Starting next year, the German government has decided to allocate an annual budget of 7.5 million euros to a dedicated production fund for first and second feature films.
The fund will be managed by Germany’s oldest film funding institution, Curatorium Young German Cinema (Curatorium Junger Deutscher Film), in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture and Media (BKM), with funding decisions made by a jury of experts.
Up to 500,000 euros will be provided for individual projects with production costs not exceeding 2 million euros. In exceptional cases, the amount may be increased to 1 million euros.
In addition, the museum will receive a total of 1.2 million euros in funding each year from the German federal states (Lender) to support the development of film treatments and scripts.
Separately, Gakugeikan has appointed Christina Bentrage as Managing Director, effective January 1, 2026. Since 2010, Bentrage has been director of film financing at the Cologne film and media center NRW Regional Foundation.
The federal states have supported the work of the Curatorium since its founding in 1965 and have played an important role in launching the careers of Alexander Kluge, Edgar Riis, Wim Wenders, Tom Tykwer and Veidt Helmer.
More recently, the Curatorium has supported films such as Asli Özalslan. elbow and Alyssa Jung’s childcare leaveRoderick Wallich’s Bangkok set funeral casino blues The film had its world premiere at Venice’s Orizzonti Sidebar in September of this year.
