Hardly any city has such close links with German-French history and collaboration between the two countries like Saarbrücken. The Saarland's capital on the border with France was therefore the ideal venue for the 14th edition of the German-French Film Meeting which came to a close today.
Around 200 participants from both countries came together on 22 and 23 November 2016 to exchange information – supported by seven expert panels and two keynotes – and present their projects at a co-production market. The Prime Minister of Saarland, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, spoke to the guests at a gala dinner held at the World Cultural Heritage Site of the Völklingen Ironworks. The German-French Film Meeting is organized by German Films and UniFrance in close consultation with the German-French Film Academy.
Marie Masmonteil was very pleased to open her first German-French Film Meeting as the President of the German-French Film Academy. She reminded the participants of the “very special responsibility” of the German and French film communities in the face of an ever-changing world as “historically political and economic partners in the EU.” She hopes that projects will be developed which “prove that the cultural diversity in Europe will remain vital for a long time to come.”
The Prime Minister of Saarland, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, emphasized the binding power of the film medium and the German-French friendship, which is especially also lived and experienced as a cultural friendship. The state of Saarland, the “most French of of the German federal states”, has experienced “the negative impact for the populations, when there is a lack of cooperation between both countries, but also the positive impacts when both countries cooperate with one another.”
Prominent speakers such as Frédérique Bredin (CNC), Peter Dinges (FFA German Federal Film Board), Isabelle Giordano (UniFrance), Pierre-Emmanuel Lecerf (CNC), Julia Piaseczny (SPIO and FFA's EU Affairs Officer), Emmanuel Joly (European Commission, DG CONNECT) and Torsten Frehse (German distributor Neue Visionen Filmverleih) presented various expert panels on current German-French film issues.
They shed light on the successes and difficulties of German-French co-productions, developments in European copyright and the Digital Single Market, the operating methods for the film funding organizations DFFF and Film France, and on the success of A SENSE OF WONDER (LE GOUT DES MERVEILLES) in Germany. Alfred Hürmer (Pick up Film) and Jean-Marie Dura (Ymagis) gave keynotes on the future of theatrical distribution, cinema and film exploitation. The Atelier Network, a network of alumni of the year-long Atelier Ludwigsburg-Paris training program, organized a panel on private equity financing for European independent productions.
24 German and French producers are pitching their projects at the Meeting this afternoon, and there is an opportunity for individual talks with potential co-production, financing and distribution partners.
More information about the German-French Film Meeting on the website.
Contact:
Maike Schantz (Project Coordinator)
Birgit Koch (Press & PR)
Photo f.l.t.r.: Peter Dinges (FFA), Jean-Paul Salomé (UniFrance), Marie Masmonteil (German-French Film Academy), Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (Prime-Minister Saarland), Peter Herrmann (German Films), Meinrad Maria Grewenig (World Cultural Heritage Site of the Völklingen Ironworks), Mariette Rissenbeek (German Films), Uwe Conradt (Landesmedienanstalt Saarland)
Photo © German Films / Tim Niesen