Culture

“Babylon Berlin”: Tom Tykwer turns TV series with Rekordbudget

TV series “Made in Germany” are on the best way to the quality brand to be international. Now comes a million project: Tom Tykwer filmed in the Directors team, a crime Thriller-best-seller.

The three Directors of the new television series: Hendrik Handloegten, Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries (from li. after re.)

The funding model of the new Mehrteilers “Babylon Berlin” is right for the international League of the TV market set up. It has two tiers with a total of 16 episodes filmed and no Pilot. “Think big” is the recipe for success of the US-American or British TV-producers, for financially powerful TV station like HBO or BBC worldwide successful series produce. In Germany are so complex produzierteTV-series is rather unusual.

With almost 40 million euros is the Budget for “Babylon Berlin“ is set. For a TV-series in the top Segment of the production costs and thus also the most expensive German series. But the idea, script and characters are just top-notch, realize, Jan Mojto, head of the Vermarktungsfirma Beta Film, at the press conference in the Berlin cinema “Babylon”: “The first reactions to the project are due to the creative force, because of the involved names, and because of the high demand, very positive.”

Creative from the “Writers Room”

The screenplay for two seasons of 8 episodes is from the creative minds of Tom Tykwer (“perfume”), Achim von Borries (“Everyone dies for himself alone”) and Hendrik Handloegten in the Team. “We’re sitting in a room, mentally chained together and consider the individual scenes,” explains von Borries, the unusual way of working. All three bring with them, as Directors and as writers a lot of experience in relation to historical materials. “But we are not all three at the same time in front of the actors on the Set,” jokes film Director Tom Tykwer (“perfume”), for the first Time for the television turns.

Be filmed for the new TV series the Bestseller by author Volker Kutscher. Exciting detective stories, in the Berlin of the late 1920s are settled – before the Nazis came to Power. Principal is the original Gereon Rath, a young Kriminalkommissar from Cologne, according to his punitive transfer in the pulsating city of Berlin needs to find their way.

In his initial investigation, he ends up in a criminal jungle of corruption, drugs and arms trafficking. Decadence, luxury and poverty, everything bounces in “Baybylon Berlin” hard on each other. By the way falls in love with Rath in the young, quick-witted Polizeikollegin Charlotte knights – everything is very complicated for the investigators from the province.

The political unrest of the Weimar Republic, the first fights between Communists and Nazis, the impending demise of democracy is to give the detectives an authentic Zeitkolorit. Coachman has every building, every Berliner Platz and the mysteries of the time meticulously researched. “A time of permanent crisis, in the middle of a rapidly growing city with newcomers from everywhere, in Berlin as an international melting pot – it was a cornucopia for us authors”, says Achim von Borries.

A Drehbuchstoff, as a German export is currently extremely well-received abroad, adds Carsten Schmidt, managing Director of the Pay-TV broadcaster Sky Deutschland, the new series koproduzieren: “An outstanding project: courage tells, a great Cast and a Team full of creativity.”

New German Serienstars

Director Tom Tykwer can hardly expect that the shooting in April start, he says. For him and the Team are the strong protagonists of crime novels, a gift. One, what cost a lot of money is: 300 Sprechrollen are for the series to occupy. More so, it pleases him, the two lead actors at a press conference in Berlin on Wednesday (03.02.2016) present: Volker Bruch plays the wayward Kriminalkommissar Gereon Rath. Liv Lisa Fries, with numerous Nachwuchspreisen award, the Charlotte knights with Berlin’s quick-wittedness and kesser lip profile.

Both actors are proud of with such an ambitious Fernsehprojekt. “From the very beginning, the chemistry between the two of us voted,” says Volker Bruch about his film partner. Time for other film projects are you in this year probably both will no longer have, because for “Babylon Berlin” are more than 200 days of shooting scheduled. Currently, on the grounds of the Babelsberg film studios quite new historical Außenkulissen of Berlin streets – built back alleys, small streets, shops, Clubs, everything in the style of the 1920s. More than 500 tons of steel are used, also for Babelsberg is an investment in the future.

Volker Bruch (li.) and Tom Schilling on the Set of the award-winning TV series “Our mothers, our fathers”

Focus on the global TV market

Is rotated – despite the international orientation of the project – in the German language. A conscious decision for quality and for actor-personalities. “Not that the world is waiting”, he throws Beta Film CEO Mojto. “But that’s the big challenge: Exciting and entertaining as the American series, something we can too.”

Producer Stefan Arndt sees the TV series “Babylon Berlin” as the “dawning of a new Era of TV production” in Germany: as a co-production between Free-TV and private channels, marketed worldwide, and with DVDs included. Of course, if one wanted to to the success of US series such as “Homeland” and “House of Cards” to build, especially with younger viewers of cult status.

With the movie “run Lola run” Director Tom Tykwer also abroad, has become known

Together with the Directors Tom Tykwer, Dany Lewy and Wolfgang Becker has Arndt 1994 the creative collective X filme Creative Pool founded and now many, even abroad successful German films produced “run Lola run”, “Good Bye Lenin”. And he knows how important it is, so a “creative partnership” to keep in check.

This is why the production decided, for the time being only the first mystery novel by Kutscher “The wet fish” for the two seasons for the script to process. Coachman now has five Gereon-Rath-novels – all bestsellers. The sixth is coming soon on the market. “We think a long time ago 3. and 4. Season next, throws Achim von Borries with a laughing sidelong look at Filmgeschäftsführer Arndt.

New business models for TV-productions

Will be aired a total of 16 episodes of “Babylon Berlin” 2017 first at the commercial broadcaster Sky, as a co-producer with the boat. Only then come the spectators in 2018, also on public Free TV in the ARD, in the pleasure. At 2.5 million euros estimated production costs for each episode of “Babylon Berlin” it would be for the licence-fee-financed German television stations alone will not have been able to make. “Since we are clearly in the top League of the production costs,” admits producer and Beta Film CEO Mojto.

The claim of the Erzählhaltung in view of: “Babylon” plays in Berlin before the seizure of power in 1933

Tom Tykwer is the Director of more the content of the new series in the head. In a DW Interview, he comes to the authentic, historical Dimension of the new TV series to speak of. “The important thing is, the Story is not with the historical consciousness of today to tell. We now know how the everything in the Nazi period ran out.”

The series “Babylon Berlin” tells the story of why everything from the perspective of the young Kriminalkommissars from Cologne, the metropolis of Berlin only gradually recognized. First Assaults of the SA-thugs and the emerging presence of the “Braunhemden”, the national socialists, let the ancestors, what is there politically in the Weimar Republic brewing.

Successfully: New German series

Berlin as a venue for historical TV series is currently very popular. Also another German Director, Sönke Wortmann, is shooting a mini-series for the ARD around the traditional Berlin “Charité”-the hospital. An elaborate Kostümproduktion, in the year 1888 plays. And producer Nico Hofmann has other historical materials in the work, among other things, the “Kudamm 56”. Sounds like a series title in the series.