The looming threat of Hollywood actors and directors going on strike from mid-2008 has prompted Germany's Babelsberg Studios to concentrate more on enticing European and German feature film projects to shoot on its sound stages next year.

Speaking on Berlin's InfoRadio on Thursday afternoon, Studio Babelsberg's President and CEO Carl Woebcken explained that many big international projects were having to shoot now so that they can have any chance of being finished by June 30, while others were planning to pause and then continue after the strike. 'We have been tracking some international projects which could come [to Babelsberg] although we don't yet have any concrete big project for next spring,' Woebcken observed. 'It is hard at the moment to say how things will be next year, but we are preparing ourselves for there to be somewhat less than 2007 - which was definitely a record year - and want to try to concentrate more on European and German feature films.'

This year will have seen the studio handling 12 national or international feature film productions as a co-producer and/or provider of production services, ranging from the Wachowski brothers' Speed Racer and Bryan Singer's Valkyrie through Stefan Ruzowitzky's Lily The Witch, Stephen Daldry's The Reader and Tom Tykwer's The International to Vanessa Jopp's Meine Schoene Bescherung.

Tuesday (Nov 13) saw the beginning of the studio shoot on four sound stages for the eleventh production at the production complex this year: Jaco van Dormael's Mr Nobody where Studio Babelsberg is only serving as the production services provider. The $51m (Euros 35m) French-German-Belgian co-production has also been shooting at locations throughout Berlin and will wrap principal photography on Dec 18.

Finally, next month will see the studio hosting the 12th project which it is also co-producing: Sebastian Niemann's modern romantic screwball comedy Mord Ist Mein Geschaeft, Liebling (also known as Killing Is My Business) which is being produced by the Constantin Film subsidiary Rat Pack Filmproduktion with Warner Bros Filmproductions, Erftal Film, Beta Film, and B.A. Produktion.

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