Germany’s culture minister Wolfram Weimer has launched a novel fund for German cinemas that give prominence to German, European and artistically
Germany’s culture minister Wolfram Weimer has launched a novel fund for German cinemas that give prominence to German, European and artistically ambitious films.
Called “Liebling Kino”, the funding programme has an annual budget of €7m.
“Our goal is to preserve and strengthen the German cinema landscape,” Weimer explained in a statement. “Cinemas are places of encounter, emotion and shared experience – in big cities as well as in rural areas.”
“It is especially in times of social tension that we need the communal experience of cinema and the unifying power of film art,” he added.
The support for the exhibitors will be based on a “reference” points system taking into account the previous year’s admission figures generated by a cinema for the theatrical releases of German and European films as well as in the category of “artistic-creative films” which covers festival films, productions funded by the culture ministry (BKM) and films by newborn talents supported by the Kuratorium junger deutscher Film.
Additional points can be generated by other aspects of a cinema’s activities such as screenings organised for schools, the programming of at least 100 documentaries as well as film events offering a platform to address socially relevant issues.
Each “reference” point will each be worth €1.50 with a maximum possible award of €150,000 being paid out to a single cinema.
The novel funding programme will be administered on behalf of the BKM by the German Federal Film Fund (FFA) with exhibitors able to start making applications via the FFA’s digital service portal from the beginning of November.
It complements the awards recognising the high quality of film programming by cinemas throughout Germany by such regional film funds as Film- und Medienstiftung NRW, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg, MOIN Filmförderung and FFF Bayern.
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