Flake is Everywhere

The film location of Bavaria offers strong locations and virtual production worlds

Bavaria as the setting for film-makers – this means »one stop shopping«! Films made here are made not only in the most varied and original settings but also in the virtual worlds of multi award winning post production companies as well as in numerous studios.

The film location of Bavaria is booming and is currently enjoying immense popularity – not only with series, television films or cinema productions. There are many production companies, distributors and studios based in Munich and the surrounding area which contribute, with precision and expertise, to the film location enjoying a great popularity – not only as a setting.
Yet the local attractions alone would be enough for the Free State to be hugely popular with film-makers. The Film Commission of the FFF Bayern is dedicated to providing these well known and less known »location gems« for filming. With its annual Location Tour, film architects, set designers and recording and production managers can find out about the lesser known and unused images of Bavaria. The tours also offers authors inspiration for new material. In many cases the location tours have already bore fruit.

»The first class film infrastructure here with all the services which producers find during filming and in post production, make Bavaria one of Europe’s leading film production locations, particularly in digital image processing and post production.«

Prof. Dr. Klaus Schaefer, Managing Director FilmFernsehFonds Bayern

Cinema box office hits from Bavaria

The FFF Film Commission annually receives countless requests for filming in Bavaria. More than one thousand permits are issued each year, alone for Munich and the surround-ing area. Countless series, shows, cinema and television films were filmed (and are still being filmed!) in the Bavarian state capital. The Mankell filming »Kennedys Hirn«, »Mein Leben im off« and »Jud Süß« are the most recent productions which are evidence of the appeal of the location.

Yet films are made not only in Munich but also throughout the surrounding region. The filming location of Bavaria distinguishes itself not only through the diversity and special features of its settings. The well established film infrastructure here also attracts film-makers. This networking is a real achievement of the Bavarian network location and its local partners.
The appeal of the location of Bavaria is also proven by Michael »Bully« Herbig’s »Wickie und die starken Männer«. For this locations in northern Spain, the Baltic Sea, Latvia, Ireland and Scotland were viewed and even New Zealand and Canada were considered. Yet the film-makers of the box office hit chose Sachenbacher bay by the Walchensee lake, in Upper Bavaria, for their setting.

Creativity and technology

»Nanga Parbat« is a similar example. It may not sound particularly Bavarian but it is! Joseph Vilsmaier’s drama of the first summit of Nanga Parbat by Reinhold and Günther Messner, who died during the descent, all took place in Bavaria – from the development to filming to post production. Yet it is not only Upper Bavaria which draws the industry. With the musical production »Rock It«, big cinema came to the lower Bavarian town of Passau. Besides this, the prison drama »PICCO« was filmed in Landshut and »Die Hummel« in Deggendorf. Bavaria has so many film location possibilities that any film-maker looking for a location here is bound to shout out »I’ve found it« at the end of the day.

Yet it is not only filming which takes place in Bavaria. More than 75 firms based here are dedicated to film post production and, with this, the area comes top in creative and technical services.
ScanlineVFX has made an excellent name for itself in recent years with its expertise in the generation of natural phenomena such as wind, fire, water, smoke and snow. The Fluid-Simulation-Software Flowline, developed together with ScanlineVFX, was awarded the technology Oscar in 2008.

The shareholders of the FFF Bayern include the Free State of Bavaria, the Bavarian Centre for New Media (BLM), public television broadcasters Bayerischer Rundfunk and ZDF and private broadcasters ProSiebenSat.1 and RTL. FFF Bayern provides an annual 27 million euros funding for cinema and television films as well as films from up and coming film-makers, scripts and film theatre. The FFF Bayern also offers, besides funding, a comprehensive advisory and information service for the film and television industry.

FilmFernsehFonds Bayern GmbH
Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Medien in Bayern
Sonnenstr. 21
80331 München
Board of Management: Prof. Dr. Klaus Schaefer, Gabriele Pfennigsdorf
filmfoerderung@fff-bayern.de
Shareholders: Freistaat Bayern, Bayerischer Rundfunk, Bayerische Landeszentrale für neue Medien (BLM), ProSiebenSat.1, ZDF, RTL
Funding Programme: Screenplay, project development, production cinema, production TV film, young film makers, film theatre, games

Film Commission Bavaria
Anja Metzger
location@fff-bayern.de

MEDIA Antenne München GmbH
Ingeborg Degener (managing director)
Herzog-Wilhelm-Str. 16
80331 München
info@mediaantennemuenchen.de

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