Archive notice: This article was originally published on October 15, 2009. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The largest amount, €500,000, went to Leander Haußmann’s Hotel Lux. According to FFF, a total of 48 projects had been submitted.
In Leander Haußmann’s black comedy Hotel Lux (Bavaria Pictures Geiselgasteig), Michael Bully Herbig will play the leading role: apolitical cabaret artist Hans Zeisig, who has to flee in 1938 because of a Hitler parody and ends up at the legendary Hotel Lux in Russia, where he is mistaken for Hitler’s chief astrologer.
In the television-film category, FFF Bayern funds three projects with a total of €890,000: a new adaptation of the classic Moby Dick (Tele München for RTL/ORF, directed by Mike Barker) starring William Hurt and Etan Hawke. The drama Vom Glück nur ein Schatten tells the life story of pianist Ursula Engler, played by Maria Furtwängler (teamWorx for ZDF, directed by Miguel Alexandre). Spur des Terrors (Filmfabrik for WDR/BR Degeto, directed by Ben Verbong) concerns the discovery of a terrorist organisation hiding behind a collapsed fund.
FFF Bayern funds five emerging-talent projects with a total of €170,000: a documentary about happiness, Larissa Trüby’s debut film Glücksformeln (devifilm); and a drama about a boy living with his grandfather in a Romanian village who is suddenly confronted with his death, Alexandra Gulea’s HFF graduation film Bergmannskind (Nominal Film).
Another graduation film is Das weiße Gold, August Pflugfelder’s documentary about winter sports (Walker + Worm Film). FFF Bayern also funds a short film about the circumcision of an African girl living in Germany (Wenn Bäume Puppen tragen) and the pilot film for an animated series about twins living between two cultures (Tac und Ayse bei den Großeltern).
In project-development funding, FFF Bayern likewise supports five projects, including a science-fiction production by Claussen+Wöbke+Putz about brain transfers, Uschi Reich’s adaptation of Cornelia Funke’s Igraine Ohnefurcht and Michael Verhoeven’s film adaptation of Magda Dens’s biography.
Two screenplays are being created with FFF screenplay funding: Daniel Speck’s Was Männer wollen, about the ability to read men’s thoughts, and Regine Bielefeldt’s Kleiner David, große Welt, about a 16-year-old outsider who turns out to be highly gifted.
Five films open in cinemas with FFF distribution funding, including 13 Semester, Das Lied von den zwei Pferden, Ayla and Der Weiße Rabe.Max Mannheimer. The awards committee also decided on the 2009 FFF cinema-programme prizes. The list of winning Bavarian cinemas will be published when the prizes are presented on December 3, 2009, that year in Neumarkt in the Upper Palatinate.
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