, Germany's number one TV soap, which the company produces on the Babelsberg lot., for Disney+, the period drama, a limited series about the true story of a man who forged, and successfully sold, a fake diary of Adolf Hitler, starring Lars Eidinger which UFA is producing for German streamer RTLNow.
The result? The particular needs of the entertainment industry were taken into account as Germany's shaped its pandemic response. Film and television companiesto keep out-of-work crews on the payroll, freelancers got assistance with rent and childcare payments.
"The €1.5 million cap would have been a fraction of the budget of our film, of what we would have lost if we'd had to stop production," says Jonas Dornbach of Berlin-based producers Komplizen Film, speaking of, Pablo Larrain's Lady Di biopic starring Kristen Stewart, which the company recently finished shooting. The project was well-received and pre-sold to much of the world at last year's virtual Cannes market, with Neon taking U.S.
When Lisa Blumenberg of Letterbox Filmproduktion needed special approval for actor Dan Stevens to travel from Los Angeles to Berlin for the shoot of Maria Schrader's sci-fi rom-com"This was last July when L.A. was a hot spot. Nobody was allowed to fly out. But there were some grey areas," says Blumenberg.programmed to be the perfect partner for a romantically-skeptical German scientist, played by Maren Eggert—on location in Berlin with a few exteriors in Denmark.
Michael Polle, head of television production at Berlin-based X-Filme, had three series on the go when COVID hit. He was able to test-drive new safety protocols on smaller productions before scaling up to bigger projects, including the German-Norwegian crime dramaNew safety measures cost money. And time. Hofmann at UFA estimates COVID regulations add"10, 15, even 20 percent" to the budget of a drama series.
Hofmann partly credits this"German stability" for the current boom in visiting productions to the German capital.
Berlin is a real film production hotspot in Europe - great to see that the industry has found a way to deal with the situation.
Good Times in Berlin!
The covid 19 situation must be really tough for the entertainment industry