues Deutsches Kino for Best Film.

And last but not least, direc­tor Emi­ly Atef, also an alum­na of the DFFB, was award­ed the Hans-Vogt Film Prize from the city of Rehau, endowed with 5000 Euros. This prize is award­ed to film­mak­ers whose works are dis­tin­guished by their qual­i­ty and sig­nif­i­cance and that use film music in a unique way.

We are thrilled and warm­ly con­grat­u­late each of them!

This year the Wim Wen­ders Schol­ar­ship was award­ed for the 7th time by the Film- und Medi­en­s­tiftung NRW and the Düs­sel­dorf Wim Wen­ders Foun­da­tion. The renowned schol­ar­ship assists young film­mak­ers who endeav­our to tell their sto­ries in new ways and to devel­op their projects inde­pen­dent­ly. To this end, the schol­ar­ship hold­ers pro­vide a total of 100,000 euros. In select­ing the projects to be fund­ed, spe­cial atten­tion was paid to orig­i­nal­i­ty and to a strong visu­al con­cept.
Six projects were select­ed for fund­ing from a total of 33 appli­ca­tions. Among the suc­cess­ful appli­cants is a project by two alum­ni of the DFFB: Eliza Petko­va and Con­stanze Schmitt received a schol­ar­ship of 10,000 euros for their film STILLE BEOBACHTER. What is spe­cial about this project is that it tells the sto­ry of ani­mals observ­ing peo­ple, and not the oth­er way around, which gives us an insight into how ani­mals view us humans.
The awardees will stay in con­tact with each oth­er and, above all, with the jury and Wim Wen­ders through reg­u­lar col­lo­quia to com­mu­ni­cate their project’s progress and to sup­port one anoth­er in this devel­op­ment phase.
Wim Wen­ders con­cludes by explain­ing the film indus­try and the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion: “I’m delight­ed that we are using the schol­ar­ship to give these film­mak­ers the time and sup­port they need to devel­op their projects. Espe­cial­ly giv­en these dif­fi­cult times for cin­e­ma, a medi­um so close­ly linked to social inter­ac­tion. More than ever, cin­e­ma needs new forms and cer­tain­ly oth­er forms of pre­sen­ta­tion to strength­en the medium’s col­lec­tive expe­ri­ence.”
Our warmest con­grat­u­la­tions go to Eliza and Constanze—we are very excit­ed about this oppor­tu­ni­ty to devel­op your project!

It is with a heavy heart that the DFFB says good­bye to its alum­nus and for­mer lec­tur­er David Sla­ma. The film­mak­er died on Octo­ber 15 at the age of 74.

After study­ing with Michael Ball­haus and Peter Stein at the DFFB in Berlin, David Sla­ma worked as a cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er on more than 80 fea­ture and tele­vi­sion films, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Luc Bondy, Rein­hard Hauff, Harun Faroc­ki, and Mar­tin Scors­ese, among oth­ers. He is right­ly con­sid­ered one of the most impor­tant cin­e­matog­ra­phers in Ger­man-lan­guage film.

Par­al­lel to his artis­tic work, David Sla­ma taught at the DFFB, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Ham­burg, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences Dort­mund, and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Applied Sci­ences Han­nover. In 2010, he was appoint­ed cin­e­matog­ra­phy pro­fes­sor at IFS Cologne. He was a mem­ber of the Ger­man Film Acad­e­my.

His enthu­si­asm for film­mak­ing and his great com­mit­ment to young film­mak­ers will be sore­ly missed.

In the com­ing aca­d­e­m­ic year, we will accept the new stu­dents who are cur­rent­ly under­go­ing the selec­tion process. This is part of the 2019 appli­ca­tion process, which had to be inter­rupt­ed due to the Coro­na Pan­dem­ic.

As a medi­um-term effect of the pan­dem­ic, there will be no appli­ca­tion pro­ce­dure at the DFFB in 2020.

Those who intend to study at the DFFB will find the appli­ca­tion mate­r­i­al for the fall 2022 pro­gramme on our web­site from Sep­tem­ber 2021.

To give you an idea of the DFFB in advance, we invite you to a dig­i­tal info day this autumn: date and pro­gramme will be announced short­ly.

Thank you very much for your under­stand­ing!

The Aca­d­e­m­ic Coun­cil — rep­re­sent­ed by stu­dents, lec­tur­ers and staff — of the DFFB would like to express its sol­i­dar­i­ty with the mem­bers of the Uni­ver­si­ty of The­ater and Film Arts in Budapest (SZFE).

The task of the cin­e­ma is a ver­sa­tile and pre­cise analy­sis of the world. This analy­sis is only pos­si­ble by seek­ing the truth, ask­ing ques­tions and rais­ing doubts. The basic con­di­tion for exper­i­men­ta­tion, which we call film­mak­ing, is a space where trust and free­dom pre­vail.

We can­not remain silent when such a for­ma­tive film land­scape as the Hun­gar­i­an one is robbed of its future. With­out the auton­o­my of edu­ca­tion, art can­not become autonomous either. We sup­port the inde­pen­dence of all artists* from any dom­i­nant gov­ern­ment and the right of every uni­ver­si­ty to insti­tu­tion­al auton­o­my.

Well, this is cause for cel­e­bra­tion!

On June 15 and 16, the meet­ing of the Jury for Fea­ture Film Fund­ing of the BKM took place. Fol­low­ing the rec­om­men­da­tions of the inde­pen­dent jury, Min­is­ter of State Moni­ka Grüt­ters is sup­port­ing numer­ous fea­ture film projects with a total of 4.74 mil­lion euros.

We con­grat­u­late no less than 12 mem­bers of the DFFB on the sup­port pro­vid­ed by the BKM — very well done!

Our alum­ni Chris Kraus (15 JAHRE), Ana-Feli­cia Scutenicu and Jonas Wey­de­mann (TRANSIT TIMES) are hap­py about a pro­duc­tion grant. The project AUS DEM LEBEN DER ECHSEN by our senior lec­tur­er for direct­ing, Christoph Hochhäusler, is also sup­port­ed by the BKM.

Among the recip­i­ents of the script spon­sor­ship are our alum­ni Sara Sum­ma (EIN SICHERER ORT), Emma Rosa Simon and Robert Bohrer (LA BEAUTÉ HUMAINE), Clau­dia Schae­fer and Sun-Ju Choi (STAATSSCHUTZ), Jonas Roth­laen­der (STURZWELLEN), Susanne Hein­rich (UNMÖGLICHE MUTTER) and Thomas Arslan (VERBRANNTE ERDE).

Con­grat­u­la­tions! This good news gives us hope, brings a new wind of change and above all we can expect a lot of great fea­ture films in the upcom­ing time!

The chal­lenges for the film indus­try in 2020 are unprece­dent­ed. While every­one is still adapt­ing to the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion, we find our­selves in the mid­dle of the next dis­rup­tion by the Covid-19 cri­sis caus­ing a breath-tak­ing accel­er­a­tion of the on-going changes. NEXT WAVE address­es these changes by focus­ing on emerg­ing devel­op­ments in the film indus­try and beyond as well as cre­at­ing our own busi­ness mod­els. The 9‑month inten­sive pro­fes­sion­al train­ing pro­gramme run and designed by the DFFB and co-fund­ed by Cre­ative Europe MEDIA and Medi­en­board Berlin Bran­den­burg research­es cur­rent mar­kets, facil­i­tates inter­dis­ci­pli­nary dia­logue between pro­fes­sion­als and empow­ers its par­tic­i­pants to rethink the future of cinephil­ia and inter­na­tion­al film mar­kets.

The Dead­line for appli­ca­tions is June 30th 2020! 

For the next edi­tion we are cur­rent­ly look­ing for young pro­fes­sion­als from the fields of film mar­ket­ing, sales, dis­tri­b­u­tion, exhi­bi­tion and cura­tion. Our main require­ments are rel­e­vant work­ing expe­ri­ence of three to five years, a cre­ative, col­lab­o­ra­tive and entre­pre­neur­ial mind­set and a will­ing­ness to gain in-depth knowl­edge of the indus­try, to build a pro­fes­sion­al net­work and to devel­op own strate­gies for future film mar­kets. An excel­lent stan­dard of spo­ken and writ­ten Eng­lish is essen­tial as all class­es are taught in Eng­lish. NEXT WAVE will take on up to 15 Euro­pean par­tic­i­pants (in excep­tion­al cas­es up to three appli­cants from non-Euro­pean coun­tries will be accept­ed).

Detailed infor­ma­tion about the pro­gramme and the appli­ca­tion process can be found on our web­site. If you have any ques­tions, feel free to con­tact us via nextwave@​dffb.​de.

San­dra Braun will take over as inter­im direc­tor of the Ger­man Film and Tele­vi­sion Acad­e­my Berlin with imme­di­ate effect, suc­ceed­ing Ben Gib­son.

The DFFB’s Board of Trustees con­firmed the appoint­ment of San­dra Braun as the new inter­im direc­tor of the DFFB at its meet­ing in April 2020. Braun will ful­fill this role in addi­tion to her role as the Academy’s admin­is­tra­tive direc­tor. An impor­tant goal in the com­ing year will be to ini­ti­ate a struc­tur­al reor­ga­ni­za­tion of the Acad­e­my in order to main­tain and advance the out­stand­ing qual­i­ty of its train­ing for the future.

San­dra Braun stud­ied law and holds a Mas­ter of Busi­ness Admin­is­tra­tion. After hold­ing posi­tions at BBC World­wide, Sen­a­tor Enter­tain­ment, and Rund­funk Berlin-Bran­den­burg, the 47-year-old joined the DFFB at the begin­ning of the year as Head of Admin­is­tra­tion. Speak­ing about her new role, San­dra Braun says: “The DFFB is one of Germany’s lead­ing film schools and enjoys an excel­lent rep­u­ta­tion in the edu­ca­tion and train­ing of young film­mak­ers. In the com­ing months, a spe­cial focus will be on respon­si­bly shap­ing the DFFB’s teach­ing oper­a­tions dur­ing the Coro­na pan­dem­ic and prepar­ing the struc­tur­al and orga­ni­za­tion­al con­di­tions for the long-term announce­ment of a new man­age­ment team. I thank the Board of Trustees for their trust and look for­ward to shap­ing this process togeth­er with DFFB’s com­pe­tent staff, excel­lent lec­tur­ers, and ded­i­cat­ed stu­dents.”

The mem­bers of the Board of Trustees, chaired by the head of the Sen­ate Chan­cellery Chris­t­ian Gae­bler, are look­ing for­ward to the col­lab­o­ra­tion: “San­dra Braun enjoys an excel­lent rep­u­ta­tion in the indus­try and with­in a very short time she has suc­ceed­ed in set­ting the course for dig­i­tal teach­ing dur­ing the cur­rent emer­gency as well as estab­lish­ing a cul­ture of con­struc­tive coop­er­a­tion at the DFFB. Her expe­ri­ence in film and tele­vi­sion, her exper­tise with change process­es and her inter­na­tion­al net­work are an asset to the DFFB. I am con­vinced that Ms. Braun will inno­v­a­tive­ly dri­ve the Academy’s  devel­op­ment, man­age the upcom­ing changes at the DFFB with a high lev­el of com­pe­tence, and pre­pare the replace­ment of the direc­torate from April 2021 with the utmost care,” con­cludes Chair­man of the Board of Trustees Chris­t­ian Gae­bler.

We look for­ward to work­ing with San­dra Braun as our Inter­im Direc­tor and are con­fi­dent that she will suc­cess­ful­ly nav­i­gate DFFB through the chal­lenges ahead, includ­ing those relat­ed to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

Europe’s pre­mier post­grad­u­ate train­ing pro­gramme for TV writ­ers and pro­duc­ers, is cur­rent­ly accept­ing appli­ca­tions for the new admis­sions cycle. Ser­i­al Eyes pre­pares the next gen­er­a­tion of Euro­pean TV writ­ers to cre­ate high-end seri­al­ized sto­ry­telling and work in a writ­ers’ room set­ting. Teach­ing staff include top Euro­pean and Amer­i­can showrun­ners, writ­ers, exec­u­tive pro­duc­ers and com­mis­sion­ing edi­tors from major Euro­pean broad­cast­ers, includ­ing CANAL+, HBO Europe, RTL and SKY.

Ser­i­al Eyes is DFFB’s full-time, res­i­den­tial train­ing pro­gramme based in Berlin, run­ning from Sep­tem­ber 2020 through May 2021.

The Dead­line for appli­ca­tions is April 30th 2020! 

For full appli­ca­tion require­ments, appli­ca­tion mate­r­i­al and infor­ma­tion on the schol­ar­ship please vis­it https://​ser​i​al​-eyes​.com/​a​d​m​i​s​s​i​o​ns/.

We’re look­ing for­ward to a great, tal­ent­ed squad for this year’s pro­gramme!