MDM Closes "Fifty-Fifty" Funding Deal with ZDF Public Television’s Avantgarde Program

MDM and ZDF’s program slot for emerging talent and experimental films, Das kleine Fernsehspiel, have liaised to establish the "Fifty-Fifty" funding scheme to promote up-and-coming filmmakers in Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia. The deal is set up to grant total funds of up to one million euros, to which MDM and ZDF contribute equal amounts. 

Claas Danielsen, CEO of MDM, says: "By means of this funding program, ZDF and MDM have made an active and lasting commitment to Mitteldeutschland’s filmmakers of tomorrow. We look forward to paving the way for outstanding local talents so that they can tell their stories to a wide audience and develop their signature style - an endeavor for which the Das kleine Fernsehspiel team is cut out for as a partner."

Frank Zervos, ZDF’s editor-in-chief for fiction, says: "We are excited to partner with Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung in laying the groundwork for promoting and supporting local filmmaking talent to pursue its most promising work. By pooling scarce public-funding resources, we hope to achieve maximum support, flexibility, and quality. This is the second partnership of its kind - a “Fifty-Fifty” fund with a regional film funding institution - modeled on the one we have been carrying out with MFG Baden-Württemberg for several years, with great results."

The number of productions to be funded is not pre-defined. Eligible candidates include TV productions based on modern-day stories and of various genres: feature, documentary, and animated films - as well as hybrid forms of those - in addition to miniseries, all between 40 and 120 minutes in duration. To be eligible, a project should use firms from Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, and Thuringia for production, as well as regionally based emerging talents for screenwriters and directors. It is one of the declared objectives to have the resulting films screen at festivals and, should projects lend themselves to the big screen or a distributing company signal interest, to access the cinema market in a timely manner.

The new "Fifty-Fifty" funding program goes into effect on Thursday, January 2, 2020, and is designed to cover, for the time being, the next four years.