Medienboard fund supports international productions

Polanski’s thriller The Ghost has been handed $664,000 (Euro 500,000), the largest allocations. The film, starring Pierce Brosnan, Ewan McGregor and Kim Cattrall, is shooting in the region until the middle of May.

Agnieszka Holland’s Hidden, about the struggle for survival by Jewish refugees over 14 months in Nazi-occupied Lvov, was awarded $ 398,500 (Euros 300,000). The German-Canadian-Polish co-production by Schmidtz Katze Filmkollektiv had previously received over $1m (Euros 800,000) from the German Federal Film Board (FFA) and Leipzig-based MDM.

The fund also awarded $332,000 (Euro 250,000) to UK director Christopher Smith’s Black Death, 27 Films’ tragicomedy Francuski by Goran Rebic, inspired by true events on the Soviet island of Sakhalin in the 1960s; and Bosnian filmmaker Danis Tanovic’s romantic saga Cirkus Columbia, which will be co-produced by Razor Film Produktion.

The Medienboard also awarded production funding for Ulrich Köhler’s next feature, Die Schlafkrankheit (The Sleeping Sickness), which will be produced by Komplizen Film, and to Hansjörg Thurn’s historical drama Die Wanderhure adapted from Iny Lorentz’s novel.

It has also allocated support for the theatrical campaigns for such films as Warner Bros’ Hilde and Phantomschmerz, Piffl Medien’s Dorfpunks and Senator Film Verleih’s Sometime In August.