23/03/2016 - More than €1 million in production support have been allocated to German-French co-productions

Wim Wenders and Michael Haneke are among the directors whose new German-French co-production projects have been greenlit by the FFA and the BKM in Germany, as well as the CNC in France. At their spring session, the German-French Funding Commission gave out over €1 million to foster co-productions between the two countries. The highest funding amount went to Wenders’ drama Submergence, which is based on the novel of the same name by JM Ledgard. A man and a woman are dealing with life-threatening situations in different parts of the world, but by thinking of their short, passionate love affair, they find the strength to survive. The love-struck couple will be played by Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Paco Delgado
film profile]) and James McAvoy (Wanted, X-Men). The German-French-Spanish co-production by Berlin-based Neue Road Movies Dritte Produktionen, Backup Films in Paris and Morena Films in Madrid will be supported to the tune of €300,000.

After his Oscar-winning drama Amour [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Michael Haneke
film profile], Michael Haneke is making another movie with Isabelle Huppert and Jean-Louis Trintignant as the lead actors. His new film Happy End will be a snapshot of a bourgeois European family. Principal photography for Happy End will start in Calais this spring. A co-production between Berlin-based X Filme Creative Pool, Les Films Du Losange in Paris and Wega Film in Vienna, the project is getting €250,000 in production support.

Furthermore, the German-French Funding Commission greenlit two animated films. In Die Odyssee by Florence Miailhe, an old woman looks back at her eventful life by flipping through a sketchbook. Produced by Dresden-based Balance Film, Les Films De L’Arlequin in Paris and Maur Film in Prague, the project is being backed with €210,000. An amount of €180,000 goes to the production of Manou the Swift [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Andrea Block, Christian Haas and Nicolas Deveaux. The animated movie is about a small swift who grew up among seagulls and is looking for his true identity. The producers are Luxx Film in Stuttgart and Favola Films in Noisy-le-Sec.

The fifth project that received a production grant is the documentary Carré 35 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Éric Caravaca, who is conducting research into the death of his sister, which had never been an issue in his family. The producers of this German-French movie are Nicole Gerhards’ Berlin-based NiKo Film and Les Films Du Poisson.