Cloud Atlas awarded the maximum amount by German incentive programme

The production by the single-purpose company Cloud Atlas Production GmbH and Berlin-based X Filme Creative Pool GmbH will begin shooting in the Berlin-Brandenburg region from the middle of this month under the direction of Tom Tykwer and Andy and Lana Wachowski. The international cast includes Tom Hanks, Halle Berry, Susan Sarandon and Hugh Grant.

The Wachowskis’ Speed Racer had previously held the record for the production receiving the highest amount from the DFFF when it was allocated €9m in 2007.

According to the DFFF’s guidelines, the normal grant ceiling is set at €4m, which was the initial amount allocated to Cloud Atlas. However, the film’s producer Stefan Arndt was able to ask the incentive scheme’s advisory council to extend the grant ceiling in the case of this project to the maximum of €10m.

News of this latest funding comes a week after the German Federal Film Board (FFA) announced that it had granted €1m in project funding to the film, the maximum amount possible under the FFA’s guidelines. This amount had only been paid out once in 2010 - to Constantin Film’s The Three Musketeers 3D which opened in German cinemas last Thursday.

In a sign of solidarity among the German regional film funds for such an ambitious project initiated and developed out of Germany, Cloud Atlas was also awarded €100,000 development funding and €1.5m production support from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, €1m from Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, €750,000 from Mitteldeutsche Medienfoerderung, and €300,000 from FFF Bayern.