German Film and Media Rating (FBW)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The German Film and Media Assessment ( FBW ), until 2009 the Wiesbaden Film Assessment Center , is an institution with official status based in Schloss Biebrich in Wiesbaden . Its task is to examine films for their particular artistic , documentary or film historical significance and to award outstanding achievements with the predicates “valuable” or “particularly valuable”. The FBW was founded on August 20, 1951 by resolution of the Conference of Ministers of Education and Cultural Affairs as a film evaluation agency of the federal states of the Federal Republic of Germany (FBL). From 1957 it was called Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden (FBW), and since 2009 it has been called the German Film and Media Evaluation .

Tasks and activities

Seal of the FBW
FBW grade card from 1984

The FBW is an institution of all 16 federal states with the status of a higher state authority , which is subject to the legal supervision of the Hessian Ministry for Science and Art . Upon application by the filmmaker, it checks whether a film can be awarded the rating “valuable” or “particularly valuable”. Qualified films enjoy amusement tax reductions and can receive special funding ( reference funding ). The legal basis is an administrative agreement dated January 1, 1994.

The rating is a recommendation for cinema-goers and media users and can be used for orientation in order to choose from the corresponding offer (cinema, DVD).

The FBW should not be confused with the Voluntary Self-Regulation of the Film Industry (FSK) . This is z. B. responsible for the age rating , but not for an artistic rating.

The first film that was examined by the evaluation body and received a rating was Peter Lorre's directorial debut The Lost .

financing

The FBW finances its work mainly through the collection of fees that are charged for the reviews. Fees between 22.47 euros and 20.55 euros per minute of film viewed, but at least 120 euros and a maximum of 3,000 euros per film. In the event of an objection to a decision by the jury, a further 450 euros will be charged. For student productions, children's films, documentaries and films funded by the German federal states, reduced fees apply. (Status: 2018)

jury

The experts come from all federal states and are appointed by the individual federal states for a period of three years. They are proven film experts, volunteer for FBW and independent. Their names are public. A jury, which meets in Wiesbaden and views the films, consists of at least five reviewers, each with a changing composition.

Each jury member receives 20 euros per day and reimbursement of expenses. The chairman receives an additional 80 euros per day for drafting the minutes and the reasons.

evaluation

Predicates

The ratings are awarded by a jury of independent experts. They judge the films based on their quality . The criteria are:

  • Substance: history, originality, meaning, time-critical content, factual correctness, social relevance, age-appropriateness
  • Form: Structure and style of the script, direction (style, dramaturgy, implementation in the picture, language, sound direction, choreography), cast and representation, camera (leadership, image detail, quality of the photography, focus and movements of the camera), editing, buildings and Equipment (production design, style, costumes, masks), special techniques (image format, trick, screens, assembly)
  • cinematic design: relationship between material and form, appropriateness of design elements, invention and originality, artistic design in connection with the moral foundations of culture

Since the films are always judged within the respective genre , this sometimes leads to results that are incomprehensible at first glance. So got Hellboy 2 and The White Ribbon at the same meeting - and by the same jury - the ratings of "highly valuable". When judging a film, the claim it makes according to subject matter and genre must be taken into account. The recognizable degree of difficulty of the cinematic realization should be taken into account.

The FBW also continuously evaluates short films . The short film ratings are highly valued at film schools ; winning these ratings is very useful for further careers.

No predicate

The rules of procedure also regulate which films are excluded from the evaluation or cannot receive a rating.

Films that do not receive a rating

  1. "Violate the constitution or the law, or violate personal rights or moral or religious feelings",
  2. "Are limited to the reproduction of the latest news of the day without any recognizable film-artistic design features" (e.g. newsreels),
  3. "Let it be seen that they are used for commercial advertising" (this does not affect industrial and PR films),
  4. "To serve election propaganda or, in a degrading way, political propaganda" or
  5. "Are presented in such a deficient technical condition that the identity of the version to be assessed and the version to be evaluated no longer seems to be guaranteed".

facts and figures

FBW has rated around 26,000 films since 1951. In 2014, 150 feature films and a further 111 medium-length films and short films were examined by the FBW at around 500 theatrical releases.

criticism

Since the award of a rating can have a significant share in the economic success of a film, filmmakers in the 1950s also accepted editing or correction proposals from the authorities in four cases . A particularly well-known controversy in this regard was that with Bernhard Grzimek in 1959 over his documentary Serengeti Must Not Die . The FBW only wanted to give Grzimek's film the rating "valuable" if it made two changes to the content. The animal filmmaker took this as censorship and submitted an objection to the FBW. In a newly compiled jury, headed by FAZ co-founder Karl Korn , the film was finally awarded the rating “valuable” without any corrections to the editing. There have been no more cutting recommendations since the 1960s.

The protest film Particularly valuable by Hellmuth Costard from 1968 was directed against the working methods of the film evaluation unit . The FBW was spotlighted after the 1988 film Rambo III (1988) was awarded the title “valuable”. Some columnists considered the legal freedom of art to be endangered because of the FBW, criticized the FBW negatively as “ official black man in the cinema” and accused it of only wanting to preserve itself.

In 2013, Alan Posener criticized in an article for Die Welt that the review of a commercial film by the FBW was a very cheap advertising measure, as around a fifth of film consumers were motivated to go to the cinema or buy a DVD by a film rating. It is therefore mainly the big US producers who submitted films to FBW and who objected to not receiving a rating.

A small film festival in Cologne calls itself - as a criticism of the work of the film evaluation agency - "particularly worthless".

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ History: The history of the FBW. FBW, accessed July 3, 2014 .
  2. ↑ Dr. Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 19 46-1955 , p. XIV
  3. ↑ fees. FBW, accessed September 29, 2018 .
  4. ↑ cf. The FBW jury members. In: FBW . Retrieved March 16, 2012 .
  5. ↑ a b c Alan Posener : "Hellboy", as valuable as "The White Ribbon". In: The world . October 7, 2013, accessed September 26, 2018 .
  6. ↑ a b evaluation criteria. FBW, accessed September 29, 2018 .
  7. ↑ About us. FBW, accessed June 17, 2015 .
  8. ↑ Shoots and sweats , in: Der Spiegel No. 33/1988 of August 15, 1988, accessed on Feb. 23, 2015
  9. ↑ How valuable is the film evaluation unit? , in: FAZ of April 26, 2001, accessed on February 23, 2015
  10. ^ Frédéric Jaeger: A quarter of a year in the cinema: Particularly worthless. In: Spiegel Online . September 26, 2018. Retrieved September 28, 2018 .

Coordinates: 50 ° 2 ′ 15 ″  N , 8 ° 14 ′ 7 ″  E