Chelsom, Temple, Dorrie, Wenders benefit from €9.7m payout by German regional funds

At its fourth 2012 funding session, Babelsberg-based Medienboard awarded production support to Peter Chelsom’s Hector and the Search For Happiness, which will begin shooting early next year with a cast including Simon Pegg, Christopher Plummer and Rosamund Pike; Andreas Prochaska’s Western thriller Das finstere Tal, set in the Austrian Alps of the late 19th century and with Sam Riley in the lead; Combat Girls director David Wnendt’s next feature film Memelland, to be produced by peter rommel productions; and Sylke Anders’ coming-of-age drama Schönefeld Boulevard, whch is being produced by credofilm as part of Medienboard and broadcaster RBB’s initiative Leuchtstoff supporting feature films from the Berlin and Brandenburg region.

In addition, development support was allocated to Wim Wenders’ 3D and 3D documentary series Cathedrals of Culture which will see ten European directors making films about the souls of buildings. Wenders will direct an episode on Berlin’s Philharmonic Hall (known in common parlance as “Karajan’s Circus”), Austria’s Michael Glawogger has chosen the National Library of Russia in St Petersburg, Victor Kossakovsky will devote himself to the Camp Nou Stadium in Barcelona, Michael Madsen to Halden Prison in Norway, and Norberto Lopez Amado to the Maxxi National Museum of the 21st Century Arts in Rome. Filmmakers Karim Ainouz and Jiska Rikels have yet to announce their chosen building, and the names of the final three directors are to be announced soon.

The project is a German-Danish-French TV co-production between Berlin-baed Neue Road Movies, Denmark’s Final Cut For Real and France’s Gedeon Programmes as a co-production with RBB in collaboration with Arte. Cinephil will handle the international sales.

Speaking exclusively to Screen earlier this year, Wenders explained that “It is not the architectural quality or the degree of popularity of the buildings that we are interested in, but the extent to which these buildings reflect our society. We want to identify the soul of these buildings and listen carefully to what they say about us.”

“The directors involved in Cathedrals of Culture all have a different artistic handwriting. We see the series as a creative lab and therefore expect a significant contribution to the creative development of 3D,” Wenders said.

Producer Erwin M. Schmidt added last month during the Media Week in Berlin that there will be an option to possibly give some of the episodes a life in the cinemas.

Meanwhile, Düsseldorf-based Film- und Medienstiftung paid out over €5.4m funding, with the largest sum - €950,000 - going to Westside Filmproduktion’s planned adaptation of Ralf Husmann’s bestselling debut novel Nicht mein Tag, to be directed by Peter Thorwarth and with Florian David Fitz and Moritz Bleibtreu attached as leads.

Other projects supported include the first of Julien Temple’s series of music-based documentaries, Children Of The Revolution, about Rio de Janeiro and musicians’ role in the return of freedom for the city, to be produced by UK’s Film & Music Entertainment with Germany’s 2 Pilots Filmproduktion and Brazil’s TV Zero; Doris Dörrie’s El Mariachi Femenil exploring the world of Mexican female Marachi musicians for Flying Moon Filmproduktion; Sebastian Dehnhardt’s portrait of Germany’s internationally most famous basketball player in Der perfekte Wurf - Die Dirk Nowitzki Story; and Sönke Wortmann’s adaptation of UK-born Charlotte Roche’s bestselling novel Schoßgebete with Lavinia Wilson lined up to play the female lead.