Thierry Potok has big plans for Germany's Hürth studios

Former Studio Babelsberg chief Thierry Potok [pictured] has returned to film studio management in Germany with plans to transform the Hürth studios near to Cologne into an ambitious and aggressive new player in the international studio landscape.

As of the beginning of this year, Potok and partner Klaus Mundorf, the owner of a local real estate management group, set up a new company, MP Medienparks NRW GmbH (or MPN for short), to operate the complex’s 13 sound stages.

Speaking exclusively to Screen, Potok revealed that improved management of the office space at the studios and the first batch of TV production contracts signed meant that MPN would “be sure to generate a small profit in 2012 and probably in 2013.”

The aim of the studios’ new management team of Potok and Hans-Jörg Hegerl is “now to generate more TV and, above all, more movie business for 2012 and 2013.”

Therefore, at the moment, the top priority for Potok is to talk to producers and convince them to come and shoot in Cologne.

“The main argument of MPN is, of course, that the studio can offer the best film financing conditions available anywhere in Europe, thanks to the various subsidy and soft loan systems offered by the German federal state and the state of North-Rhine Westphalia (NRW),” he explained.

He also pointed out that several films are currently under consideration, and some advanced talks are already underway on a few projects. For instance, MPN is one of the major contenders for the studio part of the production of Lars von Trier’s next feature Nymphomaniac, which is to be co-produced locally by Zentropa International Köln and received €1.2m in production support from the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW in April.

In addition, MPN is set to host Verdiana, a project based upon the operas of Verdi, to be directed by Emir Kusturica, and will serve - via a wholly-owned production subsidiary - as the German co-producer on Ataturk, the long-gestating and controversial project about the life of the Turkish leader Kemal Ataturk, to be produced by veteran producer Tarquin Olivier, son of the late Sir Laurence Olivier.

During the development of this project, Olivier and his Turkish wife Zelfa had made a documentary about Ataturk in 1998.

Simultaneously, although the information is not yet confirmed, it appears that MPN is one of the few candidates in the running for the purchase later this year of what remains of the extensive MMC TV studio complex in the Cologne suburb of Ossendorf. The production centre’s owners, the Cologne Bonn Savings Bank (Sparkasse Köln Bonn), are contractually obliged to sell their interest by the end of 2012.

Recent productions shooting at MMC have included the comedy When Pigs Have Wings, Istvan Szabo’s The Door, David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method and Heinrich Breloer’s Buddenbrooks.

Potok served as the head of Studio Babelsberg from 1999 to 2004, and later administered the VIP Medienfonds in Munich from 2008-2009 before returning to producing through the company Polaris Film Production & Finance he founded in 2005 with the fellow Frenchman Christophe Mazodier and Belgium’s Hubert Toint. Polaris has co-produced Julie Delpy’s two features 2 Days in Paris and 2 Days in New York as well as Frederic Soicher’s Hitler in Hollywood.