18/03/2025 - The lucky projects include Fatih Akin’s newest feature, two animated flicks and a screen adaptation of the critically acclaimed novel Identitti by Mithu Sanyal

Director Fatih Akin, who is receiving €900,000 worth of support for his new feature Geister weinen nicht

The MOIN Film Fund Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein has given out €3.6 million worth of funding to 13 projects in its first funding cycle of 2025, including to two projects in development and 11 projects ready to step into production. One of the most high-profile projects is the newest feature by Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin (The Golden Glove [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fatih Akin
interview: Jonas Dassler
film profile], In the Fade [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fatih Akin
film profile]), Geister weinen nicht (lit. “Ghosts Don’t Cry”), which features a screenplay by Ruth Toma. The romance traces the impossible love between the young Aisha and Elias, which begins to transform after Aisha passes away and starts entering the dreams of Elias from the afterlife. The film is receiving €900,000.

Two projects have been given support for development: an animated feature titled Birds by writer-directors Christoph and Wolfgang Lauenstein, and the fantasy film Skaterherz (lit. “Skater’s Heart”) by Florian Cossen, with a screenplay by Sebastian Grusnick and Thomas Moeller. In Birds, which is now €60,000 better off, a domesticated bird joins a group of sparrows in order to survive the rooftops of Paris. In Skaterherz, which is now €38,000 the richer, 14-year-old Elias is confronted by the boy who served as his organ donor during a heart transplant.

The rest of the projects have been presented with support for production. Randa Chahoud’s Identitti will feature a screenplay by Friederike Jehn and is an adaptation of Mithu Sanyal’s critically acclaimed novel of the same name, which landed on the 2021 shortlist of the German Book Prize. The story tells of a blogger who learns that her role model, a professor of postcolonial theory named Saraswati, is actually white and not a person of colour, as she claims. €200,000 go to this project.

Toby Genkel’s The Amazing Maurice – The Waters of Life is an animated follow-up to the 2022 film The Amazing Maurice [+see also:
trailer
film profile], based on Terry Pratchett’s 2001 novel The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents, and stars the titular ginger cat. It has received €500,000. Lars Jenssen’s Spaziergang nach Syrakus (lit. “Stroll to Syracuse”, supported with €400,000) will be a tragicomedy about a middle-aged man who is struck by the idea of escaping East Germany and going to Syracuse, Italy.

Hannu Salonen’s Adams Acht (lit. “Adam’s Eight”) is a coming-of-age film about eight rowers and their coxswain who seek to reach the 1960 Rome Olympics. It has been granted €150,000. Another €150,000 go to Each of Us, presented as an anti-war story based on true events about four women fighting for their lives and their dignity in the Ravensbrück concentration camp. The movie will be co-directed by four European women directors: Stina Werenfels, Anna Jadowska, Anne-Zohra Berrached and Neus Ballus.

The next feature by curator and filmmaker Maike Mia Höhne, Die Akte Elisabeth Käsemann (lit. “The File of Elisabeth Käsemann”), has also been granted funding - namely, €400,000. The film will be a drama set in 1977 about a German bureaucrat tasked with the eponymous case of a German woman who disappeared in Buenos Aires.

Two comedies have been given financial support: €350,000 for Das Sams und die unglaubliche Verwandlung des überaus schüchternen Bruno Taschenbiers (lit. “The Sams and the Incredible Transformation of the Extremely Shy Bruno Taschenbier”) and €150,000 for Horst Schlämmer sucht das Glück (lit. “Horst Schlämmer Seeks Happiness”). The former is directed by Ali Samadi Ahadi and penned by Thomas Springer, featuring a well-known German children’s book character called “The Sams”. The latter will be a road movie-cum-comedy by Sven Unterwaldt that is a new instalment in the tales of the titular character played by German comic Hape Kerkeling.

Other projects include Schwarzes Gold (lit. “Black Gold”), the sole television series supported during this round and a historical drama set in the Lüneburg Heath in the 1900s (awarded €200,000). Finally, Vanessa Nöcker and Nadja Kölling's feature-length documentary Ein Sommer in Italien - WM 1990 (lit. “A Summer in Italy - World Cup 1990”) will be about Germany’s national football team under coach Franz Beckenbauer when they won the World Cup (awarded €100,000).