DFFF pays out more than $9m for Hansel and Gretel in 3D

The German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) has paid the third-highest sum in its five-year history with the awarding of $9.57m (€6.75m) to Tommy Wirkola’s 3D action movie Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters which has been shooting at the Babelsberg Studios since mid-March.

The production by Paramount Pictures and Gary Sanchez Productions, with Studio Babelsberg’s single-purpose company Siebzehnte Babelsberg Film acting as executive production company, is shooting entirely in Germany at locations in Berlin, Brandenburg and Saxony as well as on the soundstages and backlots of Studio Babelsberg.

The largest amounts paid out by the DFFF since its founding at the beginning of 2007 were $12.7m (€ 9m) for the Wachowskis’ Speed Racer and over $10.6m (€ 7.5m) for Paul W.S. Anderson’s German-French-UK co-production The Three Musketeers. Both productions based part or all of their shoots at Studio Babelsberg.

The first three months of 2011 saw the Berlin-based incentive providing more than $13m (€ 9.2m) for 10 projects shooting in Germany. They included seven international co-productions, ranging from Ari Folman’s The Congress, starring Robin Wright Penn and Harvey Keitel, and Sylvie Verheyde’s The Confessions of a Child of the Century, with Charlotte Gainsbourg and Pete Doherty, to Timo Vuorensola’s black sci-fi comedy Iron Sky and Stephan Schesch’s animation feature Der Mondmann.