Leading German distributor Constantin Film is continuing its collaboration with SamFilm after the box-office success of the Munich-based production house’s adaptation of the Enid Blyton classic Famous Five book series (Fünf Freunde).

The SamFilm production, which opened on 459 screens on 26 January, has taken over €4.7m after nine weeks on release.

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Mike Marzuk, director of the first film on the Famous Five, will also be at the helm of Fünf Freunde 2 (working title) which is set to shoot this summer.

In addition, Constantin Film will distribute a second SamFilm production, Ostwind (working title), by the writing team Lea Schmidbauer and Kristina Magdalena Henn who had previously penned Single By Contract (Groupies bleiben nicht zum Frühstück) for producers Andreas Ulmke-Smeaton and Ewa Karlström.

The story of a growing friendship between a 14-year-old girl and the seemingly untamable stallion Ostwind on her grandmother’s stud farm will be directed this summer by Katja von Garnier [pictured] as her first German film since 1996.

This film will also see von Garnier reunited with Karlström who had set up the production company Vela-X Filmproduktion with her when they were both studying at Munich’s Academy for Television & Film (HFF), producing von Garnier’s practise film Making Up (Abgeschminkt!) in 1992/3 and co-producing her feature debut Bandits in 1996.

Constantin Film will release both films in German cinemas in 2013.

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