UFA television production
| UFA television production / UFA film production
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| legal form | GmbH |
| founding | 1964 |
| Seat | Potsdam-Babelsberg , Germany |
| management | Norbert Sauer |
| Website | www.ufa.de |
The UFA television production / UFA Filmproduktion belonged to Germany of the largest companies in the fictional film and TV production. The production company developed and realized TV events, series, series and films for both private and public TV channels and thus worked independently of the channel. In August 2013, Teamworx was merged with the UFA subsidiaries Phoenix Film and TeamWorx to form the new company UFA Fiction as part of a restructuring of UFA .
Company headquarters
UFA Fernsehproduktion / UFA Filmproduktion was headquartered in Potsdam-Babelsberg and had two further branches in Munich and Leipzig. It was one of eight subsidiaries of UFA Film & TV Produktion GmbH, also based in Potsdam . All German productions / production activities of FremantleMedia , which in turn runs the global production business of the RTL Group , which belongs to Bertelsmann, came together under the umbrella of UFA Film & TV Produktion .
Productions
The UFA television production based on two main pillars. On the one hand, this was the area of TV events and films, which the company has continuously expanded and in which a. Productions like 12 means: I love you (MDR), The most beautiful years (MDR), as well as the two-parter Die Frau vom Checkpoint Charlie (MDR) came about. 90 minutes were also generated for series such as Bella Block , Ein stark Team or Rosamunde Pilcher . The second pillar of UFA television production were long-running series such as SOKO 5113 and SOKO Leipzig , for which one and a half hour TV movies were also made.
The UFA film production was mainly responsible for the production of motion pictures. These included B. The Policewoman , a film directed by Andreas Dresen and which was awarded the Gold Grimme Prize. The adaptation of Christoph Hein's novel Willenbrock ( German Camera Prize , International Literature Film Prize ) or the literary film adaptation of The Pope with Johanna Wokalek and John Goodman, which was made in co-production with Constantin, were also projects of UFA Filmproduktion.
history
Takeover of Universum Film AG by Bertelsmann
On January 1, 1964, the Bertelsmann Group bought all of the shares in Universum Film AG (Ufa). This was only re-established in the post-war period, in 1956 (see also the history of UFA), but at this point it was practically on the verge of bankruptcy; In 1961, feature film production was even completely stopped. With the takeover, the following companies and departments were to be continued under the Bertelsmann umbrella:
- Ufa International GmbH Munich,
- Wiener Bohème Verlag GmbH,
- Ufa-Ton-Verlag GmbH Berlin / Munich,
- Deutsche Wochenschau GmbH Hamburg and the independently working departments,
- Ufa advertising film Berlin / Düsseldorf,
- Ufa television production Berlin and
- Ufa film evaluation Berlin.
The dormant Ufa feature film production was to be discontinued entirely, because according to Reinhard Mohn, Bertelsmann's managing director, the group initially had "no interest" in film production. A short time later, a television film production company was founded. In addition, Mohn created the Playhouse Studio Reinhard Mohn , a new subsidiary that was to be dedicated to the search for new materials and content for television. However, the activities of the Playhouse Studios were stopped again in March 1964 and relocated to Bertelsmann-Ufa. In May 1964, Bertelsmann acquired the majority of shares in Ufa Theater AG in addition to Universum Film AG, which had already been purchased. In the months and years that followed, Bertelsmann tried several times to get into the film business. To this end, a collaboration was arranged with Constantin-Film GmbH Munich, of which Bertelsmann took over fifty percent in July 1965.
Expansion of television production
On December 16, 1966, Werner Mietzner, at that time managing director of Ufa television production, also took over the management of Bertelsmann television production. In the course of this, it was relocated to Berlin in order to work as closely as possible with Ufa television production. This shifted the focus from film production and film distribution in favor of television production. Werner Mietzner was instrumental in ensuring that there was a "renaissance of Ufa productions" by gradually expanding Ufa television production, with ZDF also playing an important role from the start. In addition to evaluating old Ufa films, Werner Mietzner developed almost 300 television productions by 1991, including films such as
- Berlin Antigone (with Donata Höffer, Golden Screen 1968),
- The King and His Fool (with Götz George and Wolfgang Kieling, 1980)
- The Snob (with Klaus-Maria Brandauer and Hans-Christian Blech, 1983)
- The bodyguard (with Franz Xaver Kroetz, Grimme Prize 1989) and
- Das Haus am Watt (with Gudrun Landgrebe and Hannes Jaenicke, 1989),
as well as multiple parts like
- The beautiful Wilhelmine (with Anja Kruse, 1983),
- The Kaltenbach Papers (with Gudrun Landgrebe and Mario Adorf, 1990)
and series like
- Detective agency Roth (with Manfred Krug and Horst Löwitsch, 1983)
- The house spirit (with Susanne Uhlen and Ursela Monn, 1990),
- The acrobat ,
- Vera and Babs and
- Luke and Son .
While still under the direction of Werner Mietzner, Ufa television production tried to establish business relationships with all other public and private broadcasters in addition to ZDF. An example of this is the production "Ufa - Januskopf des Deutschen Films", which was developed and shot for the SFB for the 50th Ufa company anniversary.
Cooperations with East German artists
In the 1970s Werner Mietzner managed to establish very good contacts to East German film and television despite the "difficult political situation in divided Germany (..)." Norbert Sauer, who came to Ufa in 1978, later intensified it and tried, among other things, to establish contacts with "artists from the GDR who were banned from performing and working at DEFA in the 'post-Biermann era'". One project that could be realized in this way was, for example, the film The Second Skin with Angelica Domröse and Hilmar Thate in the leading roles. Several other films with East German artists ultimately helped Ufa television production to win orders for WDR, SWR (at that time still SWF) and BR, which enabled the strong partnership with ZDF to be expanded to include ARD.
Founding of UFA Filmproduktion
In 1982 Mietzner hired the cabaret artist and actor Dieter Hallervorden for Ufa’s first feature film since it was taken over by the Bertelsmann Group. In the course of this, UFA Filmproduktion was brought into being especially for this “film comedy production”. The first six more films with Hallervorden followed.
While UFA television production had tended to be a “shadowy existence” at Bertelsmann until the end of the 1970s, the increasing importance of private broadcasting at the beginning of the 1980s meant that Ufa was able to establish itself more and more.
resolution
In August 2013 the UFA television production went into the new UFA Fiction .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Der Spiegel, No. 31/1965, p. 27
- ↑ UFA - A strong brand through the ages, p. 72
- ↑ UFA - A strong brand through the ages, p. 77f.
- ↑ UFA - A strong brand through the ages, p. 78.
- ↑ UFA - A strong brand through the ages, p. 78f.
- ↑ UFA - A strong brand through the ages, p. 81.
- ↑ UFA - A strong brand through the ages, p. 84.
- ↑ Dreams Pictures Pictures Dreams - The history of the UFA from 1917 to today
- ^ The Ufa book