BERLIN (dpa) – Following nine successful years as director of the NRW Foundation, North-Rhine Westphalia state’s film support organization, Dieter Kosslick has taken over the management of Berlin’s International Film Festival, succeeding its long-time chief Moritz de Hadeln.
Kosslick, whose management put the industrial state on the map as a major force in Germany’s film industry, appears highly qualified for a problematical but also rewarding job.
He will be responsible for the festival’s many categories, including selection of the 24 movies in the main event Competition, for Panorama in which international films are aired, often from new directors, for the Retrospective which screens films from the world’s greatest filmmakers in the past, and for the European film market, an important business sideline.
Film journalist Christoph Terhechte has been tabbed to take over the International Forum for Young Films from Ulrich Gregor, who unlike the reluctant de Hadeln, has retired voluntarily. But the ebullient Kosslick, who celebrated with his NRW staffers the foundation’s tenth anniversary on April 30 before heading for the Berlinale offices, has a hard act to follow.
The de Hadeln reign began under a cloud in its first year, 1980, after the East Bloc states pulled out of the festival in a mass protest against Americaan director Michael Cinimo’s controversial Vietnam war picture, “The Deer Hunter”.
The Swiss-born de Hadeln promptly showed his diplomatic abilities by luring back the East Europeans and at the same time, appeasing Hollywood. When de Hadeln directed his first Berlinale, about 200 films were shown at 12 screens, rising to more than 300 at the end of his tenure when 17 screen units were used.
During this past festival, about 160,000 tickets were sold to the public, triple the number of admissions as when he started. About 14,000 filmmakers, movie company reps, critics and journalists were accredited, four times as many as when he began.
The festival’s popularity under de Hadeln and Ulrich Gregor was evident, and was given new impetus with the fall of the notorious Berlin Wall in late 1989 and with the moving of the festival to the historic Potsdam Platz in the heart of the capital.
One of Kosslick’s first resolves as the Berlinale’s new chief is to implement a “greater engagement for the German film”, as he told the Berlin Morganpost newspaper.
During de Hadeln’s 20 years at the helm, he often came under criticism for neglecting German productions in the Competition, even though in the 1990s most of made-in-Germany movies were in light entertainment categories hardly fit for festival entries.
Kosslick also aims to maintain his long-standing good relations with Germany’s film industry. “I was a part of the German film scene for 20 years, and and won’t desert my ‘family’ just because I am a festival director.”
He also intends to step up cooperation between the International Film Forum and the Competition. He has only seven months to restructure the fest, and at the same time, line up an international mixture of films from independent European and American producers, introduce more films from German companies, and persuade glamorous movie stars to brave the Berlin winter for personal appearances.
Meanwhile, Moritz and Ericka de Hadlen have founded an International Film Consulting and Event Management Film, reportedly to focus on Asian films, a festival strong point under the outgoing director.
For his part Gregor remains in the Forum’s selection committee and continues to head the “Friends of the German Kinemathek” film archives. The 52 year-old Kosslick began his film executive’s career after being named manager of Hamburg’s cultural film promotion department in 1983.
In 1988, he became director of the Hamburg Film Fund, an industry support organization designed to help strengthen Hamburg as a medium centre. And as co-founder of the European Distribution Office EFDO, he gained experience in the E.U.’s film promotion programme for distribution and sales of movies for theatrical release.
His reputation grew enormously after he took over the NRW Foundation in Dusseldorf in 1992, introducing valuable structural changes to nascent film subsidy organization.
As manager of the Foundation Kosslick succeeded in persuading a number of film production companies to locate in the Rhine and Ruhr areas and with them, developing a reputation as a reliable partner.
While lacking de Hadeln’s contacts with the American major film companies, Kosslick enjoys excellent relations with both the German and European film industries via his stint at the NRW. His appointment was supported by the then Minister of State for Culture, Michael Naumann, who described Kosslick as “a highly competent man, who can bring a fresh wind to the Berlinale”.
