Countdown to Cannes 31 Days: UFA

31 days to Cannes gives me 31 days to profile international sales agents of my choice.  As they announce the festival entries April 15, I want to begin with UFA whose name opens vistas into film history and today has a film tipped for the festival:

Die Komenden Tage aka The Days To Come by Lars Kraume produced by Badlands Film and by the venerable UFA Studio, the lives of a middle-class Berlin family unfold from the present day into a realistic near future, a time of great uncertainty and change as siblings deal with their hopes and fears as they face their future in a destabilised world.

Besides this, they are producing one of my all times favorite novels, a property handled in the 90s by German uber agent Sigrid Narjes (Above The Line Agency).  Together we tried unsuccessfully to find interested US coproducers. The Physician, based on Noah Gordon’s international bestseller was first published in English in 1986.  in 1987 it sold more than 6,000,000 copies in Germany alone and in 2004 was voted by German TV viewers as one of the top 10 books of all times (They read in Germany!).  I won't reveal the story which no synopsis can do justice. 
 
By reviving the UFA brand as one of the world’s most successful and historic brands in cinema production, Bertelsmann, RTL Group and FremantleMedia are also sending a clear message about the importance of cinema in the digital age.


UFA Cinema is a company in the UFA group, one of the most famous and renowned German film and TV companies and the largest producer of audiovisual content in Germany. Universum Film AG, (originally Universum Film Aktiengesellschaft) better known as UFA or Ufa, was the principal film studio in Germany, home of the German film industry during the Weimar Republic and through World War II, and a major force in world cinema from 1917 to 1945. After World War II, UFA continued producing movies and television programs to the present day, making it the longest standing film company in Germany.  UFA was created during November 1917 in Berlin as a government-owned producer of World War I propaganda and public service films. It was created through the consolidation of most of Germany's commercial film companies, including Nordisk and Decla. Decla's former owner, Erich Pommer, served as producer for the 1920 film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, which was not only the best example of German Expressionism and an enormously influential film, but also a commercial success. During the same year, UFA opened the UFA-Palast am Zoo theatre in Berlin, long time flagship of the Berlinale.


Pressured by the US film industry, in late 1921 UFA was merged with Decla-Bioscop, "with government, industrial and banking support" and a near-monopoly in an industry that produced around 600 films each year and attracted a million customers every day. In the silent movie years, when films were easier to adapt for foreign markets, UFA began developing an international reputation and posed serious competition to Hollywood.  After WWII, working with The Marshall Plan helped them survive but did not help them thrive internationally as US became the dominant force in worldwide cinema.


UFA Cinema was founded early 2008 to produce and commercialize - in Germany and worldwide – between 6 and 10 German- and English-language movies a year, in genres ranging from elaborate screen adaptations of novels and bestsellers, comedies for every target audience, and engaging family entertainment, to sophisticated political films and productions by next-generation moviemakers.

Its team of managing directors consists of Wolf Bauer (producer since 1981), Thomas Peter Friedl (18 years head of distribution for Constantin), Prof. Nico Hofmann (producing, directing and writing since 1985) and Dr. Jürgen Schuster (the new kid on the block since 2006). UFA CINEMA has a presence in all of Germany’s major media centers, with offices in Berlin, Munich, Potsdam and Cologne.

All UFA Cinema productions are distributed in the German-speaking countries by Universal Pictures International Germany and the home entertainment in cooperation with UFA Cinema

A strategic distribution partnership with Focus Features International (FFI) and Universal Pictures International (UPI) makes UFA Cinema a new major player in the German and international cinema sector. Together their international business approach, global production partnerships and contacts with filmmakers around the world make them both unique.

Hof Film Festival, Germany

The 43rd HOF Film Festival is in a tiny town in Franken, Bavaria. It's the hometown of festival founder Heinz Badewitz who entered the film world in the 60s side by side with Fassbinder, Herzog, Wenders and other new wave German filmmakers. The traditional soccer game between the filmmakers and the townies in the beautiful fall setting is one of the high points of the festival. Other notable reasons for coming to this festival is that every German film industryite including bankers and other festival progammers, distributors, sales agents and the press is here schmoozing, drinking beer, eating the best sausages in the world and watching films up the youngest up-and-comingest German filmmakers in a totally relaxed atmosphere.

Opening night film was Parkour, the debut drama by Marc Rensing about a young man and his group of friends in an unnamed industrial town in Germany. Sundance's Sin Nombre produce by Mexico's Canana Films will have its German premiere here, hosted by its distributor Prokino Filmverleih who is also premiering Keep Surfing by producer Tobias N. Siebert who was nominated for an Oscar for The Story of the Weeping Camel.

Heinz felt the docs were especially good this year and a large number have been programmed. The one I have been waiting to see since this summer when I was speaking to the producer Uwe Dierks (Rhythm IsIt!) about its US potential is Porgy & Me by Susanna Boehm. The African American singers of the New York Harlem Theatre have been touring Gershwin's Porgy and Bess for decades all over the world. I would guess this is on the road to Sundance. On another African diaspora subject is the doc Gunter Wallraff: Schwarz Auf Weiss in which a black immigrant travels through Germany testing the friendlines of the locals who never know that he is Gunther Wallraff, the famous under cover journalist.

This film, like many others this year, is directed by a woman, Susanne Jaeger. More on that subject in the coming days.

German Coproductions Heavily Represented in Cannes This Year

Direct from German Film

Germany seems to already be the winner for having the most coproductions represented in the Cannes Film Festival and its sidebars.

Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux has announced this year's selection for the Official Program. The Berlin production company X-Filme Creative Pool is pleased about the invitation to the Competition for The White Ribbon (Das Weisse Band) by the Munich-born director Michael Haneke (a German-Austrian-French-Italian coproduction). The film tells the story of a school and church choir led by the local teacher in a village in Germany's Protestant North on the eve of the First World War. Strange accidents occur and increasingly assume the character of ritual punishments.

Zehnte Babelsberg Film, a division of Studio Babelsberg AG, is the German producer of the competition entry from Quentin Tarantino Inglourious Basterds (a US-German coproduction). The film combines the story of the young Shosanna, whose family are killed by the Nazis in occupied France, with that of a group of Jewish-American soldiers who are on a joint mission to eliminate the leaders of the Third Reich.

Also screening in this year's Competition is Lars von Trier's Antichrist (a Danish-German-French-Swedish-Italian coproduction). It is the story of a couple in mourning who retreat to an isolated forest cabin after the death of their son. They hope to use this time there to overcome their grief and be able to save their rocky marriage. The film's German co-producer is Zentropa International/ Cologne, with Heimatfilm/ Cologne as service producer.

The Israeli-French-German coproduction Jaffa by Keren Yedaya will be shown in the Official Program's Special Screenings . The German producer is Rohfilm/ Berlin&Leipzig. The film tells the story of Jewish Mali and the Arab worker Taufik, whose secret love affair is met by great difficulties when Mali accidentally gets pregnant.

The co-production Eyes Wide Open by Haim Tabakman (Israeli-German-French) will be presented in the Official Program's Un Certain Regard . Riva Film/ Hamburg is the German co-producer of the film which recounts a gay love story in Jerusalem doomed because of social and religious barriers

Independencia by Raya Martin (a French-German-Philippine coproduction) and The Wind Journeys (Los Viajes del Viento) by Ciro Guerra (a Colombia-German-Dutch coproduction) can also be seen in this section, both co-produced by Germany's Razor Film Produktion/ Berlin. In his film, Raya Martin tells the story of a family in the Philippines during the American occupation at the beginning of the 20th century, who retreat into the jungle to escape the fighting. The mountains offer them protection from the threatening human powers, and they once more follow the practices of their ancestors. However, the war approaches ever relentlessly and a decision has to be made..

The Wind Journeys is the story of the old musician Ignacio, who swears after his wife's death to never touch his beloved accordion ever again. Together with the young Fermin and a donkey, he sets off on a journey to the north of Colombia to return his legendary, but also cursed accordion to his teacher. Their arduous journey leads Ignacio and Fermin through the various (musical) landscapes of Colombia, and Ignacio is regularly forced to play his accordion “just one last time” ...

27 Films Production/ Berlin, is the German producer of Le pere de mes enfants by Mia Hansen-Løve (a French-German coproduction), which is also invited to Un Certain Regard. The film relates the last weeks in the life of film producer Grégoire Canvel before his suicide and the first weeks of mourning experienced by his wife and their three daughters. It is a film about commitment, loneliness, love and stoicism.

The Critics’ Week will be presenting Cologne-based Pandora Film's co-production Huacho by Alejandro Fernández Almendras (a French-Chilean-German coproduction). With a winning mixture of candour and simplicity, Huacho describes a day in the life of four members of a peasant family who live on the outskirts of Chillán (in the South of Chile).

Altiplano, the first breakout film of Helen Loveridge's new international sales agency Meridiana by Peter Brosens and Jessica Woodworth (a Belgian-German-Dutch coproduction), co-produced by ma.ja.de fiction/ Leipzig&Berlin, will also be screened in this section. A war photographer loses her soul in Iraq. An Andean bride sacrifices herself in a protest against the mining industry. Their fates come together on the Altiplano... Altiplano is a lyrical and probing film about our divided but inextricably linked world.

Another co-production in the Critics’ Week is Lost Persons Area by Caroline Strubbe (a Belgian-Dutch-Hungarian-German coproduction), ZDF/Arte and Network Movie/ Cologne are the German partners. Lost Persons Area tells a sensitive story about people – lost in their fear of rejection. Two men work together on the maintenance of power lines. They are best friends, with one secretly in love with the other’s wife. They live a dull but happy life until an accident changes everything…

Also screening in this section is the short Together by Eicke Bettinga (a German-UK coproduction), Piggott-Bettinga Filmproduktion. It is the story of a young man having to deal with his brother's early death and its repercussions on his family.

This year will also see the Critics’ Week presenting the results of the workshop for European filmmakers CINETRAIN. Filmmakers from different countries worked together on six shorts on a specific subject. Florian Krebs from Germany is one of the three directors of the short McRussia.

The Directors’ Fortnight also announced its program. The Israeli-German coproduction Ajami by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani will be shown here. German coproducer is Berlin based Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion. Ajami is the untold story of the walled-in city of Jaffa, on the outskirts of the Palestenian-Israeli conflict, where violence and hatred are daily reality.

For further information, please contact Mariette Rissenbeek, rissenbeek@german-films.de.

StudioCanal and its Affiliates Optimum Releasing and Kinowelt

Optimum Releasing, the UK distribution company has appointed Robb Smith to head up UK TV sales and the head up StudioCanal's international TV sales as well. Previously he was senior VP of MGM Television Europe responsible for the company’s licensing across Europe, Middle East and Africa. New head of theatrical distribution is John-Trafford Owen.

Kinowelt has a new head of theatrical distribution from 20th Century Fox Germany where he was head of Fox Searchlight. Kalle Friz will also be in charge of local acquisitions and coproductions.