According to SKF managing director Patrick Knippel, each thriller will be budgeted at around $2.6m (Euros 2m) and the idea is to shoot them back to back at locations in Europe later this year.
The three projects are: The Face, a supernatural thriller in the style of The Ring to be directed by Andreas Marschall as a co-production with Federico Demontis' Sardinia-based Janas Pictures, Christoph Zachariae's action thriller Big Game about an illegal paintball tournament in a former military base; and the anarchistic horror thriller Canima, also to be directed by Marschall.
In addition, SKF, which was at the Berlinale competition last year with the Finnish film Black Ice, is set to be the German partner on two international co-productions this year.
First up will be Bjoern Runge's adaptation of Marianne Frederiksson's novel Simon, which will be produced with Sweden's Gota Film and Denmark's Per Holst. Principal photography is scheduled to begin from the end of April with 15 days of shooting in Hamburg and Berlin. Germany's Maria Schrader and Jan Josef Liefers are attached as cast for the Second World War drama which will be distributed theatrically in Germany by Falcom.
A mid-2009 start is planned for Agnieszka Holland's Hidden about the struggle for survival by Jewish refugees over 14 months in Nazi-occupied Lvov. The Canadian-German co-production with Film Works has NFP already onboard as the German theatrical distributor.
Meanwhile, SKF will continue to focus on historical subjects with the development of a biopic on the life of Johannes Gutenberg, which is being scripted by Robert Loehr, and Carsten Fiebeler's Gladow's Gang about the true story of the gangster Werner Gladow, known as the Al Capone of Potsdamer Platz in the immediate post-war years after 1945.
No comments yet