Germany

"It is quite densely populated, but Germany has a wide variety of landscapes in quite a small area,” says Berlin-based location manager Klaus Darrelmann, who has worked on three Hunger Games features, Steven Spielberg’s Bridge Of Spies and Wes Anderson’s The Grand Budapest Hotel, for which he received the 2015 Location Managers Guild of America Award in the category for outstanding locations in a period film.

“You have the Baltic Sea coastline in the north and the Alps down in the south, and all kinds of architecture, both historical and modern, as well as plenty of forests and rivers,” continues Darrelmann, who last year served as supervising location manager on Anderson’s latest feature The Phoenician Scheme. “Berlin has become a favourite destination with international productions; cast and crew love spending time there.”

Hungarian producer Monika Mecs of Inforg-M&M Film has plenty of praise for her collaborations with Komplizen Film on Ildiko Enyedi’s The Story Of My Wife in Hamburg, and Cologne-based Pandora Film on Enyedi’s latest feature Silent Friend, which shot in the university town of Marburg in 2024.

“[Komplizen’s] Jonas Dornbach and Janine Jackowski were fantastic partners,” says Mecs. “Co-productions are based on many things, but one of the most important elements is trust and reliability. The German crew on Silent Friend was really well prepared and flexible. It was easy to work together as an international crew. And they quickly warmed to Ildiko’s working style and method, and understood her vision of the film.”

Meanwhile, Germany has become a regular shooting destination for Jay Taylor, co-founder of The Electric Shadow Company. The London-based film production and finance banner has worked with producers Joe Neurauter and Philipp Kreuzer of Supernix across several co-productions including Guns Akimbo, The Crow, Return To Silent Hill and the Cliffhanger reboot.

"Germany’s film industry is highly developed and offers crew that has been trained on Hollywood sets, which makes it great for international productions looking to shoot abroad," says Shotz Production Service's Mortimer Cerny.

“Supernix is adept at putting together the best creative approach and business plan for each project,” says Taylor. “We have had good experiences of working with national and regional funding, which can be complementary to the other sources of funding that make up our finance plan. 

“We have seen productions scale up fast thanks, in part, to the geographical location, notably being able to access local, European and international crews,” he adds.

At the same time, Taylor recommends that foreign producers coming to Germany should discuss with their local partner the distinctions of employment legislation, privacy and data regulation. “There are some differences that it is helpful to understand,” he says.

First contact: Jolinde Sawahn, DFFF project head @ sawahn@ffa.de

Germany is proving resilient thanks largely to its world-class studios, film-friendly approach and wide array of locations, including its historic capital. The Hunger Games prequel made use of monuments like the Völkerschlachtdenkmal monument in Leipzig and the Tieranatomisches Theatre.

Germany has a lot of diversity to offer, from coastline to picturesque landscapes with lots of forest and mountain. Also German cities and towns are surprisingly varied.

It's worth noting though that Germany is a federal country and the rules in every state and town are different, so sometimes permits from several authorities are needed for just one location.

German locations are also being lined up for Zentropa’s period drama King’s Land by Nikolaj Arcel, with Mads Mikkelsen in the lead.

International projects often source many of their heads of department locally when shooting in Germany. Studio Babelsberg (Potsdam), Bavaria Studios (Munich) and MMC Studios (Cologne) were joined in 2022 by Penzing Studios, a facility 30 miles west of Munich, which has hosted visiting international projects such as Nine Perfect Strangers and The Crow. 

"Main hubs like Berlin, Hamburg and Munich offer multicultural and diverse pools of talents when casting," says Mortimer Cerny, casting producer at Berlin-based Shotz. "With its position in the centre of Europe, transportation between neighbouring countries becomes very easy."

Studio Babelsberg, MMC Studios, Bavaria Studios and Penzing Studios are all less than an hour’s drive from their respective city centres. 

"Being home to some of the worlds leading filming equipment manufactures such as ARRI and Zeiss, there are many rental houses located throughout the country, that carry even the most obscure and rare equipment in stock," he adds. 

While the country’s filming hubs are no more than an hour apart by air, shoots must now meet mandatory minimum ecological standards before being able to access public funds. Studio Babelsberg, Bavaria Studios, MMC Studios and Penzing Studios are all less than an hour’s drive from their respective city centre hotels.