Berlin, July 1994: The three film directors Wolfgang Becker, Dani Levy and Tom Tykwer team up with film expert Stefan Arndt to found the production company X-Filme Creative Pool. Their goal is to overcome the isolation often plaguing directors, writers and producers. Ten years later, X-Filme has its own distribution arm X-Verleih as well as a First-Look-Deal with the American company Miramax.

 

 

 

 

"1994 marked an absolute low in German cinema, both in respect to market share as well as content. So some Berlin filmmakers got together regularly to meet and discuss the situation – which was at times partly constructive, partly disheartening. It was also a period of squandering which culminated with the founding of X-Filme."
- Wolfgang Becker

 

One, two, three...x films

"We are all very different, but we stand behind all our films, even when we are hardcore critics not accustomed to handle each other with kid gloves. X-Filme consists of four strong-headed individuals who hotly dispute or at times even clash. But the arguments we have do not take place in respect to the degree of success, but rather deal with content."
- Dani Levy

 

 

 

 

"We haven't followed the wave of German comedies nor done remakes of German films. We look for authentic material, which either takes place in Germany or has something to do with Germany, but still functions internationally. Our goal is an ambitious independent Autorenkino that is more in line with the tradition of American Independents.”
- Stefan Arndt

 

"Together you are stronger. You get out of your isolation, which gives you a constructive corrective, a necessary feedback. Tom Tykwer and I wrote the script for "Das Leben ist eine Baustelle" ("Life Is All You Get") together, it was our first concrete cooperation. One can no longer be so quickly divided. It begins with such a completely simple thing as a contract matter."
- Wolfgang Becker

 

 

 

 

"Normally, the film industry is a pool full of sharks, where everyone tries to take a big bite out of everyone else. What's good about X-Filme is that here we can talk about our projects on a completely friendly basis. In this way, we can tackle difficult material, stories that go beyond the ordinary, but still remain easy to follow internationally. With budgets ranging from six million to ten million German Marks, the films must tell a story that also has to be interesting in other countries."
- Stefan Arndt

 

"I don’t really believe that we always have to make only stark, truthful and authentic films. But nevertheless, that's exactly what I am interested in right now."
- Wolfgang Becker

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The bundling together of interests certainly helps. You advise each other, often discussing something till it hurts. After all, you can not always strife for harmony. Hard talk is also necessary. We are all personally liable for each of the films the other do. If one of us does a flop, we all go bankrupt. That's a kind of binding relationship I feel strongly about, because we all stand together behind the films that we make."
- Tom Tykwer

 

"What’s great about this company is that we are unpredictable. You only need to look at "Lola rennt" ("Run, Lola, Run") and "Meschugge" (The Giraffe): two completely different films, made in the same year by the same company. This makes a company very open, but still provides it with a common language."
- Dani Levy

 

 

 

 

 

"That there is hardly any good material, hardly any great scripts around, is not because there aren't any ideas, but because no one dares to develop or really think through something to the very end. Naturally, you place yourself more at the mercy of others when it has to do with your stuff and you are therefore more exposed. And if the film goes wrong, it is of course even more disastrous. But if the film succeeds, it's just exactly the thing we need."
- Tom Tykwer

 

"Slowly, we are succeeding in shaping our production base as we truly wish: having control over the budgets as well as over the allocation of funds, being able to collectively decide how far our company is willing or unwilling to take on a risk. We have no one on the other side of the bargaining table, looking after his own economic interests, whose interests are foremost financial and not that of content."
- Dani Levy

 

 

 

 

"The public is ready to watch ambitious German films. And it is demanded of us to deliver them and thereby do justice to the demands we ourselves proclaim. Now is our chance."
- Tom Tykwer

 

Quotations from : Michael Töteberg (Ed.): "Szenenwechsel. Momentaufnahmen des jungen deutschen Films". Reinbek bei Hamburg: Rowohlt, 1999