International Press Coverage NSU GERMAN HISTORY X

“(…)the fiction is believable; though it may not always be true, it is truthful. It could have been like this, and it is both distressing and fascinating.”

“(…) a film as important as it is great – poetic, sometimes quiet and sometimes loud, tragic, cruel, vile, and then full of love nonetheless.”

“It quickly becomes clear that the three levels in the three films bring an enormous advantage: putting things clearly into perspective forces us to have clear attitudes.”

“NSU German History X becomes authentic because the different truths, revealed in the perspectives of the perpetrators, victims, and investigators, are not harmonized by a higher authority. The viewers need to be able to bear the resulting tensions. NSU German History X demands and expects much of them. With these films, the ARD is writing television history.”

Beta Film GmbH  Gruenwalder Weg 28d  D - 82041 Oberhaching  Tel + 49 89 67 34 69 80  General Manager: Jan Mojto  Registered Office Oberhaching  HRB 143 023  VAT ID no. DE 813543811  www.betafilm.com

Netflix explores German History X by Jesse Whittock July 7, 2016

Netflix has bagged exclusive SVOD rights to ARD drama NSU German History X in six major territories.

The streaming service has bought rights to the show in the US, Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand, and will debut the scripted series on Thursday as local Netflix Originals.

The high-end drama, based on true and current events, explores the story of a far-right German terrorist group called National Socialist Underground, who killed immigrants just after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the 1990s. These events became known as the Bosphorus Serial Murders, and one of the suspected members, Beate Zschäpe, is still on trial today.

Distributor Beta said the Wiedemann & Berg-produced 3x90mins drama has also been sold to unnamed but “major Scandinavian public broadcasters”, plus into Belgium and the Netherlands. Other deals are in “final negotiations”.

The series won the Bloggers Award at the French Series Mania event, and was nominated for the Magnolia Award at the Shanghai TV Festival.

Line of Separation producer Gabriela Spearl produced the series, with The Lives of Others prodco Wiedemann & Berg and Filmpool coproducing.

Thomas Wendrich, Laila Stieler, Rolf Basedow, Christoph and Jan Braren wrote the miniseries, which Beta launched at MIPTV in April.

Netflix Goes for Drama NSU German History X

Joel Marino 07.07.2016

MUNICH: Netflix has secured the rights for the drama NSU German History X, which will be available starting tomorrow as an original series in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.

The drama was produced for German public broadcaster ARD and has been sold by Beta to numerous territories, among them Scandinavia, Belgium and the Netherlands. The series is made up of three 90-minute episodes.

It follows the National Socialist Underground, or NSU, which after the fall of the Iron Curtain began operating in Germany by killing immigrants in cold blood. It took the police and intelligence services more than ten years to hunt down the perpetrators.

Hot Picks: NSU German History X

31 March, 2016

German drama is experiencing an explosion of international interest thanks to the global success of spy thriller Deutschland 83 (sold to Channel 4 in the UK and Sundance-TV in the US) and BBC2 acquisition Generation War.

Distributor Beta Film Producer Wiedemann & Berg Length 3 x 120 minutes; 6 x 60 minutes Broadcaster WDR/ADR (Germany)

The latter was distributed by Beta Film, one of Germany’s largest producers and distributors, which has even higher hopes for its latest drama, gritty thriller NSU German History X.

The three-part drama tells the story of the three founders of far-right German terrorist group National Socialist Underground (NSU), from the first steps of their radicalisation to their subsequent capture.

The series, which is inspired by true events, takes place just after the fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 1990s.

It follows right-wing extremists Beate, Uwe and Bohni, who is described as having a “tripwire temper”. The trio were responsible for killing immigrants in cold blood in a series of crimes known as the Bosphorus Serial Murders.

However, despite drawing the attention of the country’s Intelligence Service, the trio were not implicated in the crimes until 10 years after the first killings – amid rumours about inside jobs and informants.

The series is produced by Line Of Separation producer Gabriela Sperl for Wiedemann & Berg. The German indie, set up by Quirin Berg and Max Wiedemann, previously produced Stasi feature The Lives Of Others, winner of the 2006 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

The series is written by Thomas Wendrich (Die Tater), Laila Stieler (Cloud 9), Rolf Basedow (In The Face Of Crime), Christoph Busche (The Old Fox) and Jan Braren (Leipzig Homicide), and is directed by Christian Schwochow (The Tower), Züli Aladag (Dating Daisy) and Florian Cossen (The Day I Was Not Born).

The drama, co-produced by Filmpool, was made for German public broadcaster ARD and its regional sister channels, including SWR and WDR.

Beta Film is launching the series at Mip TV, with Schwochow, Aladag, Cossen and Sperl attending to drum up sales.

It is the latest high-profile European series on Beta’s books.

Nordic nets nab German dramas

Danish broadcaster DR, Norway’s NRK, YLE in Finland and SVT in Sweden have secured more than 40 hours of German drama from Beta Film.

The quartet have acquired right-wing terror trilogy NSU German History X (3x90’) and Tom Tykwer’s 1920s crime-series Babylon Berlin (16×60′), along with Oliver Hirschbiegel’s spy drama The Same Sky (6×60′).

The channels have also picked up 15th century period drama Maximilian (6×60′), which explores the life of the impoverished Austrian emperor.

Stephen Mowbray, head of acquisitions at SVT, said the deal showed that German producers “are now delivering world-class fiction.”

He added: “Partnering with Beta secures a raft of exciting titles for the Swedish public.”

Beta Film international sales manager Justus Riesenkampff said the deal “marks a new chapter of German fiction in the Nordics and proves that now there is a steady flow of great drama coming from Germany.” Richard Middleton 29-03-20

Germany Drives Up Television Production

Ed Meza @edmezavar April 4, 2016 | 11:30AM PT

High-end television series are on the rise in Germany, where they have been enthusiastically embraced by leading feature film talent and supported by federal and regional funders.

(…)

Beta CEO Jan Mojto says more and more filmmakers are interested in doing long-running series and attracting top acting talent because series offer unique narrative advantages, not to mention the strength of Germany’s TV market and its myriad financing possibilities. “It’s interesting to tell certain stories on television which could not be told in a feature film,” Mojto says. “The quality of German TV is quite often similar to that of theatrical productions.”

(…)

Tackling a violent story ripped from current headlines, ARD’s “NSU — German History X” traces the bloody trail of a neo-Nazi cell — the National Socialist Underground — that murdered 10 people in Germany. Gabriela Sperl and Wiedemann & Berg Television are producing the fact-based miniseries, which focuses on Beate Zschaepe, a suspect in the killings who is currently on trial.

For “NSU” director Christian Schwochow, this dark episode in Germany’s recent history is rooted in the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the country.

“I don’t think you can tell the story of Beate Zschaepe and the NSU without this turning point. Beate Zschaepe was 14 years old when the Wall fell. I have a feeling that it was a generation that was left all alone. They had to deal with a great many difficulties. Everything was reassessed. And no one really cared about them.”

Babylon Beta

NSU German History X follows the emergence of a terrorist group

Jan Mojto, CEO of German distributor Beta Film, tells Jonathan Webdale why Berlin is providing the perfect backdrop for a boom in domestic drama with international ambitions.

There’s a buzz about Berlin – a statement of the obvious perhaps, given the city’s status as centre of Germany’s cultural, economic and political life. But the capital is now poised to play a starring role in a string of high-end dramas.

“Babylon Berlin is the talk of the town here,” says Jan Mojto, CEO of German distributor Beta Film, his voice hoarse amid the hubbub of the Grand Hyatt lobby. It’s one of several hotels taken over by the thousands who visit each year for the Berlin International Film Festival.

Of course, Mojto would say that about a project his company is co-financing, together with Sky and public broadcaster ARD, but the show – the first series from celebrated German director Tom Twyker and his X Filme Creative Pool – does indeed crop up often in conversations.

Twyker’s involvement is one factor. A director whose credits include Perfume, Cloud Atlas and A Hologram for the King turning his attention to the small screen was always going to cause a stir – particularly in film festival circles.

That Babylon Berlin is Sky’s first original German drama also makes it of particular interest, as does the fact the pay TV giant collaborated with free-to-air net ARD on funding (Sky gets first window from 2017 with ARD showing it a year later).

And then there’s the budget: €2.5m (US$2.8m) per hour is expensive by anyone’s standards but something that’s almost unheard of in Germany, where the airwaves are dominated by TV movies and police procedurals, with few slots for serialised dramas.

FremantleMedia/UFA Fiction’s eight-episode Cold War thriller Deutschland 83, for RTL, was a breakthrough last year, both domestically and on the international stage. But the ambition behind Babylon Berlin is bigger, with the order doubling during the three-year development process to an initial two-season 16-episode run.

“If you think of the 1920s, there’s no other city in the world where so much happened at the same time. It’s the end of the old order, the empire has collapsed – it’s a kind of laboratory of the future,” Mojto enthuses. “Everything is possible and we do not know yet how terrible the end will be, so it’s a fascinating period when people are trying new things and you have this melting pot that is not so different from today’s Berlin. It should be Germany’s contribution to high-end serialised television.”

But Babylon Berlin is not the only Berlin project doing the rounds. HBO in the US has enrolled Peter Straughan, the writer behind the BBC’s adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall and the big-screen version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, to bring Philip Kerr’s Second World War-set Berlin Noir novels to TV together with Tom Hanks’ Playtone Entertainment.

Then there’s Berlin Station, a 10-episode contemporary spy drama from Paramount TV and Anonymous Content, which is set to become US paynet Epix’s first original drama series this year. Three-part miniseries Ku’damm 56 – Rebel With a Cause, about the 1950s sexual revolution and centering on a Berlin dance school, recently debuted on ZDF, again produced by UFA Fiction.

The rise of Berlin as a backdrop to so many shows coincides with change in the German television landscape. Before Deutschland 83 there was ZDF/UFA Fiction miniseries Generation War, a Seond World War drama that pushed the bounds of domestic TV conventions and which Beta Film sold to 150 territories. Last year, the firm picked up distribution rights to Turner Broadcasting System’s second original German drama, The Valley – In the Mist of Silence, which aired on TNT Serie, one of its five pay channels in the territory.

“What’s happening here, as in every country, is that every serious player is trying to make their mark with channel-defining programmes,” says Mojto. “There are plenty of shows

tackling smaller subjects that have been around for 10 or more years, but if we talk about high-end TV then the mentality is changing.”

There are a number of reasons why this is happening, he adds. In part it’s to do with the arrival of US SVoD players in the country. Netflix, which arrived 18 months ago, has recently confirmed its first original series for the market, a 10-part mystery drama called Dark from Endemol Shine Germany-backed prodco Wiedemann & Berg (The Lives of Others).

That commission came after Amazon stole a lead, ordering its own local freshman series, a drama about a Berlin convention centre project manager who becomes the victim of a mysterious hacking attack. Pantaleon Entertainment, Warner Bros Entertainment and Warner Bros International TV Production Deutschland are the production partners.

“There is a lot of mid-budget drama coming out of Germany, so this is pushing towards different, bigger, edgier content,” says Mojto.

But US SVoD companies can’t take all the credit, he notes. What’s had more impact, perhaps, is the domestic TV industry’s somewhat belated realisation that the world beyond its borders has moved on. Mojto takes the example of Gomorrah, the Beta/Cattleya crime drama coproduction for Sky Italia, which it sold into more than 30 territories.

“It had huge success in Italy and good results in other countries. Even if one functions in Germany, Italy or wherever, people start thinking in global terms, so they act locally and think globally,” says Mojto.

But it’s not just the pay market pushing innovation. “The German free TV market is definitely opening up,” says Mojto. “It doesn’t mean that everything will be unlimited series but the broadcasters are willing to try new things.”

Beta currently has three miniseries for such networks in post-production. The Same Sky is another Berlin-set drama, a 1970s Cold War family saga helmed by Downfall director Oliver Hirschbiegel and coproduced together with UFA and the UK’s Rainmark Films for ZDF and Czech TV. Maximilian, meanwhile, is a 15th century love story about the ruler of the Duchy of Burgundy for ZDF and ORF, directed by Andreas Prohaska. Lastly, NSU German History X, about the birth of the far right National Socialist Underground terrorist group after the fall of the Berlin Wall, is coproduced with Wiedemann & Berg.

Projects in development include The Perished Land, a 12-part fantasy drama from Game of Thrones producer Frank Doelger and Rome producer Jonathan Stamp, with Rainmark once again attached alongside Hofman & Voges Filmproduktion. The Embassy (10x60’), from Bambú Producciones – creator of celebrated Spanish Antenna 3 drama Grand Hotel – is lined up for Atresmedia.

But bigger than all these, and perhaps even bigger than Babylon Berlin, is a series focusing on Germany’s most infamous historical figure. Hitler (10x60’), based on the book Hitler’s First War by Thomas Weber, is now moving into preproduction. Each episode concentrates on one chapter in the story of the future Führer’s rise to power, from the end of the First World War to the Holocaust and WW2. UFA is again coproducing and RTL is already attached. This time the budget is €3m per episode, according to Mojto, who adds: “We have interest from many parties.”

Of course, TV is only a part of Beta’s business, as its Cinema arm handles movie distribution too. Mojto’s time is divided equally between the two, but how does he see the shifting dynamic between the TV and film industries – particularly within the context of the Berlinale, which in association with the European Film Market introduced a TV drama strand to the film festival two years ago, raising eyebrows among purists?

“Epic storytelling used to be the preserve of big feature films, but television is now offering the space for that,” he says. “The talent has understood that.”

But Mojto sees such barriers breaking down completely in the coming years. “In the end, audiovisual product is not defined by the means of distribution,” he says. “For the big fictional dramas, the difference between feature films and television is disappearing. It’s not completely true today but that is the universe we’re moving into.”

Jonathan Webdale 13-04-2016

Alleged neo-Nazi terrorist had links to German secret service

07 April 2016 By Andrew McCathie, dpa

Munich (dpa) - An alleged neo-Nazi terrorist on trial in Munich had links to an undercover agent working for the German secret service, sources told dpa on Thursday, prompting calls from politicians and lawyers for the government to shed light on the revelations.

Beate Zschaepe, 41, worked in a store selling neo-Nazi material in the eastern German town of Zwickau during her time as an alleged member of the National Socialist Underground (NSU), which was formed in 1998.

The store, called Heaven & Hell, was run by undercover agent Ralf Marschner, a one-time leading member of the neo-Nazi scene in eastern Germany. He is believed to have been on Germany's domestic intelligence service's (BfV) payroll between 1992 and 2002 operating under the code name Primus.

The NSU, which is thought to have committed a series of racially inspired murders, bank robberies and bombings, came to a dramatic end in November 2011 when two of its alleged members were found dead in the smoking ruins of a camper van in the eastern German city of Eisenach.

One of those who died in the apparent murder-suicide in the camper van, Uwe Mundlos, also worked for Marscher under an assumed name for a building firm, according to a report in the German daily Die Welt.

A spokeswoman for the BfV declined to comment on the reports.

Lawyers representing the relatives of NSU victims in Zschaepe's trial joined members of a parliamentary committee investigating the NSU to demand information on Marschner's activities from Chancellor Angela Merkel's government.

"What we are talking about is a secret service informant supporting a terrorist organization," Green Party committee member Irene Mihalic told dpa. Another member, Petra Pau, called on Berlin to release Marschner's files to the committee.

"We expect answers now, also from Merkel," said Mehmet Daimagueler and Yavuz Narin, two of the lawyers representing the victims' families.

Police investigating the murders of mainly Turkish immigrants allegedly committed by the NSU were initially convinced the deaths were the result of drug running, honour killings or family feuds rather than a neo-Nazi cell.

But a new fictionalized TV account of the NSU suggests that part of the reason the official police investigation into the group was mishandled was because the authorities were trying to protect their informants in the nation's radical rightwing and neo-Nazi scene.

The third and final part of the TV series, German History X, screened on German state broadcaster ARD on Wednesday.

In addition to being a member of a terrorist organization, Zschaepe is also charged with being an

accomplice in the 10 murders that the group carried out between 2000 and 2007.

Zschaepe is the main defendant in the case, which has been running for about three years. Four others are also on trial for providing support to the NSU.

The trial is one of the most politically charged in Germany since the 1970s, when members of the far-left Baader Meinhof Gang, also known as the Red Army Faction, faced court proceedings.

A trained gardener, Zschaepe was arrested in 2011, a short time after she torched the apartment in Zwickau she shared with Mundlos and the other member of the NSU trio Uwe Boehnhardt, who was also found dead in the camper van in Eisenach.

Zschaepe has denied any knowledge of the execution-style murders, saying that Mundlos and Boenhardt had been responsible. She has also insisted that she had not been an NSU member.