German film industry pushes for local content quotas on streamers to be made compulsory

The German film industry has come together to press for the government to make a local content quota on streaming platforms operating in the country legally binding rather than voluntary, as is being proposed by Wolfram Weimer, state minister for culture and media, in a change to original plans. 

An open letter by some 30 film organisations published today said: “Voluntary declarations of intent will not be enough to create a stable and fair framework for long-term planning. It is only with a legally enshrined retention of rights and clearly defined and verifiable guidelines triggering investments and benefitting creative professionals that Germany can be made sustainable and future-proof as a production hub.” 

Separately, Germany’s leading producers’ association Produktionsallianz suggested the government’s plans to make any quota based on voluntary declarations of intent by the streaming platforms represented a renege of its April 2025 commitment to an investment obligation as part of “a timely reform” of the German film funding system.

The Produktionsallianz said: “These non-transparent agreements are on shaky ground and are not reliable. They do not provide the necessary planning security for investments in German-language productions, nor do they guarantee added value for German production companies, as a carefully drafted law would do.”

The plan for Germany to introduce an investment obligation had been one of the components of a far-reaching package of reforms to the national film funding infrastructure, which had already been prepared by Claudia Roth, Weimer’s predecessor as culture minister.

Starting at the beginning of this year, an amended German Film Law (FFG) came into effect, and the German Federal Film Board (FFA) had integrated the BKM’s cultural film funding programme under its auspices as the body now responsible for film funding on a federal level.

While the plans for a tax incentive model were subsequently abandoned due in large part to the bureaucratic hurdles that could be faced by coordinating such a scheme between the central government in Berlin and the 16 federal states, Weimer continued to pursue the goal of an investment obligation, although now in a form that has drawn widespread condemnation from the industry.

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