20/07/2006

On July 17 at the Munich Film Festival, Benjamin Herrmann and David Groenewold announced the creation of a new distribution company and production studio. Although no names have yet been revealed (for legal reasons), we do know that the companies, based in Munich and Berlin, respectively, will aim to attract audiences of mainstream cinema, in particular big-budget German films.

Herrmann, 35, worked as a director of production at ProSieben from 1997 to 2000, before doing a six-year stint as head of production and distribution at Senator. While at the company, Herrmann (co-)produced and distributed a number of successful films, including Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Experiment, If It Doesn't Fit, Then Use a Bigger Hammer, The Miracle of Bern by Sönke Wortmann and Merry Christmas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Christian Carion
interview: Christophe Rossignon
film profile].

Groenewold, 33, created and directed the GFP (German Film Productions) audiovisual funds and worked at Promedium. He has some fine (co-)productions to his name, including The Red Cockatoo [+see also:
trailer
film profile] by Dominik Graf, FC Venus [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Atomised [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Franka Potente & Moritz Ble…
interview: Oskar Roehler
film profile] by Oskar Röhler and Hui Buh, das Schlossgespenst (lit. "Hui Buh, The Castle Ghost"), a fantasy/comedy by Sebastian Niemann, which opens today (distr. Constantin).

The new distribution outfit has already found its first projects: Nordwand (lit. "Northwall") by Philipp Stölzl; the new Florian Gallenberger film on John Rabe, a businessman at Siemens known as the Chinese "Schindler"; and Wüstenblume (lit. “Desert Flower”), an adaptation by Sherry Hormann of the autobiographical best-seller by Waris Dirie.

(Translated from French)