Gabriela Bacher joins Kreuzpaintner’s Summerstorm as CEO and co-shareholder

Gabriela Bacher has joined Berlin-based production company Summerstorm Entertainment as CEO and co-shareholder to complement the team of director Marco Kreuzpaintner and CEO/producer Fabian Wolfart.

Bacher makes this move hot on the heels on the box-office success of actor-director Matthias Schweighöfer’s romantic comedy What A Man which she produced for Fox International Productions (FIP) and took over € 2.8m in its first four days at the German box office.

Up to August 28, the 349-print release was the second most successful opening for a German film (after Til Schweiger’s Kokowääh) this year and the best ever for a German film released by Fox’s German outpost.

Kreuzpaintner and Bacher had worked together on two of his previous films, Trade and Krabat, when she served as a consultant to Twentieth Century Fox on their German-language acquisitions and handled development and production for local projects.

In January 2009, Bacher  joined FIP as a Production Executive and was responsible for Schweighoefer’s debut as director and producer on What A Man as well as developing Christoph Waltz’s directorial debut Auf und davon, and Ingo Rasper’s Vatertage which is now in production for release by StudioCanal next summer.

In April of this year, Bacher entered into a new arrangement with FIP when the studio’s production arm concluded a production deal with her company Primary Pictures

Summerstorm was co-founded by Kreuzpaintner and Wolfart in 2009 and co-produced Philipp Stölzl’s Goethe! which was released by Senator Film in German cinemas in autumn 2010.

Last year saw the company welcoming Frankfurt-based Film House Germany onboard as a strategic shareholder and financing partner. Production is currently being prepared for the company’s first inhouse project, the Kreuzpaintner-directed, London-based romantic comedy Coming In.

Commenting on Bacher’s arrival at Summerstorm, Christian Angermayer, founder & chairman of Film House Germany AG, described her as “the perfect fit to the existing strong team” and suggested that she would “help speed up the development of Summerstorm both in creative and economic terms.”

“At Summerstorm, we are able to develop English and German language projects and look at producing and co-producing pictures that entertain and strike a cord with local and international audiences,” Bacher added.

Film House Germany also has stakes in Egoli Tossell Film and the family and youth entertainment production unit Hamster as part of its strategy to become one of Europe’s leading film producers and financiers.