Within the framework of the Franco-German Film Academy founded in June 2000 by the German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac, French and German industry professionals made the commitment to holding annual Franco-German Film Meetings (French title: Les rendez-vous franco-allemands du cinéma) aimed at strengthening cooperation between the two countries’ movie industries.
After two editions of the event held at the Institut Lumière in Lyon, this year's Film Meetings will take place in Cologne, with backing from the CNC and the FFA (France and Germany's federal film funding agencies), Unifrance, German Films, the Filmstiftung NRW, ARTE, WDR, and the City of Cologne, with the additional participation of several French and German regional funds.
The 3rd Franco-German Film Meetings will be officially opened Friday, November 18 by Véronique Cayla, Managing Director of the CNC, along with her German counterpart, Peter Dinges, Managing Director of the FFA; and Michael Schmid-Ospach, General Manager of Filmstiftung NRW, the Rhineland-Westphalia regional fund.
The event's program will be organized around round table discussions and case studies, in order to tackle a range of issues based on concrete examples. The following co-productions will be presented during the Meetings: "Les Murs porteurs" ("Cycles") by Cyril Gelblat (Delante Films and CMW Film Company), "Echange" by Christian Ditter (Neos Film and Hector Films), "Le Parfum" ("Perfume: The Story of a Murderer") by Tom Tykwer (Constantin and NEF), "La Comédie du pouvoir" by Claude Chabrol (Alicéléo and Integral Film), and "Pour aller au ciel, il faut mourir" by Djamshed Usmonov (Elzevir Films and Pandora Film).
After the presentation of these case studies, Unifrance President Margaret Menegoz and Kirsten Niehuus, Film Funding Director at the Medienboard Berlin-Brandebourg, will lead a workshop devoted to co-productions, in the presence of the following professionals: François Hurard, Cinema Department Director at the CNC; Peter Dinges, General Director of the FFA; Etienne Achille, Director of Cultural Affairs for the Ile-de-France region; Grégory Faes, Director of Rhône-Alpes Cinema; Michael Schmid-Ospach, Director the Filmstiftung NRW; and Eva Hubert, Director of the Hamburg Film Fund.
After this, the stage will be handed over to the "Commission du Film France" and to French regional bodies so as to offer participants a brief survey of funding possibilities for film shoots in France. This will be followed by presentations by the directors of a number of German funding bodies, who will explain their own national systems.
Day 1 will conclude with a pitching session to be chaired by Jérôme Paillard, Director of the Cannes Film Market, along with Claudia Droste-Deselaers, Deputy Director of the Filmstiftung NRW.
The morning of November 19 will be dedicated to television channels, kicking off with a workshop devoted to Arte and this channel's "major agreement," which each year enables 6 Franco-German co-productions to be made. Representatives from Arte France (Rémi Burah), Arte GEIE (Andreas Schreitmüller) and Arte Germany (Stefanie Wimmer) will respond to questions from participants at a discussion to be led by the producers Alfred Hürmer and Marie Masmonteil. Guest speakers from ZDF (Meinolf Zurhorst) and WDR (Michael André) will also be asked to contribute to the subject.
Following this, directors of acquisitions departments at Canal + (Nathalie Bloch-Lainé) and France 2 (Pierre Héros) will speak about their respective policy approaches, as will their colleagues from the German public and private television channels ZDF (Heike Hempel), WDR (Gebhard Henke), RTL (Christian Simons), and Degeto (Hans-Wolfgang Jurgan).
The afternoon will be devoted to the subject of promoting European films in France and Germany. After discussing several examples of films released in France and Germany (including "A Common Thread" and "Joyeux Noël"), a number of exhibitors (Jean-Jacques Schpoliansky, Joachim Kühn, Doris Bandolt), distributors (Jean-Paul Rougier, Markus Zimmer) and journalists (Jean-Luc Wachthausen, Andreas Zielke) will share their various points of view.
The closing of these Meetings will be chaired by the French Ministry of Culture's principal private secretary, Henri Paul.
And finally, at the invitation of the host region for these 3rd Film Meetings, participants will have the chance to visit an exhibition devoted to the director Erich von Stroheim.
The Franco-German association organizing the Franco-German Film Meetings is presided over by Margaret Menegoz (President of Unifrance and head of Les Films du Losange), supported by Vice-Presidents Peter Sehr (producer, P’artisan) and Kirsten Niehuus (Film Funding Director at the Medienboard Berlin-Brandebourg) along with the producer Yves Marmion in the function of Treasurer.
