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Director and producer Tom Tykwer has become managing director of Berlin-based production company X Filme Creative Pool, best known for “Babylon Berlin,” alongside Uwe Schott. Tykwer succeeds Stefan Arndt, one of Germany’s leading producers.

The reorganization of the company’s management is intended to “sharpen the focus on the development and implementation of creative, bold and unusual material for film and television,” according to a statement.

Arndt is leaving at his own request but will remain associated with the company as a producer.

X Filme Creative Pool was founded 30 years ago by Tykwer together with the writers and directors Wolfgang Becker and Dani Levy as well as Arndt. The four founders, who remain shareholders together with Beta Film and Bogey, based themselves on United Artists with the aim of producing sophisticated films with an audience appeal – or, as Variety put it, “intelligent films that audiences want to see.”

Tykwer...

Tom Tykwer is coming back to the movies.

The German director of Run Lola Run and Cloud Atlas has announced his return to filmmaking with the German drama Das Licht (The Light).

The feature, which has just wrapped principal photography, is described as a portrait of a family “between collapse and new beginnings” and deals with the major issues of our time “in a world that is reeling.”

Das Licht is Tykwer’s first feature film since 2016’s A Hologram for the King, starring Tom Hanks. He has spent the past seven years on TV, co-creating and co-directing, with Henk Handloegten and Achim von Borries, four seasons of the acclaimed and award-winning German historic series Babylon Berlin.

Das Licht stars Babylon Berlin alum Lars Eidinger and actor-director Nicolette Krebitz (Wild, My Zoe) as Tim and Milena Engels, a couple whose family, including nearly grown twins Frieda (Elke Biesendorfer) and Jon...

Berlin-based sales agent

Berlin-based Salzgeber is to handle international sales for actor Fabian Stumm’s feature directorial debut Bones And Names, which premieres in the Berlinale’s Perspektive Deutsches Kino section.

A sensitive and humorous reflection on relationships, the film has been nominated for the Teddy Award, Compass-Perspektibe Award and Heiner Carow Prize.

Stumm, whose acting credits include Cate Shortland’s Lore and Sebastian Meise’s Great Freedom, directed the short Bruxelles in 2020 and the award-winning medium-length film Daniel a year later before developing Bones and Names as his feature debut.

“Everything happened in a very short period: I wrote...

Ahead of the much-anticipated Dec. 22 arrival of The Matrix Resurrections, as well as the release of the sequel’s soundtrack next week, Rolling Stone is premiering “Neo and Trinity Theme” from the film’s score.

The “Exomorph Remix” of the theme was made by Johnny Kilmek and Tom Tykwer, the co-composers of The Matrix Resurrections score; the Oscar-nominated duo of electronica musician Klimek and Run Lola Run director/composer Tykwer have worked together for over 20 years, dating back to the latter’s 1997 film Winter Sleepers.

The multi-suite “Neo and Trinity...

X Filme board Josef Bierbichler’s adaptation of his 2011 novel Mittelreich.

Berlin-based X Filme Creative Pool Entertainment has recruited Beta Cinema to handle international sales on veteran Bavarian actor-director Josef Bierbichler’s adaptation of his 2011 novel Mittelreich.

The chronicle of a rural Bavarian community facing the challenges of technological and social change during the last century began shooting in Thuringia a week ago with Bierbichler directing as well as playing the central role of the village innkeeper.

The cast includes Bierbichler’s son Simon Donatz who plays the innkeeper character as a young man and had appeared with his father in Tom Tykwer’s Winter Sleepers 20 years ago as father and son, as well as Martina Gedeck, known to international audiences from The Lives of Others and last year’s Original Bliss.

On the eve of this year’s Berlinale, X Filme and Beta Film announced a strategic partnership between the two companies as they unveiled the first...

X Filme board Josef Bierbichler’s adaptation of his 2011 novel Mittelreich.

Berlin-based X Filme Creative Pool Entertainment has recruited Beta Cinema to handle international sales on veteran Bavarian actor-director Josef Bierbichler’s adaptation of his 2011 novel Mittelreich.

The chronicle of a rural Bavarian community facing the challenges of technological and social change during the last century began shooting in Thuringia a week ago with Bierbichler directing as well as playing the central role of the village innkeeper.

The cast includes Bierbichler’s son Simon Donatz who plays the innkeeper character as a young man and had appeared with his father in Tom Tykwer’s Winter Sleepers 20 years ago as father and son, as well as Martina Gedeck, known to international audiences from The Lives of Others and last year’s Original Bliss.

On the eve of this year’s Berlinale, X Filme and Beta Film unveiled the first footage of the 16-part high-end TV series Babylon Berlin which...

Frankfurt, Germany -- Tom Tykwer has secured a further €500,000 ($747,000) in financing from the German Federal Film Board (Ffa) for his film "Drei" (Three), currently shooting in Berlin.

"Drei" will be Tykwer's first German-language project since "The Princess and the Warrior" (2000).

The threesome drama centers on a fortysomething couple in Berlin who separately fall in love with the same man. It stars Devid Striesow ("The Counterfeiters"), Sophie Rois ("Learning to Lie") and Sebastian Schipper, who has had supporting roles in Tykwer's "The Princess and the Warrior," "Run, Lola, Run" and "Winter Sleepers."

Tykwer's longtime business partner Stefan Arndt is producing through their Berlin-based X Filme shingle. Shooting is set to wrap in November for a late summer 2010 release through X Filme's distribution arm X Verleih.

Other projects picking up Ffa funding included "Wer Wenn Nicht Wir" (Who When Not Us) from Andres Veiel ("Black Box Brd") and the...

Cologne, Germany -- Tom Tykwer’s “The International,” an action thriller starring Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, will open the 59th Berlin International Film Festival on Feb. 5, 2009, screening Out of Competition.

It will be Tykwer’s second Berlinale opening, following “Heaven” which bowed at the 2002 event.

But unlike “Heaven,” which was an art-house film more on the lines of Tykwer’s “Winter Sleepers” (1997) or “The Princess And The Warrior” (2000), “The International” marks the German director’s jump into the major leagues.

The director of indie hit “Run, Lola, Run” (1998) proved he could handle a big budget with his last picture, the opulent olfactory epic “Perfume: The Story of a Murderer” (2006). But “The International” is Tywker’s first film with a U.S. studio. Sony co-produced with Germany’s Studio Babelsberg and will release the film in Germany Feb. 12 and stateside, via Columbia Pictures, Feb. 13.

“The International,” is also Tykwer’s first all-out actioner.

Drum roll, please. According to THR, the grand opening slot of the 59th Berlin International Film Festival will be filled by The International. The action thriller from director Tom Tykwer will hit the big screen Out of Competition on February 5th, 2009. Not only does The International mark the second time a Tykwer film will open the festival, but it also denotes this German born director's jump into the big budget world. His resume includes a number of smaller scale indie flicks including Winter Sleepers (1997), Run, Lola, Run (1998), The Princess and the Warrior (2000) and Heaven which opened the festival back in 2002. Considering his successful run on the smaller budget track, perhaps Tykwer can hold his own managing a major action flick. Now that Tykwer is playing in the big league he'll need some impressive players on his squad. Leading off for Tykwer's team is Clive Owen and Naomi Watts, both...