But Vivendi had taken the decision to sell

Feb. 2, the blizzard which blows on the Babelsberg studios cannot settle the General excitation: nominations for the Oscars will be announced. 14: 30, It is a hullabaloo of mobile phones, it commends: "Eight for"inglourious basterds"!", a very good score. In the fierce competition between the major European studios (Pinewood in London, Barrandov in Prague, Cinecitta in Rome) to attract big filming, mainly Americans, oscar is very wanted. Not only it enforces the excellence of the work provided, but in an environment readily superstitious, it sounds also like the promise of new contracts.

Entered a difficult period after the reunification, Babelsberg, in the large suburb of Berlin, completed a very noticed back in force, in recent years, with productions such as "The International" (Tom Tykwer), "Valkyrie" (Bryan Singer, with Tom Cruise), "the reader" (Stephen Daldry, best actress for Kate Winslet oscar), and the film event of the 60eBerlinale, which ends this weekend : the new Roman Polanski, "The Ghost Writer."

The film that best illustrates the reasons for this renewal, it is no doubt "Inglourious Basterds", iconic to the point that one of the streets of Babelsberg was renamed last year, "Quentin tarantino Strasse" in tribute to the Director. Angelika Müller, who is visiting halle Marlene-Dietrich (5.400 m2, 14 m high), shows with a non-concealed satisfaction (false) blood left on the ground by the shooting: "it repainted three times the ground, red always reappears..."

The correct case of DFFF

Why a film whose action takes place mainly in France he turned 95 German, Babelsberg, Berlin and Görlitz in Saxony Lloyd Phillips, producer Executive, lists: "Berlin, city great live and accessible;" the surrounding countryside; the management of the studios, who fully understands the needs of producers and directors; "the quality of infrastructure", before release: "but we would be able to go there without the DFFF." Behind this acronym (Deutscher Filmförderfonds) hides a beneficial device for incitement, implemented January 1 2007, that renders to producers, 20 of the expenditure incurred on German soil, within the limit of EUR 4 million per project (10 million by way of derogation). Equipped with EUR 60 million per year, it was originally restricted to three years, but has been extended from 2012. Designed to promote the German film industry, the Fund has proved a good case: "our assessments show that subsidized filming cause spending on average 6 times higher than the aid", welcomes Christine Berg, who pilot the DFFF head of FFA (Filmförderungsanstalt).

The mechanism has nothing original. As Patrick Lamassoure, General delegate of Film France explains, "fifteen years develops a fierce territorial competition via regulatory or tax tools." What are Australians, but especially Canadians who launched the movement in the 1990s. In Europe, the British, who had to abandon their previous schema, victim of its success, were the first adopted a new model, that Flores. Today, you find comparable mechanisms in Ireland, Belgium, Hungary, Austria, Italy, and the list is not exhaustive.

Therefore, what the DFFF promote particular Babelsberg "What is the strength of Babelsberg, it is the convergence of three devices compatible with each other, namely the DFFF at the federal level, of the regional aid very powerful on the part of the Länder of Berlin and Brandenburg, in the form of repayable loans and massive investment in nature in productions by the operator, incentives."

In his Office, on the same site of Babelsberg, Kirsten Niehuus, Director of the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, confirms the importance of regional aid: "We are the second regional support fund film of Germany, after one of North Rhine-Westphalia, with a volume of more aid of EUR 24 million in 2009." We have supported "basterds" to the tune of 600,000 euros, "the ghost writer" in the amount of EUR 500 000.

As the operator, Studio Babelsberg AG, he was well able lead his boat. Soon, Charlie Woebcken, who bought the site, in 2004, Vivendi, with his partner Christoph Fisser, sought to develop: "we are entered in the stock market as early as 2005, and via a capital increase, in November 2005, we were able to buy TMT, Munich post-production specialist. In a context of rationalization of costs, it is important to provide to American producers the tools to start post-production immediately after the day of filming.

Charlie Woebcken also pays tribute to the work done by the teams of Vivendi in the early 2000s:

We are not left nothing, you know, producers are quite conservative, it takes several years before gaining their confidence. The work around Polanski "pianist", for example, used us. "This job is Thierry Potok, President of Vivendi Deutschland from 1999 to 2004, who has done it. "In 1992, the General of waters, which acquired Babelsberg in Lilienthal assets privatization agency, knew well that it would lose money with the film, given the constraints of the contract of sale, but she thought offset with real projects which seemed so promising," he recalls. Las, the Berlin real estate miracle never occurred. Waters, and des eaux, des des Générale des des Générale General glued by contract for at least ten years in Babelsberg, attempted to limit the damage.

Concentration of skills

Thierry Potok has done better than that: "We streamlined costs and put in place a system of public security of the Land of Brandenburg on the credits to producers." We were able to attract such films as "Around the world in 80 days". In 2004 we had reached the financial balance. "But Vivendi had taken the decision to sell.

It is the tandem Fisser Woebcken captures the last and has the chance to win, in the months that follow, the "V for Vendetta" the Wachowski brothers. A film important, because it represents a relationship of trust with producer Joel Silver, income since turn "Speedracer" of the same Wachowski, "Ninja Assassin" (James McTeigue), and who works at this moment on "Unknown White Male" (Jaume Collet-Serra), a long term contract where Babelsberg is committed as a co-producer. Over the years, all these shoots have brought skills and created a "cluster". The directors know now to find professionals in all on-site first rank.

Of course, the proximity of Berlin facilitates a lot of things. "The reputation of creativity and companies of the city largely reached the West Coast", says Ed Meza, Berlin correspondent of "Variety", which also refers to the role played by the Berlinale Co-production market, launched in 2004.

A such "success story" is the jealous, of course. In France, the "inglourious basterds" case caused a shock. "The France thought for some time already to a fiscal stimulus." We lose an average 4-5 films per year, or a lack of some 100 million euros. Think of the "Munich" of Spielberg, party in Budapest. "When it was learned, end of 2008, Tarantino, revered in settings intellos, renounced turn in France, it has been the drop which a straw", remembers Patrick Lamassoure. What speed the vote in the National Assembly, of a similar to the DFFF international tax credit, even if it is less offensive - the list of eligible expenditure is a little shorter. "The objective is primarily defensive, it is no longer losing productions that have a natural vocation to be turned in France," said Guillaume Blanchot, Director of multimedia and technical industries of the CNC. The decrees of application came out last December. With already some significant results, since eleven projects have already been approved, including Clint Eastwood, and Christopher Nolan.

The France should become even more interesting, despite its social regulations more binding, when will open the "Cinema City" by Luc Besson, an industrial project of large scale to give France the major studios that are now default to 2012, and to enable producers to find in the same location of competences currently dispersed. To the architectural heritage of the capital and nearby the reputation for excellence of local technical personnel, to the influence of French culture, the new studios of Seine-Saint-Denis represent without doubt a serious competition for Babelsberg.

British studios will retain the enormous competitive advantage of their cultural and linguistic proximity to the United States. And to the East, the Czech Republic account well back in the race: she has just adopted its own system of tax incentives. Outside the euro area, it is also any appreciation of the single currency. All of the criteria taken into account by us producers, the exchange rate is perhaps the most decisive. The producers of Sofia Coppola, while the euro had fever, had advised her to seek an any Castle in Central Europe for "Marie-Antoinette". "Versailles or nothing", had responded in substance the Director, who had however to agree to savings. "Everything changes very quickly, and it is like that, competition is beneficial," provides Lloyd Phillips. That the best person win.

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