FFF Annual Report 2009: More viewers, more money, more…

This afternoon FFF-managing director Prof. Dr. Klaus Schaefer presented the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern Annual Report for 2009, a particularly successful year: 23 million cinemagoers saw films funded by FFF, the total amount of funding was, despite the economic crisis, higher than the previous year, and with new types of funding and support, FFF Bayern continued to strengthen Bavaria as a media location.

In total, FFF Bayern supported 353 projects with a total funding amount of 27.6 million Euros. An additional 1.3 million Euros came from the Bavarian Bank Fund, bringing the total amount to 28.9 million Euros of support. The production volume of all funded projects (feature films and TV movies) amounted to 295 million Euros, a regional effect of some 416 percent!
FFF-funded films reached 23 million viewers – 5 million more than in 2008, an increase of 28 percent. The most successful “viewer millionaire” was Michael Bully Herbig’s “Wickie und die starken Männer” with 4.9 million admissions. FFF-supported films generated a total turnover of 144 million Euros at the box office in 2009. Successful TV movies included “Romy” (ARD), “Vulkan” (RTL) and “The Sea Wolf” (ZDF).
FFF Bayern was able to maintain the levels of support in the funding areas of feature film production, television films, up-and-coming filmmakers, screenplay, project development, distribution and sales, film theater support and additional prints. Compared to the previous year, funds available for film theater investment have, with the instalment of a new funding area, more than doubled, from 465,000 Euros to 937,000 Euros: since 2008, FFF also supports film theaters in their changeover to digital projection. Bavaria was the first federal state in 2009 to financially support the digitalization of cinemas.
Also new in 2009 was the Games Funding, called to life by the Bavarian State Government to support the development of high-quality and violence-free computer-, video- and mobile-games. In the first funding meeting held in November, the funding committee granted support to five projects with a total of 240,000 Euros.

FFF-funded films were among the prize-winners at almost all of the year’s awards events: Caroline Link’s “A Year Ago in Winter” won a Bavarian Film Prize, Maren Ade’s “Everyone Else” was a big winner at the Berlinale, Bernd Eichinger and Uli Edel’s “The Baader Meinhof Complex” was nominated for an Oscar, Florian Gallenberger’s “John Rabe” took home a German Film Award, Roland Suso Richter’s “Mogadischu” won a Bavarian Television Award, Lancelot von Naso’s “Ceasefire” won the Promotion Award German Film at the Hof International Film Festival, and many more.
To make sure that 2010 would also be a successful year for the film location Bavaria, there was lots of shooting going on at different locations: some 600 shooting permits were issued in Munich alone. On more than 2500 shooting days, feature films, television films and series were realized. Just in the first 12 weeks of 2010, 15 FFF-funded films will be released in German cinemas.
The Cluster Audio-Visual Media, a department of FFF Bayern, also contributed to this continued success with more than 30 events and numerous projects to strengthen the position of Bavaria as a media location. The intensive cooperation with developers led to Bavaria’s participation at the German Computer Game Awards 2009 and the newly developed games funding program in Bavaria. Other industry fields were also part of the Cluster’s work: publishing houses presented literary works for film adaptation, games developers cooperated in workgroups with companies from the aerospace industry, and AUDI, BMW, LOEWE and IRT, together with two Fraunhofer Institutes, created a research consortium which is also supported from the Cluster’s project funds.
FFF-managing director Prof. Dr. Klaus Schaefer: “Once again, FFF Bayern has proven itself to be a strong and reliable partner for the Bavarian film and television industries. And with that, we have also expanded our spectrum of support. We are very pleased that the projects we have supported have found success at international festivals all over the world, won over views hearts, and proved to be economic successes. The upcoming television broadcasts and film releases in 2010 promise to provide a continuation of this success story.”