Hamburg’s public film fund is under serious threat following the new Senate’s decision to slash almost $915,000 (DM 2m) from the 2002 budget for the FilmFoerderung film fund.

The city’s cultural and economic senates had so far each contributed around $3.4m (DM 7.5m) annually to finance the fund’s activities, however the arts committee has recently submitted a draft budget with only $6.3m (DM 13.7m) forthcoming from public money. Consequently, public broadcasters NDR and ZDF will probably have the option not to pay their annual $915,000 (DM 2m) to the fund, since they are not contractually bound to do unless Hamburg guarantees the initial volume of $6.9m (DM 15m).

Officials from FilmFoerderung Hamburg predict that such decision might not only induce the broadcasters to terminate their commitment, but also hit the Hamburg film industry. They have protested to the City Mayor and the senators in the hope that the measures will be reversed. Prior to this decision, FilmFoerderung Hamburg has had an annual budget of $8.7m (DM 19m) which is much less than those for other German subsidy funds such as Filmstiftung NRW $27.4m (DM 60m), FFF Bayern $27.4m (DM 60m), Filmboard Berlin-Brandenburg $14.9m (DM 32.5m) and MDM $11.4m (DM 25m).

Particular emphasis has been placed by the FilmFoerderung on supporting up-and-coming local filmmakers (such as Fatih Akin and Miguel Alexandre): animation projects and international co-productions (such as Sergei Bodrov’s Bear’s Kiss, Gurinder Chadha’s Bend It Like Beckham and Fridrik Thor Fridriksson’s Falcons).