Judith Gerlach stands at the lectern and struggles with her “encrypted” notebook. It has to be like that, she says, after all she is digital minister, “I can’t show myself with paper anymore”. She landed the first laugh. And she adds a scene ready for film, which her audience at the Bavarian reception at the Berlinale appreciates.
“I still remember my first appearance here on the red carpet four years ago,” she says. “It was traumatic. Of course nobody knew me, and at some point a photographer yelled that I should get out of the way. Jenny Elvers came behind me. But I’ve now solved this problem,” says the minister, proving to be a worthy student of hers Boss Markus Söder, who is known for the same rogue joke. “I just haven’t invited her since.” One wishes that some comedy produced in Bavaria had so much humor.
In the course of the speech there are of course also serious things about the situation of film funding. After all, the Film-Fernseh-Fonds Bayern (FFF) invites all those who want to be considered again soon to this popular industry get-together. The federal government and Claudia Roth are far too slow with their new catalog of measures for film funding. “The time for the exams is over!” exclaims Judith Gerlach, and the memory awakens that elections will soon take place back home in Bavaria.
In the meantime, some in the audience let their shoulders sink when they themselves recapitulate how the film and television industry has developed in Bavaria. “NRW is increasingly outperforming Bavaria.” That is the impression of many under the otherwise magnificent glass dome of the Bavarian Representation this morning.
“The fact that Munich has simply lost the series camp, this unique festival, to Cologne is a sign of this,” says Diana Iljine, director of the Munich Film Festival. The layman might think that Iljine is happy about the latest initiative by Gerlach (CSU) to fight for the Munich Festival together with Munich Mayor Katrin Habenschaden (Greens) and Claudia Roth (Greens) in turn to raise money from the federal government for it.
But Iljine and some others in the hall are not that forgetful either: The Free State, which finances part of the Munich festival, recently canceled the additional millions promised by Söder. Among other things, because the city of all people did not want to go along with it. And that wasn’t nice at all.