16/04/2007

A total sum of €6.7m in production support has been awarded by the Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg to 21 film projects, including two international co-productions.

Nobody, by multi award-winning director Jaco van Dormael (1991’s Totò the Hero), has received €500,000. The joint French/German/Belgian production, which sets out to explore the mysteries of life and love, will star Sarah Polley and Jared Leto.

Meanwhile, NFP teleart has been granted €900,000 for a film on the life of Nobel Peace Prize winner Albert Schweitzer.

Other titles backed by the MBB include Rat Pack Filmproduktion title Die Welle by Dennis Gansel (Napola), which has been awarded €500,000.

The drama centres on a teacher (Jürgen Vogel) who conducts a dictatorship experiment on his pupils that goes awry.

A sum of €600,000 has been granted to the Constantin Film Produktion drama Anonyma, a story of women struggling for survival at the end of WWII during the Red Army’s occupation of Berlin. 2007 Berlinale Silver Bear winning actress Nina Hoss will feature in the film directed by Max Färberböck (Aimée & Jaguar).

Projects also to receive backing include Hexe Lilli (€450,000) by Stefan Ruzowitzky, who presented The Counterfeiters [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] in competition at Berlin this year.

The director’s new film, an adaptation of the best-selling children’s series of the same name (lit. “Lilli the Witch”), will shoot in Potsdam, Berlin and the Babelsberg Studios.

(Translated from French)