28/12/2015 - The Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein has greenlit €2.5 million for promising new film projects

Director Fatih Akin (centre) with actors Anand Batbileg and Tristan Göbel on the set of Tschick (© StudioCanal)

German-Turkish directors such as Fatih Akin and Hüseyin Tabak are among the filmmakers whose projects have been greenlit by the Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein (FFHSH). The Hamburg-based film fund gave the go-ahead for an amount of €2.58 million to be split among 14 projects. In Gipsy Queen, Hamburg-based director Tabak (Your Beauty Is Worth Nothing [+see also:
trailer
interview: Huseyin Tabak
film profile]) tells the story of a Roma single mother who tries to survive with her two children. Although her father trained her as a boxer in Bucharest, only when she comes to Hamburg does she truly understand what it means to fight. Produced by Dor Film West, the project has been granted €550,000.

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Another cash injection of €200,000 has been received by Berlin-based Lago Film, which is co-producing Akin’s new drama, Tschick, based on the best-selling novel of the same name by Wolfgang Herrndorf. In the movie, a teenager from a rich family joins a young outlaw on a road trip. The script has been penned by Akin and German film professor/director Hark Bohm. Studiocanal will release the picture.

Another road movie being backed is Magical Mystery by Arne Feldhusen (Tatortreiniger), in which a raver takes his old buddy on a techno trip across Germany after he has spent several years in an assisted-living community owing to his mental breakdown. Razor Filmproduktion in Berlin is getting €300,000 for this adventure. Fostering and friendship are also key issues in the story of Simpel, where a young man with an intellectual disability is supposed to end up in a clinic when his mother dies. Instead, his brother moves into a shared apartment with him and some medical students. With Frederick Lau (Victoria [+see also:
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interview: Sebastian Schipper
film profile]), David Kross (Krabat [+see also:
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film profile], The Reader [+see also:
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film profile]) and Emilia Schüle (Boy 7) comprising the main cast, this charming tragicomedy is being staged by Letterbox Filmproduktion, which is getting €500,000 from the FFHSH.

Finally, in the animated action-adventure Yakari – Große Stürme mit kleiner Donner, a wild pony is in serious trouble but is saved by a brave little Amerindian. Based on a successful children's series, Hamburg-based production company WunderWerk is receiving €450,000 to create the cartoon.