Producer's Portrait:
Zero Film - Company With An Unmistakeable Identity
Founded in 1990 by Martin Hagemann and Thomas Kufus, zero film initially concentrated on documentaries until 1993, although it was also involved in line producing Jan Schütte's Goodbye America (Auf Wiedersehen Amerika, 1994). In 1994, the company moved premises and expanded its infrastructure, investing in its own post-production equipment, the development of its own projects and in the fostering of international contacts. zero film's productions have received premieres at festivals in Cannes, Berlin and Venice and have become regulars on the international festival circuit with such films as Stefan Schwietert's Swiss-German co-production A Tickle In The Heart, Aleksandr Sokurov's Mother and Son (Mutter und Sohn) and Barbara Albert's Austrian-German co-production Northern Skirts (Nordrand). The company has become one of the few to successfully produce and market feature-length documentaries for the theatrical and TV market and was a pioneer in the production of docu-soaps for the German TV audience. A subsidiary, zero südwest, was set up in Baden-Baden with production manager Hartwig König to handle productions being shot in this region. In 2001, zero film's production of Andres Veiel's documentary Black Box Germany (Black Box BRD) received the European Documentary Award 2001 - Prix Arte at the 2001 European Film Awards.
zero film GmbH · Lehrter Str. 57 · D-10557 Berlin, phone +49-30-3 90 66 30 · fax +49-30-3 94 58 34
office@zerofilm.de
www.zerofilm.de
Great ideas are often hatched during film shoots and so it was during the filming of Leningrad, November in the autumn of 1989 when the idea for zero film was born.
In the breaks between shooting at Lenfilm Studios, zero film's later owners Martin Hagemann and Thomas Kufus dreamt of a new generation of low-budget films: independent cinema, documentary and feature films with their own language - but professionally produced by a company financing and selling its films on the international market.
"Neither of us attended a film school, we both came in through the back door", recalls Hagemann, "When we started in the industry, the schools were very director-oriented. At the beginning of the eighties, there was no way of studying production, you just did it on the job".
After getting to know each other on Leningrad, November, Hagemann and Kufus discovered the archives of the documentary film studios in St. Petersburg - which resulted in Kufus' documentary Blockade and formed the basis for zero film when it was set up in 1990.
"From the outset, international co-productions were a focus, with a particular emphasis on Russia", Hagemann explains, pointing out that "there isn't a strict division of labor between Thomas and myself. It is true that Thomas concentrates on the documentaries although he also handles the projects by Aleksandr Sokurov. And I mainly work on the fiction projects, but have also handled documentary titles too".
Apart from producing their own projects, zero film also built up a respectable reputation as a line producer on international productions, beginning in New York with Jan Schütte's Goodbye America (Auf Wiedersehen Amerika) and followed over the years by the Berlin shoots of Good Machine's Flirt by Hal Hartley and several visiting Russian productions through to Peter Bogdanovich's The Cat's Meow at the end of 2000.
"I had real fun on the Bogdanovich project", Hagemann says, "it was different for a change to not have to worry about the financing as the money was on the table and then it was all go. At the same time, it was a real challenge to have to recreate the Hollywood of the 1920s and to work with a European team with only six weeks of preparation".
However, that is not the focus of zero film's business, he stresses. "With the line producing, we basically worked with companies whom we could then call upon when we are wanting to shoot in the US or England in the future. Our goal, though, as a company is to produce German-language and international independent features". Hagemann and Kufus' experience so far is that those films which are "absolutely unmistakable" or "particularly extreme" like the ones they have produced with Aleksandr Sokurov - Verborgene Seiten (1994), Mother and Son (Mutter und Sohn, 1997) and Moloch (1999) - have sold very well and definitely have an international appeal. "Whatever the plot or genre is, there is an audience for these films; it may not be large, but it is there. They sell to 20 countries and you even get to see money flowing back from certain territories".
According to Hagemann, it is more difficult with German projects to get them into the international market, although they were successful with the co-productions of Didi Danquart's Jew Boy Levi (Viehjud Levi) and Barbara Albert's Northern Skirts (Nordrand) - both the result of "twinning initiatives" between Baden-Württemberg, Switzerland and Austria - and now have a project with Connie Walther, Schattenwelt, whose screenplay was written by Ulrich Herrmann and has been developed with former RAF terrorist Peter-Jürgen Boock. In addition, zero film is currently working with Max Färberböck and five writers on a feature film project with the working title of September, which will recount the consequences of the 11th of September in Germany in an episodic structure.
"We have worked a lot with directors who write as well", he notes, "the films we make are clearly Autorenfilme, stubbornly individual, but they are also very professionally produced and marketed". To speak of a zero film "family" of directors might be too much of an exaggeration, although there are clearly close links to such filmmakers as Aleksandr Sokurov, Barbara Albert, Didi Danquart and Stefan Schwietert. "Our goal is definitely to work with people on more than just one film", Hagemann agrees, "at the same time, we are open for new people and continue to produce debut films".
Furthermore, working for television has opened up all kinds of synergistic potential for zero film's cinema activities. "The good thing about the TV activities is that we often make the feature documentaries with the same people we have used on the television projects; that means that the teams and the editors and so on can work on a regular basis and then come together to tackle a larger, more difficult project. That complementarity is perhaps easier in the field of documentary than in fiction so that the experiences you make with the docu-soaps can be used for the dramaturgy of feature-length documentaries. And you can try things out".
Last year, the Baden-Baden-based subsidiary zero südwest spent ten weeks shooting the docu-soap Schwarzwaldhaus1902.de which sent a modern Berlin family on a journey back in time to live in a farmhouse in the Black Forest in 1902. Commissioned by SWR, the four-parter, which was modeled on the UK's The Victorian House series, will be seen in ARD's prime-time schedule in autumn 2002. In addition, zero is developing another series with ARTE - Ein Jahr danach - which would revisit political events a year later to see what has happened in the intervening period.
But as Martin Hagemann points out, raising the financing for their projects hasn't become any easier with time or due to their heightened profile thanks to a number of national and international prizes.
"One crux is the fact that funding is regionally organized here in Germany and through committees, so basically you start afresh with each new project. Now that doesn't reflect what you have done in the last twelve years", he declares.
"Another problem is that the German film funding system doesn't acknowledge the significance of international sales and festival participation. Apart from Road Movies, we are the only German production company to be represented at three "A" festivals in quick succession with films, but then I see what my co-producers receive for reference support for new projects just for the participation at a festival - Erich Lackner of Lotus Film, for example, received 350,000 Euro for Northern Skirts being shown at Venice in competition - so I think incentives should be created which kick in automatically and are not decided upon by committees. At the moment, the "reference" funding is just supporting films which are already commercially successful".
As it happens, Hagemann's wish may be granted in the not too distant future since State Minister for Culture Julian Nida-Rümelin in fact proposed in his recent film policy document that the "reference" funding should be extended to honor festival invitations and sales performance of films.