Berlin is where one of the most diverse and welcoming film scenes in the world unites with endless creativity and possibilities for collaboration. Ask a local what Berlin is like and they’ll say it is experimental, creative and always accepting.
The Berlin film and television industry is extremely buoyant: the city’s film and television producers have surged ahead since the difficulties of 2020. Following a temporary closure in 2020, the historic Babelsberg Film Studio reopened and is now better than ever before. Both Uncharted, starring Tom Holland, and Matrix 4, restarted and wrapped there in 2021. Babylon Berlin series four was also shot there in the summer of the same year.
All across the city studios and film crews are now regularly booked up for months in advance. Recently, Netflix confirmed that 1899, the new mystery series from Dark creators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, would be shot on the Babelsberg lot, at the studio’s new cutting-edge virtual production studio. If you study at our new Screen and Film Faculty, you will discover that you can’t walk two blocks without stumbling over a film set and we’ll put all of this at your fingertips.
As well as the present-day productivity, Berlin has a strong film heritage that reaches back right to the beginnings of moving pictures. Over the past 25 years, the city has enjoyed an extraordinary renaissance as a film location, establishing itself as an important place for production – productions that have captured the particular spirit of life in this idiosyncratic city. Domestic offerings during this golden period have included Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s brilliant Oscar-nominated 2006 film Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) and Wolfgang Becker’s Goodbye Lenin (2003), an international box-office smash.
International productions which have chosen Berlin as their home in recent years have included Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds (2009), and Stephen Daldry’s The Reader (2008), starring Kate Winslet. As well as this, Bryan Singer’s 2008 film Valkyrie with Tom Cruise was produced here and the Wachowski Sisters’ Cloud Atlas was also filmed in Babelsberg. This proves that Berlin is very much at the centre of Europe in geographical terms as well as in terms of artistic ambition.
From the perspective of industry, which is at the heart of everything we do, more than 4,000 film and TV companies, which together generate a turnover of 1.9 billion euros per year, are based in the capital region. Thanks to the good production infrastructure, the funding conditions and the creative atmosphere, the capital region is undoubtedly attractive to producers, film distributors, streaming portals and VFX companies from all over the world.
Berlin is a budding filmmaker’s heaven. As well as being a fertile breeding ground for film projects and enthusiastic cinephiles, it is also a multinational city with a multitude of reasons to call it home. The living’s cheap, there is always an interesting event unfolding, and the Friday nights regularly stretch through to Monday.
The entire region is alive with everything from hidden backrooms and cavernous warehouses to boats moored on the River Spree bouncing to minimal techno. The city is famed as a hub of artistic production and performance, but you’ll also find a rich film history and a European metropolis that is at the heart of modern cinema. Opportunity and creativity can be found around every corner.
The tourist guides might not be there to catalogue it, but something interesting is always happening in a city that is forever changing. As a place to launch your career in film, there’s genuinely nowhere more exciting than Berlin – it’s one of the world’s most fascinating locations. Our Screen and Film Faculty will catapult it all right at you.
