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Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth during her speech at the Producers' Day in Berlin
Photo: Mike Schmidt / IMAGO
The cheers were immediately loud, then the audience even stood up for an ovation.
When Claudia Roth presented her plans for the reform of film funding at the Producers' Alliance industry conference on Thursday morning, she met with broad approval.
A presumably unusual experience, since Roth's first year as the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (BKM) was not exactly marked by political successes and creative impulses.
She was particularly annoyed by the film industry when she promised a reform of film funding at the opening of the 2022 Berlinale, but then postponed it by a year.
Roth and her house have now worked hard to earn the stormy applause of the producers.
If the industry first said that Roth had no ear for the concerns of the film industry, the BKM and its employees have held many, in Roth's words, "countless" talks over the past few months about the overdue reform of the Film Funding Act (FFG).
For decades, German funding structures have been considered too slow, too complicated and inefficient - with a total funding volume for the film industry of 600 million euros, this is an intolerable situation.
The talks have now resulted in a plan that takes up many points of criticism and integrates them into an overall concept: The film industry is becoming more comprehensive than previously thought, namely from the development of the material through ecologically and socially sustainable shooting to the exploitation in the cinemas and on the streaming platforms.
»The cinema industry is finally being viewed holistically«, said Leila Hamid from XFilme distribution after the presentation of the project.
An alliance of producers' alliance, film academy, AG DOK and producers' association praised the plans as the “foundation for the future viability and stability of film funding”.
The reform plan
The reform comprises seven cornerstones, which will result in a draft law by the end of the year and will come into force at the beginning of 2025:
Material development is to be strengthened so that the potential of projects can be better worked out.
At the same time, it should become easier and less risky to stop projects that are not developing very promisingly.
It was previously more difficult to get money for the development of the material, but now the production funding is to become more demanding.
Documentary, short and newcomer films as well as artistic film should be given their own funding channel beyond market demands, so that artistic standards in German cinema can be maintained and developed.
Automatic funding mechanisms should be strengthened, if possible in a combination of location and reference funding.
Roth also does not rule out the Austrian model, which provides for automated funding without a cap.
She is also pushing for an investment obligation for streaming providers who have not yet paid into the German funding structures.
All film-political tasks that arise at the federal level are to be bundled in a new institution called the Film Agency.
These include the Film Funding Agency (FFA), which is primarily geared towards the market economy, and cultural film funding, which is assigned to the BKM.
In the film agency, both funding would be combined under one roof.
The funding instruments of the federal and state governments are to be more closely interlinked.
There should be a minimum funding quota for federal funding so that productions do not have to switch from state funding to state funding.
Based on this, the remaining funds can then be requested from the state sponsors.
The aim is to significantly reduce the number of grants involved in a project and thus also to limit the bureaucratic effort.
The involvement of the public service broadcasters in the film funding should remain in place.
The visibility of the range of German films is to be increased, as attention and viewer numbers have so far been concentrated on a few productions.
To this end, the local distributor and cinema landscape is to be strengthened in that the cinemas are to have priority in the exploitation, but it can then be negotiated more precisely how and where else a film can be shown.
Diversity, gender equality and sustainability should be decreed both as goals and as the basis for the funding structures.
As an eighth point, Roth mentioned in her speech and in a guest article for the "Süddeutsche Zeitung" the introduction of the culture pass, through which 18-year-olds receive a one-off culture budget of 200 euros.
While the measure is promising – experience in France has shown that young adults spend money primarily on books and cinema tickets – it will not become part of the bill.
The mention of the Kulturpass is therefore best understood as a small self-praise from Roth, which, after months of criticism, her house has to show in terms of successful projects.
The construction sites
With all the praise that is now also appropriate for the reform plan, it cannot be overlooked that two major construction sites have hardly been dealt with: the role of the state sponsors and the involvement of ARD and ZDF.
Since the states are responsible for regional funding, as a federal politician, Roth officially has little authority to ensure far-reaching reforms.
But there also seems to be a lack of political will to involve the states in a joint initiative and to fundamentally curb the bureaucratic proliferation of eleven regional sponsors.
The detachment of public service broadcasters from film funding is also being delayed.
ARD and ZDF have increasingly withdrawn from cinema film funding in recent years.
Reminding them of their obligations now seems sensible at first, after all they are bound by their cultural mission.
But in view of the ongoing discussions about the core tasks of public service broadcasting, it is only a matter of time before the commitment to the cinema film will be up for discussion again.
It would be better for politicians to take action right away and ensure that the contributions from ARD and ZDF are compensated.
The biggest challenge for Roth, however, is likely to be enforcing the investment obligation for the streamers.
Such obligations also exist in other countries, with Switzerland implementing them most recently.
But from the producers' side, it can be heard that individual platforms are already relocating productions to countries without obligations.
The negotiations with Netflix and Co. are likely to be tough.
With her reform plan, Roth has also submitted a litmus test for herself: At the end of the year, when the draft law is available, it will be seen how politically assertive she is as a BKM.
Let's see what the mood is like at the next Berlinale.
