13/01/2011

In Munich, Klaus Schaefer, the head of Bavarian regional film fund FilmFernseheFonds Bayern, presented the institution’s annual accounts. With a €28.1m budget, it financed a total of 446 projects. When added to the €2.7m from the Bavarian Bank Funds [Bayerische Bankenfonds], the figure is a negligible €30.8m for the year 2010.

The bulk of the institution’s total budget was spent on funding for filmmaking, with €17.1m, almost €4m more than the previous year. We ought to emphasise the significant increase in production funding for new directors, which reached €1.66m, enabling 22 projects by new talents to come to fruition. The total amount for production of subsidised big-screen and TV films reached €330m, while the investment in the region from film productions stood at 443%.

However, there was a dramatic drop in box office revenue from the subsidised films, with a decrease of 13 million admissions compared to the previous year and figures not even reaching 10 million viewers for 2010. Takings for the films were around €61m. According to the institution, this sharp drop is part of an overall fall in audience attendance in theatres and a reduction in consumption of domestic films in general.

New subsidies, introduced in 2009 for the digitisation of theatres and production of videogames were bolstered, reaching €1.5m and €610,000 in funding, respectively. This brings to an end the pilot phase for computer game funding, with FFF-Bayern’s decision to continue in 2011 to support the conception, development and production of games with a strong cultural and pedagogical value.

(Translated from Spanish)