Bavaria Film

Bavaria Film in Munich, Germany is one of Europe's largest film production companies, with some 30 subsidiaries.[1][2]

Bavaria Film GmbH
Formerly
Münchener Lichtspielkunst AG (1919–1932)
GmbH
Industryfilm industry
Foundedas Münchener Lichtspielkunst AG (1919 (1919))
as Bavaria Film AG (21 September 1932 (1932-09-21))
FounderPeter Ostermayr
Wilhelm Kraus
Headquarters
Grünwald, Munich
,
Germany
Key people
Dr. Matthias Esche
Achim Rohnke
Revenue200,000,000 euro (2014) 
Number of employees
242 (2011)
Websitewww.bavaria-film.de

History

The studios were founded in 1919, when Munich-raised film producer Peter Ostermayr converted the private film company he had founded in 1907, Münchener Lichtspielkunst GmbH, to the public company Münchener Lichtspielkunst AG (Emelka), and acquired a large area (ca. 356.000 m²) for the studios in Geiselgasteig, a district of Munich's southern suburb Grünwald. The company was a direct competitor to UFA, which had begun operations in Berlin in 1917, and quickly absorbed several other film industry companies in the region. In 1930 investor Wilhelm Kraus and a consortium of banks bought a major shareholding in the company, and on 21 September 1932 the group took control and renamed it Bavaria Film AG. In 1938 the Bavaria Film was nationalised but privatised again in 1956.

Films shot at Bavaria Film

Alfred Hitchcock made his first film, The Pleasure Garden, in Geiselgasteig in 1925. In 1934 Peer Gynt was made there. The studios have been used by numerous directors, including Elia Kazan (Man on a Tightrope, 1952), Max Ophüls (Lola Montès, 1955), Stanley Kubrick (Paths of Glory, 1957), Richard Fleischer (The Vikings, 1958), John Huston (Freud: The Secret Passion, 1962), Robert Siodmak (The Nina B. Affair, 1960), Billy Wilder (One, Two, Three, 1961 and Fedora, 1978), John Sturges (The Great Escape, 1963), Robert Wise (The Sound of Music, 1965), Orson Welles (The Deep, 1967), Jerzy Skolimowski (Deep End, 1970), Mel Stuart (Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, 1971), Bob Fosse (Cabaret, 1972), Wim Wenders (Ein Haus für uns (2 TV episodes), 1974), Ingmar Bergman (The Serpent's Egg, 1977), Robert Aldrich (Twilight's Last Gleaming, 1977), Wolfgang Petersen (Enemy Mine, 1985), Claude Chabrol (The Bridesmaid, 2004), and Oliver Stone (The Snowden Files, 2015).[3]

The Studios in Geiselgasteig are the reason why Munich has become a site of crime in TV fiction (in opposite to real life), with detectives like Derrick, The Old Fox, and Der Kommissar investigating. Also Monty Python worked in Geiselgasteig in 1971 and 1972 for Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus, the specials for German and Austrian television.

The Bavaria Film GmbH is a film production company known for television films such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz (1980) and Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot (1981), both also shown theatrically.

Also other production companies have produced films in the Bavaria studios, including Constantin Film, for example for Petersen's The Neverending Story (1984), Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall (2004) and Tom Tykwer's Perfume: The Story of a Murderer (2006).[4]

Bavaria Filmstadt

The Filmstadt is an attraction offered for tourists. Visitors on tour see sets and props from The Neverending Story, Das Boot, Marienhof, and others.

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References
  1. Bavaria Film: Company Profile Archived 2016-12-05 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2013-04-11
  2. Bavaria Film: Bavaria Film and its Subsidiaries Archived 2016-12-05 at the Wayback Machine Retrieved 2013-04-11
  3. "Bavaria Film – History for more than 90 years". Archived from the original on 2016-12-06. Retrieved 2014-04-06.
  4. "Perfume: The Story of a Murderer Production Notes" (Press release). Pathé Distribution. Archived from the original (RTF) on December 11, 2009. Retrieved December 11, 2009.
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