20/12/2007

In 2003, sisters Meike and Alexandra Kordes founded their production company Kordes & Kordes Film GmbH, which now has branch offices in Munich, Stuttgart and Duesseldorf. There is a clear division of labor between the two which reflects their particular backgrounds: "I look after the finances and contracts, taking care of the whole organizational aspect, and have a quite different pattern of work to Alexandra who, as the creative head of the company, is reading screenplays and meeting with screenwriters," Meike explains. "But there are meetings where we are both present," Alexandra continues. "In effect, we are two heads of a single body and are constantly consulting one another."

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At Kordes & Kordes Film, they jointly decide which projects to put into production. In doing so, they are keen to focus not only films for the big screen, but also on quality projects for television. Indeed, their output in their first four years gives an impression of the range of projects that Kordes & Kordes Film is interested in considering: from Katinka Feistl's Do You See Me? (Siehst du mich?), which was nominated for the 2005 First Steps Awards in the Best Fiction Film category through Carsten Fiebeler's documentary portrait of the ballet dancer Vladimir Malakov, The Search for Weightlessness, to Arielle Artsztein and Esther Slevogt's Jewish Ballroom about the Berlin Jewish community, and Chris Kraus's theatrical feature Four Minutes [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

The sisters' collaboration with Chris Kraus also continues with preparations for his next feature film, tentatively entitled Poll, which is due to go into production in summer 2008. "We are currently working on the financing and have taken on a producer, Jakob Geiger, who will be working specifically on this project and scouting locations in four countries for the film," Meike explains. "We are looking for a particular kind of architecture for the film's location where 90% of the action takes place."

Having been chosen by German Films to represent Germany in the European Film Promotion’s "Producers on the Move" platform for aspiring young European producers in Cannes this year gave a welcome boost to the project and raised their international profile yet further (Meike and Alexandra arrived in Cannes just days after Four Minutes had been awarded the Best Film prize at the German Film Awards).

BEING A PRODUCER ON THE MOVE

Thanks to the participation in "Producers on the Move", they made contact with fellow producer Riina Sildos from Estonia who has been able to give them some useful tips and contact names for the possibility of shooting Poll in the Baltic state. Moreover, the success of Four Minutes at the Italian box-office meant that they were also approached in Cannes by some Italian companies interested in co-producing Kraus's next feature.

But co-producing for the sisters is not just a one-way street as their experience in Cannes this year showed when they were offered a project from Italy by Grazia Volpi, the producer of the Taviani brothers' films. Furthermore, the company has been involved for some time now with the American producer Dean Silvers on the co-development of two feature film projects: an adaptation of Isabel Allende’s bestseller Eva Luna and the drama Life After Life.

GREATER VARIETY

Following the success of such films as The Lives Of Others [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Florian Henckel von Donners…
interview: Ulrich Muehe
film profile], the Bavarian "Heimatfilm" comedy Grave Decisions [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and their own Four Minutes, the Kordes sisters are convinced that there is an increasing variety in German cinema. "Originally, people's attention was on comedies, but the range of genres in German films has become much broader," Meike notes.

"I hope that this trend is recognized by the film policymakers and they support this development," Alexandra continues. "We have come away from the situation where the Germans don't want to see their own films and I think that is incredibly positive. What's more, I get the feeling that politicians have discovered that the film industry is an economic sector which is worth investing in."