The ongoing proposals for a major overhaul of Germany’s national film funding infrastructure have been the subject of heated debate at this year’s Munich International Film Festival (MIFF).
A key plank of the reform is a revision of the German Film Law (FFG) which came into effect at the beginning of 2025. But the German film community is still waiting for the introduction of a tax incentive model to attract international film and TV production and an investment obligation in the local sector from the US streaming platforms and the VOD services of Germany’s public and private broadcasters.
Bavaria’s prime minister Markus Söder used a speech at the opening night of the festival to try to push the reforms higher up the national government’s agenda. “We’ve seen that things are not really moving forward,” he said. “We don’t want film production to be drifting away, with more films being produced in France, Spain or Hungary than here.”
Söder said changes to the tax framework for film production would mean “that more will be produced [in Germany] and we will once again become a strong film hub for the whole of Europe”.
The first Bavarian Film Summit took place on the eve of the festival and brought together 60 key players from the production, broadcasting and streaming sectors. Wolfram Weimer, who succeeded Claudia Roth as state minister for culture and media (BKM) following last autumn’s national German elections, also attended and signalled his intention to move forward with the reforms.
At a press conference after the Film Summit, he suggested the two outstanding pillars of the funding reform package “could become reality during the course of next year”.
However, Frank Carstenholz, departmental head responsible for the film industry and international affairs under Weimer, emphasised during a panel hosted by the media law practice Fieldfisher that it would be “illusory” to expect the tax incentive would come into effect on January 1, 2026. He pointed out there still needs to be final agreement and coordination between central government in Berlin and 16 regional states (Länder) on how the incentive would operate.
Weimer also announced he would be inviting the US streamers and the VoD services of German public and private broadcasters to have “intensive talks” with him in Berlin before the summer recess about the introduction of an investment obligation “to see to what extent we can move forward with the possibility of a voluntary commitment for investment”.
While the two major German producer associations, Produktionsallianz and PROG Producers of Germany, reacted positively to the public statements from Söder and Weimer, the wider German film community is not convinced their politicians understand the seriousness of the situation.
“The main problem with agreement on the tax incentive model seems to be there still isn’t any agreement between those finance ministries of the Länder that have a film industry located in their region and those Länder that don’t,” said producer Philipp Kreuzer of Maze Pictures.
His joint venture Supernix with Joe Neurauter has brought such international productions as The Crow and Return To Silent Hill to shoot at the new Penzing Studios outside of Munich and is now preparing an autumn shoot for Paul Greengrass’ peasant revolt drama The Rage at locations throughout Bavaria.
“What will be important for international productions wanting to come to shoot in Germany is that the planned incentive is an open system which allows, among other things, for the eligibility of foreign costs of cast and crew,” said Kreuzer.
Austrian appeal
The need for a competitive national production incentive has become ever more apparent as an increasing number of local productions have been enticed outside of Germany for all or part of their shoots.
For example, nine of the 30 international co-productions supported in 2024 by the 30% OFI+ production incentive in neighbouring Austria were majority Germanya productions. In total, they received around half of the total €32m allocated to OFI+. (However,the Austrian government is looking at making controversial changes to OFI+ budget for 2026 and slashing it from €22m to €15.5m.)
But as it stands, OFI+, which aso comes wiith a 5% green filming uplift, compares favourably to the 25% cash rebate offered by Germany’s own DFFF or GMPF production incentives.
The German productions benefitting from the Austrian incentive included SamFilm’s A Girl Named Willow (€ 3.5m), Wiedemann & Berg Film’s Bibi Blocksberg (€ 3m) and Constantin Film’s Mädchen Mädchen (€ 2.5m) which had its world premiere in Munich this week,
“What bothers me is that we are still stuck in the details without making any progress,” said Hendrik Schierloh, head of legal and HR at Studio Babelsberg, during the FieldFisher panel
He pointed to the insolvencies that are now being reported among production service providers due in part to shoots moving outside of Germany.
Among the companies having to declare insolvency are the Berlin-based arm of the postproduction and film restoration company Cinegrell, the camera rental company Camelot Broadcast Services and the audio postproduction company Wavefront Studios.
With the summer break now approaching, the next opportunity for the German film industry to take stock of the progress of state minister Weimer’s efforts to finalise the funding reform package by next year, will come during the Industry Days at the next edition of Filmfest Hamburg at the end of September.
MIFF continues until July 6.