German Talents From ‘Deutschland ’89’, ‘The Universal Theory’ & More Discuss German-Language Breakout Hits & Impact Of Streamers On Local Market

Before the European Film Market kicks off next week, Deadline sat down yesterday with four talents from Germany’s film and television industries who all reflected on the last year in the territory and what opportunities and challenges have cropped up for the sector as part of industry event Face to Face with German Films 2024: The Filmmakers, held in partnership with German Films.

We were joined by actors Jan Bülow and Banafshe Hourmazdi as well as writer-directors Moritz Müller-Preißerand Soleen Yusef, who all discussed at length the state of the market in Germany at the moment.  

Müller-Preißer expressed concern that German films which breakout into international spheres tend to cover “war-related topics,” pointing to the recent success of titles such as All Quiet on the Western Front and German language title Zone of Interest (the latter is a U.S.-UK-Polish co-production). 

“They are often times very much reduced to World War Two or World War One topics, especially Nazis,” he said. “That’s something we have to get out of a little bit hopefully.” 

“But it depends also on the production and money,” added Yusef, who directed series Deutschland ‘89. “[The films that break out] are the bigger projects in a cinematic way of producing and creating them and that’s a bigger problem, that’s a bigger issue I think because there are a lot of very diverse and very new visionary projects but sometimes they rely too much on the projects that have worked.” 

Hourmazdi, who has starred in film No Hard Feelings and coming-of-age series Loving Her, pointed to the positive effect the streamers have had on the business overall in Germany.

“I think the global impact of the streamers have been very visible in Germany and there have been shows that even Germans thought could never have been made in Germany and be successful,” she said, pointing to the Deuschland series as examples. She added that the German market “can very much benefit from what we see and what we learn from [the streamers].” 

Müller-Preißer added that the presence of the streamers has been impactful in “waking up” the German broadcasting market who have been influenced by the types of projects streamers have been greenlighting in recent years. 

For Bülow, who most recently starred in The Universal Theory and David Schalko’s Kafka, he said he was encouraged about the number of cinemagoers in the territory that were turning up for more European arthouse titles. 

He said: “I talked to a cinema owner recently and he told me that since [Covid], the European films are running better than the blockbusters and I’m really curious about that.” 

Check out the video above.