Germany’s KfW Bank Group has now launched its raft of film financing instruments for development funding as well as interim and gap financing.
Speaking at a conference of the German Producers Alliance during the Berlinale, KfW’s CEO Dr. Ulrich Schroeder described the initiative as a “work in progress” and said that the Berlin-based team administering the programme would be open to suggestions for fine-tuning from producers. He stressed that KfW “operates as bank: we don’t allocate conditionally repayable subsidies like the FFA or regional funds - that is not our task.”
The new venture, which was drawn up by KfW and State Minister for Culture Bernd Neumann after consultations with the federal finance and economics ministries as well as the Producers Alliance, is designed to counteract the limited range of products for film financing in Germany by offering interim finance, development finance, start-up financing and GAP financing.
Meanwhile the State of Brandenburg and Berlin’s investment banks ILB and IBB have revealed that they made a record €20m available last year for loans and guarantees as part of their bridging finance scheme. Wim Wenders’ 3D dance documentary Pina, which has its world premiere at the Berlinale Palast on Sunday, Miranda July’s The Future, Marjane Satrapi’s Chicken With Plums and Hermine Huntgeburth’s Tom Sawyer were among the productions benefiting from this particular programme which is unique in Germany.
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