Restart Berlin: How Germany’s Film and TV Industry Got Back to Work
(hollywoodreporter.com)
It was almost exactly a year ago, in March 2020, at Studio Babelsberg Germany’s largest film studio, located just outside Berlin. The studio was prepped and ready to go on two major blockbusters: Warner Bros.’ Matrix 4, Lana Wachowski’s eagerly-awaited sequel to the sci-fi franchise, featuring several cast members from the original Matrix trilogy, including Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, and Jada Pinkett Smith alongside newcomers Priyanka Chopra, Neil Patrick Harris, and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II; and Uncharted from Sony Pictures, a video-game adaptation starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg, and Antonio Banderas. On the TV side, the fourth season of Babylon Berlin —a big-budget period drama set in the 1930s —was also in the starting blocks.
Then, overnight, Germany shut down. The rate of infection of what was then still being called the “novel” coronavirus began to spike. Film and television production in Berlin, went from 100 to zero.
“Everything stopped. We were stunned. Every production was put on hold, the international filmmakers who were here fled the country,” recalls Studio Babelsberg deputy chairman Christoph Fisser. “We were full, literally every square centimeter of the studio was filed and suddenly there was nobody there. And of course, no one knew how things could continue.”
A year on, Germany is still struggling with the pandemic. After initial success, the country was hit hard by a second wave of COVID-19 infections. The national lockdown, which had been loosened last summer, tightened again in November with new restrictions put in place.
Germany’s vaccine rollout has also lagged behind that of the U.S. and the U.K. As of April 29, according to official government figures, only 7.7 percent of the German population was fully vaccinated. That compares to 22 percent in the U.K. and 31 percent in the U.S., though is on par with vaccination levels in most western European countries.
But while the Berlin government has fallen behind, the city’s film and television producers have surged ahead. A year after Babelsberg shut up shop, things on the backlot are back to normal. In fact, they’re better than ever. Both Uncharted and Matrix 4 restarted and wrapped last year, with no interruptions and no additional shooting days. Babylon Berlin series four is currently shooting. Fisser is forecasting a full orders book this year, with “at least three big features and two big series for streaming services.” Although the studio never names, the news has leaked that Keanu is coming back to Berlin this summer to shoot the fourth film in the John Wick action franchise. On May 3, Netflix confirmed that 1899, the new mystery series from Dark creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, has begun shooting on the Babelsberg lot, at the studio’s new cutting edge virtual production studio.
By: Scott Roxborough
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