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The Berlinale and popular German Locations for Film-Producers

From 5 to 15 February 2015, the 65th International Film Festival was hosted in Berlin, Germany. The "Berlinale" is a great cultural event, and one of the most important ones for the international film industry. This year, more than 300,000 tickets were sold, and approximately 20,000 professional visitors from 124 countries participated - including around 3,700 journalists. The Berlinale combines art, glamour, parties and business. It is not inappropriate then, that the location for this event is Berlin, a buzzing cosmopolitan cultural hub that never ceases to attract artists, celebrities and visitors from around the world, and which is characterised by a diverse cultural scene, a critical public and an audience of film-lovers. You can read all about the 65th Berlinale on its home-page.

But while you may have heard of the Berlinale, did you know that Germany also boasts a number of locations, which are increasingly popular with film-makers? Thus there is "Görliwood" (the brand name used by the Eastern-German town Görlitz on the river Neisse), where Hollywood studios increasingly like to film. The unique old town has buildings ranging in architectural styles from Gothic and Renaissance to Baroque and art nouveau, wherefore it is excellently suited to pose as miscellaneous metropolises from different historical eras. Numerous scenes from Wes Anderson's "The Grand Budapest Hotel", which has been nominated for nine Oscars, were shot in Görlitz.

If this has surprised you, we recommend that, on your next visit to Germany, you also take a look at Glienicke Bridge in Berlin / Potsdam, which forms the backdrop for the spy thriller "St. James Place", or the well-known locations in Hamburg (from the landing stages at the port to the warehouse district, the Reeperbahn and the Atlantic, the prestigious luxury hotel on the river Alster) that feature in the anti-terror thriller "A Most Wanted Man". Steven Spielberg shot parts of "St. James Place" in Berlin with Oscar prize winner Tom Hanks at the end of 2014, and the above photo was taken when German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the set.

Gundo Haacke

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