HAPPY BIRTHDAY FFA:
50 YEARS OF FILM FUNDING
On 6 March 1968, the German Federal Film Board (FFA) was established in Berlin – and five decades later, in 2018, it is celebrating it’s 50th birthday. And the anniversary also represents half a century of German film history. Supported film classics, which are exemplary for the quality and diversity of German filmmaking, include Rainer Werner Fassbinder’s THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN, Volker Schlöndorff’s THE TIN DRUM, Wolfgang Petersen’s THE BOAT, Wim Wender’s PARIS, TEXAS, Caroline Link’s NOWHERE IN AFRICA, and Tom Tykwer’s RUN LOLA RUN. Over the course of the last 50 years, the German Federal Film Board has awarded over 1.6 billion euros in funding support for production (for some 4,000 feature films and 1,000 screenplays), distribution and film theaters. In addition to its task as a funding institution, the German Federal Film Board also acts as a central service provider for the entire German film industry and as a moderator for the future challenges of the film industry.
The German Federal Film Board celebrated this milestone anniversary with a gala on 6 March 2018 in Berlin with some 500 guests from the film industry, funding, politics and culture. On the occasion of the event, Bernd Neumann, president of the German Federal Film Board, emphasized the fact that “it is also the Film Board’s task for the future to protect, strengthen and maintain the existence of a cinematic culture,” and confirmed the importance of the cinema as a premium location, even in times of new digital media. State Minister for Culture Monika Grütters congratulated the Film Board as an “internationally unique levy-based film funding, which is sustained by a sense of solidarity” and honored the funding institution as an “indispensable partner for film policy.”
