The State of Brandenburg and the regional investment bank ILB have launched a € 5m gap financing programme for films produced in the Berlin-Brandenburg region.

Producers will be able to apply for loans of between €100,000 and €500,000 for projects where a particular economic success may be expected.

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Kristian Kreyes, the ILB’s section head for media and technology, said that “the loans should help to facilitate the closing of the overall financing for films.”

He pointed out that a loan granted within this new film financing programme should have a priority recoupment from a film’s revenues and also participate in the profits on “particularly successful projects.”

The new instrument will complement the bridging finance scheme which has now been operated by the State of Brandenburg and Berlin’s investment banks ILB and IBB for some years.

Last year, the banks made a record €20m available for loans and guarantees to the producers of such films as Wim Wenders’ 3D dance documentary Pina, Miranda July’s The Future, Hermine Huntgeburth’s Tom Sawyer and Marjane Satrapi’s Chicken With Plums via its bridging finance scheme.

According to local press reports, Brandenburg’s gap financing programme is set to run for three years from mid-August and may see the city of Berlin participating in financing the loans in future.

Meanwhile, the federal state of Saxony-Anhalt has operated its own film financing instrument IB ProMi  through the local Investitionsbank Sachsen-Anhalt since December 2009 to attract film and television producers to shoot in the region.

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