Titel.KINO 1/04.RV - german films

Christina Weiss and Jean-Jacques Aillagon (photo courtesy of Unifrance)
Scene from ”Olga’s Summer“
School ”La fémis“. Here, small groups of young Europeans are
trained to become the ”co-producers of the future“, as the
German Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the
Media Christina Weiss has already enthusiastically predicted. The
graduates are to see themselves as creative actors fully aware of
the barely compatible film production and financing systems of
Germany and France, but nonetheless capable of exploiting these
for projects that cross over the border.
A second pillar, as yet only a hopeful beginning, is the ”mini-traité“
– a co-production fund endowed with €3 million that was establish-
ed by the two countries in May 2001 and is administrated by the
two organizations CNC (France) and FFA (Germany). The rather
small sum total has been used up until now to subsidize around a
dozen generally smaller films, slightly enlivening – at least statistically
– the once so lame co-production market of both countries.
Most funded films were predominantly French up until now, for
example Benoît Jacquot’s Tosca and Werner Schroeter’s Deux,
but this is a lack of balance that those responsible aim to redress.
And the fact that the minority of German films supported, for
example Nina Grosse’s tender story Olga’s Summer (Olgas
Sommer), sometimes have difficulties finding their way into
kino 1 focus on german-french film relations
2004 10