Series Stars... - Festival de télévision de Monte-Carlo

Focus on Germany
Bavaria Film: Innovation On Every Level
Germany is the MCTVF’s country of honour in 2010.
To mark the occasion, the MCTVF News talked to
Matthias Esche, CEO Bavaria Film Group and Achim
Rohnke, Managing Director Bavaria Film Group.
Bavaria Film Group, which comprises more than 30
subsidiaries, celebrated a double anniversary last
year – 90 years of Bavaria Studios and 50 years of
Bavaria Film in its current incarnation. “It’s a perfect
compliment to our double anniversary last year to
receive several nominations at this year´s 50th edition
of the Monte Carlo Television Festival,” Esche
says. “This is further proof of our high standards,
especially in the field of television films and series.
Till Endemann’s On Collision Course, produced by
our subsidiary Maran Film, has been nominated in
the Best Direction category, while Murderers On
Amrum, produced by Bremedia, which is also a part
of the Bavaria Film Group, will compete in the Best
Television Film category.”
Alongside that, four other programs from Bavaria
Media Television´s portfolio have been nominated
in the competition. “This shows that our distribution
affiliate is on the right track with its acquisition strategy,
Esche says. “Johan Falk, a Swedish-German coproduction
with participation from Bremedia, has been
nominated in the Outstanding International Producer
and Outstanding European Producer categories
(Joakim Hansson), while Joel Kinnaman, Jens Hultén
und Melit Karlge will compete in the Outstanding
Actor and Outstanding Actress categories.”
which centers around the world-famous Lippizana
horse breed in the village of Piber, Styria.”
In a rapidly changing media lanscape, Bavaria Film’s
Achim Rohnke is leading the charge towards total
digital integration: “The ongoing change in film
and television production, which has been rapidly
accelerated by digitization, demands innovation on
all levels, especially from Bavaria as a major European
production and service group. This means not just
the adaptation of content to the changing media
consumption but also the constant improvement of
production and pre-production processes,” Rohnke
says. “In recent years, Bavaria Film has driven forward
the digitalization of all its work processes. As early as
five years ago we established a completely tapeless
workflow for our daily telenovela Storm Of Love –
from shooting to post-production. In 2008/2009, we
implemented this kind of workflow in High Definition
for another daily series. Only recently, we have
successfully tested a live 3D production in our studios
in Geiselgasteig near Munich. Within the Bavaria
Film Group, we offer a complete digital workbench
line for high-end movie productions with the Digital
Lab, the Color Grading and the Sound Studios from
CinePostproduction. This includes the production of
stereoscopic films. Our next big step in the process
of digitalization will deal with the fields of content
delivery and archiving.”
GS
Bavaria’s main fiction series have all recently been
renewed: “We are very proud that all our fictional
series have been renewed by the commissioning
broadcasters,” Esche says. “This even goes for our
most recent efforts, the crime series Stuttgart Homicide
and the interactive teenage series BlogHouse. Besides
that, 13 new scripts are currently being prepared
for our youth series 13 Hours - Race Against Time,
which has been nominated as an especially innovative
format at the festival in Banff and at Prix Jeunesse.
Our Austrian subsidiary Satel Film has recently started
shooting the new family series Das Glück dieser Erde,
To Matthias Esche, CEO Bavaria Film Group
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