“We have to be faster and smarter”

Culture Senator Carsten Brosda (SPD) made his way to Wilhelmsburg to the set of the high-end series "The Sources of Evil" with Fahri Yardim and Henriette Confurius to announce the good news. By the time the senator arrived at the energy bunker, filming had ended due to the rain, but Brosda was still in high spirits. "In the next double budget we will set aside one million euros per year for series funding," he said.

As early as 2019, the cultural authority started funding, also on the initiative of filmmakers, in order to promote and exploit the city's potential and not lose creative minds and ideas to other locations in the up-and-coming segment. At that time, too, the cultural authority made one million euros available per year, initially from the budget, in 2021 and 2022 from Corona funds. Now the money is firmly planned in the budget, which is usually updated.

This means planning security for the MOIN film promotion Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein. "The money of the past few years has given the industry an enormous push here in the north," explained MOIN managing director Helge Albers. It was able to make funding decisions for a total of 35 projects. This includes, for example, the Amazon Prime series "Gefesselt" about the acid barrel killer Raik Doormann (played by Oliver Masucci), who committed his horrible crimes in and around Hamburg in the 1980s and 1990s. Or the true crime documentary "Reeperbahn Spezialeinheit FD65" produced for ARD, which accompanies the police unit in their work against organized crime in the neighborhood. Both series will celebrate their world premieres at the Hamburg Film Festival, which begins on September 29th.

Or "The Sources of Evil", which was filmed in Wilhelmsburg for eight days. MOIN supported the production of the six-part thriller series about a serial killer in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania with 500,000 euros in the early 1990s. Born and raised in Hamburg, Yardim plays a commissioner who is posted to the East German provinces to support a young colleague (Henriette Confurius). For the actor, one is a "hopeful connection story between East and West in the vulnerable time" after reunification, as Yardim said at the set appointment. Every cent spent on the film in Hamburg is a profit anyway, he said in relation to the announced funding.

The series is produced by the Hamburg company Wüste Medien. "We are the successful case study for Hamburg's relatively young involvement in series funding," said Wüste producer Björn Vosgerau. The funding gave a small company like hers the opportunity to play along with the complex and cost-intensive series production. For Vosgerau, it is not just the individual amount, but also the partners that such start-up financing entails. Wüste was able to win RTL for the current project, where the series is expected to be shown on RTL from autumn 2023.

In general, as Brosda emphasizes, it's not just about the money. "I'll take care of that, Helge Albers can spend it," he said. In addition to the financial resources, it is more about developing ideas together, creating good framework conditions and also making the industry attractive.

Recently, film funding, together with the city and other stakeholders, launched the "Get on Set" initiative, a trainee program for career changers in the film industry, which is also stricken by the shortage of skilled workers. "We are not at the forefront in terms of the amount of funding in the national average, so we have to be faster and smarter," said Brosda.