German Film Board

By Angélica Mendoza

The German Federal Film Board (FFA) is a film funding institution created in 1968 to support the creation of films in Germany. Also, the FFA is the central service structure for the German film industry.

Its function includes promoting German cinema, improving structural support for the German film industry, enhancing the film industry‘s domestic economic impact, and improving the foundations for distribution and market-driven capitalization of German cinema in the country and abroad. The FFA also works toward aligning and coordinating film support between the Federal Government and regional states.

The German Federal Film Board is supervised by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media (BKM). The FFA’s counts with an annual budget of 76 million Euros.

This institution is funded by the Film Levy paid by the exhibitors, the video industry, the broadcasters and the program providers.

How is this tax calculated?

- For cinemas: Is calculated per number of screens and on the net turnover from annual ticket sales. The cinemas with annual sales not exceeding 75,000 Euros don't have to pay this tax and only have to report obligations. The levy is between 1.8% and 3% of the turnover.

- For video distributors: Is for those companies exploiting over 58 min of license in images. Companies are exempt from payment of the levy if their annual turnover from image carriers is less than 50,000 Euros a year. It ranges between 1.8% and 2.3%.

- For Broadcasters: To public broadcasters based on their expenditure for the airing of feature films and private broadcasters with free-to-air channels are required to pay a film levy based on their net advertising turnover. The levy for the first one is 2.5% and for the second one is between 0.15% and 0.95%. The operators of pay TV and programme providers pay a film levy of 0.25% of their net turnover from subscription contracts. Programme providers are exempt from payment of the levy when their total net turnover generated from the programming is less than 750,000 Euros.

This funding includes all classification of production, distribution, exhibition and selling of german and foreign features films. Additionally, the FFA analyses and publishes the most important market data of Germany’s film, exhibition, and video industries.

Even though the process seems to be quite complicated the FFA has a high percentage of project acceptance, out of 130 application more than one third of the films are supported by the FFA which is high compared to other countries were the cinematography industry is not well developed.

Nowadays The German Federal Film Fund (DFFF) and The German Federal Film Board (FFA) promote the co-production of german films with other countries. In fact, Germany is one of the most wanted places to shoot and post-produce a feature film for the American and European market because of the high benefit the government and the FFA have created for those who invest in the german film industry.


An Example of this is Amelie (2001) a French film which various scenes were shot in german studios and the post-production was made for a german film company. Germany and France share a supplementary funding according called the "Minitraité" created in 2001. This according is rated in 3.2 Million Euros provided in equal parts by the German and the French.





REFERENCES 

https://www.berlinale-talents.de/story/41/ffa-german-federal-film-board.html

http://www.ffa.de/market-research-and-statistics.html

https://www.medienboard.de/en/foerderung/funding-guide/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_co-production