Bavaria Film and Senator Film strike partnership

“Bavaria Pictures has always been organised as a network which encouraged  earlier cooperations with Senator, be it as distributor or co-producer,” Bavaria Pictures’ managing director Jan S. Kaiser explained. “So, it’s merely going the next step to solidify that successful cooperation in a joint venture.”

This new alliance at Bavaria Pictures will be managed by Kaiser and Senator Entertainment’s CEO Helge Sasse.

The two partners had most recently worked together on Sandra Nettelbeck’s bittersweet love story Mr Morgan’s Last Love [pictured], starring Michael Caine, Clémence Poésy and Justin Kirk, which wrapped last December as a co-production between Bavaria Pictures, Senator’s Cologne outpost Senator Film Köln and Kaminski.Stiehm.Film.

Sasse recalled that Bavaria Pictures had impressed him at the time with “their production infrastructure, their openness and straight-forwardness as well as their enthusiasm for our joint film project. I’m very happy we can now combine our strengths and resources in a joint venture.”

In spite of the joint venture, Bavaria Pictures will still work on occasion with other distributors, as is already the case with NFP marketing and distribution* for its German-Irish co-production Death Of A Superhero (July 12, 2012) and with Warner Bros. for Peter Sehr’s Ludwig II (December 27, 2012).

This alliance comes less than a year after Senator Entertainment established two new production arms – Senator Film München and deutschfilm - in Munich in May 2011 after 17 years’ absence from the Bavarian capital.

The producer-distributor had originally been based in Munich before former CEO Hanno Huth moved the company lock, stock and barrel to Berlin in 1994.

Senator Film München became home for former Universum Film managing director Tania Reichert-Facilides serving as a producer as part of Senator’s plans to develop a presence in the field of films for children and young people.

Reichert-Facilides began developing two projects in collaboration with the leading German children’s film producer WunderWerk: an animated feature adaptation of Dietrich Grönemeyer’s bestselling book Der Kleine Medicus and a feature film based on Andreas Schlüter’s popular children’s books Level 4 – Die Stadt der Kinder about the adventures of a 13-year-old computer freak.

Meanwhile, deutschfilm, a joint venture between producer Anatol Nitschke and Senator Entertainment, set up shop in Munich to handle the production last summer of Was Weg Is, Is Weg, the directorial debut by actor-screenwriter Christian Lerch who came to international prominence with his 2005 comedy Grave Decisions.