Kirsten Niehuus Hosts Last Cocktail Reception in Cannes as Medienboard Chief but Will We See Her in a New Role Soon?

Kirsten Niehuus, the CEO of the influential film fund for the Berlin-Brandenburg region, Medienboard, welcomed guests to its traditional cocktail reception at the Cannes Film Festival for the last time on Saturday. But it’s unlikely international film folk have seen the last of Niehuus, who has a reputation for backing high-quality international films. Niehuus, who steps down at the end of June, is understood to be a frontrunner for another high-profile role within the Germany film business.

Niehuus is well-placed to become the new president of the German Federal Film Board, known as the FFA, when Bernd Neumann steps down later this year. The FFA is a powerful body within the German film landscape. It distributed 20 million euros ($22.5 million) to 50 projects for production and script funding last year, including cash for Cannes films like Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value” and Christian Petzold’s “Miroirs No. 3,” likely box-office hits such as “School of Magical Animals 4,” and upcoming hot arthouse titles like Ruben Östlund’s “The Entertainment System Is Down.”

It’s an exciting time to take the reins at the FFA after Germany revamped its film funding structure at the end of last year, with FFA’s funding portfolio expanded to cover all federal film funding. Also, German producers are now able to claim up to 30% of their local production costs – increased from the previous 20% for feature films and up to 25% for TV productions.

But, Niehuus told Variety, which was the Medienboard event’s media partner, the legislative changes have not gone far enough. “I think the industry needs an automatic [production incentive] scheme that is competitive with the other schemes, like in Hungary,” she said. “We see lots of productions going to shoot in Hungary rather than in Germany, and we don’t see as many incoming productions from America, not to mention the tariffs thing. We are not attractive enough to the larger American productions, and that obviously hits all over Germany. It’s Bavaria as much as Hamburg or Berlin.”

Asked if she was optimistic the legislation that would deliver a competitive incentive would go through this year, she said, “Fingers crossed. I mean, I hope so. Optimism is, you know … after so many years in the business, we’ve seen all kinds of miracles for better or for worse.”

Medienboard has more financial firepower than many national agencies in Europe. Its film funding department’s annual budget is approximately 34 million euros ($38.3 million), and it backs many international co-productions.

There are eight films in the Cannes program that it backed, four of them in competition. The competition films are Wes Anderson’s “The Phoenician Scheme,” Joachim Trier’s “Sentimental Value,” Kleber Mendonça Filho’s “The Secret Agent,” and Sergei Loznitsa’s “Two Prosecutors.”

Cannes Premières features Fatih Akin’s “Amrum” and Kirill Serebrennikov’s “The Disappearance,” and Directors’ Fortnight includes Petzold’s “Mirrors No. 3” and Nadav Lapid’s “Yes.”

Changes are afoot at Medienboard, too. The film fund will “restructure the process from one person’s decision, including the team, to a jury system,” Niehuus said. “And that needs, obviously, a proper preparation, because that’s a major change.” The first deadline for the new application and decision-making process is likely to be in October so it’s all ready to go in January for the first decision round, she added.

The changes were due in part to an expansion in responsibilities for the CEO, but also a response to how the business is changing and a desire to be more transparent and democratic.

“It’s not the same as it used to be, and so it’s more and more difficult for management to manage all of that, plus reading 120 scripts per session. It’s practically impossible to master that. And we felt that the winds of change about how to deal with power have also changed. And we want to follow that, so people don’t have the feeling that there’s like – how would you call that? – like a royal decision-making process. So, for the sake of transparency and to have it on more shoulders, the changes were thought desirable.”

The Medienboard reception, held on Saturday in the gardens of the Mondrian Hotel, was organized together with international promotion and distribution support organization German Films.

Accompanying Niehuus as guests were welcomed were Sarah Duve-Schmid, the deputy CEO of the FFA, who will succeed Niehuus as Medienboard CEO next month, and German Films chief Simone Baumann.

Commenting on the Medienboard-supported films at Cannes this year, Niehuus said they ranged from “Heimat” films like “Amrum” to “all kinds of international co-productions by established directors, producers and young talent. So, I think this is everything we’ve always tried to achieve.”

She added: “When I look at the line of people trying to enter our cocktail, it’s quite an international crowd, and I’m really proud that we managed to be more than just a German regional fund in Berlin, but that really goes to my team. We managed to reach out into the international film world and met the finest filmmakers and supported them.”

Guests at the event included “Amrum” director Akin and the film’s actors Jasper Billerbeck, Matthias Schweighöfer, Laura Tonke and Lars Jessen; “Mirrors No. 3” director Petzold and actors Enno Trebs, Barbara Auer and Matthias Brandt; and “Two Prosecutors” director Loznitsa; as well as Mascha Schilinski, director of competition film “Sound of Falling.”

Also among the guests were producers Jonas Dornbach and Janine Jackowski from Berlin’s Komplizen Film, which produced “Sentimental Value,” and Berlin’s OneTwo Films’ Fred Burle and Sol Bondy, the producers of “The Secret Agent.”

Also attending were Benji and Jono Bergmann, directors of “Noga,” director Jessica Hausner, director Feo Aladag, director Katja von Garnier, producer Martin Moszkowicz, producer and actor Veronica Ferres, actor Lilly Krug, actor Ruby O. Fee, Maximilian Mundt, an actor from “How to Sell Drugs Online Fast,” Philipp Hochmair, an actor in “The Conference,” Marcus Loges of Studio Babelsberg, and Tanja Meissner of Berlinale Pro.