Poet 092602 BBV

September 26, 2002
BBV Net
North-Rhine/Westphalia Promotes FilmLand
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Wuppertal (rpo). North-Rhine/Westphalia becomes ever more important as a filming location. Recent example: International co-production "The Poet" with Jüergen Prochnow, which filmed for a time in Wuppertal. The thriller is carried like numerous different by the film donation North-Rhine/Westphalia.

Laura Harring and Jüergen Prochnow in Wuppertal. Photo: AP

Bright film lights dip into an art nouveau stairway - here in few minutes an assassin will extinguish the life of a young photographer. When "The Poet" with Jüergen Prochnow (which is to be released in the autumn 2003), the audience will be convinced that the stairway belongs to a Viennese office building - nevertheless in reality it is the entrance hall of the old directorate of the German Federal Railways in Wuppertal.

"We found the suitable decor in Wuppertal and a suitable ambiance, which is not otherwise so easily to be gotten", describes producer Arno Ortmair. Besides Wuppertal is visually similar to Vienna because of many buildings of art nouveau. "North Rhine Westphalia is a good place for filming", acknowledged director Paul Hill". There are good crews and locations here. Also in Duesseldorf the film crew had become fuendig from the resident of Munich of Bavaria bavaria-Studios. Thus in the coming week scenes are filmed in the Duesseldorfer federal state parliament. "The North-Rhine/Westphalia Politzentrale is in the film as Viennese police main district to see", says producer Ortmair.

Jüergen Prochnow plays a police commissioner, who is on the heels of a professional killer (Dougray Scott) in "The poet". The scene filmed in the Wuppertaler directorate of the German Federal Railways is a code scene. "Here the killer shoots an important witness, whom I should actually protect", described Prochnow of the sequence. Prochnow, who rarely films in Germany, uses the end of workday for family visits. "From here I can visit my brother, who lives in Duesseldorf", explains the international well-known film star.

The film donation North-Rhine/Westphalia, which finances the project, had insisted on the fact that some scenes are filmed in North Rhine-Westphalia. "For each Euro donated to a film project the produktionsgesellschaft puts 1.50 Euro, must that in North Rhine-Westphalia output", says Tanja Guess of the film donation North-Rhine/Westphalia.

Besides "The Poet", presently filming is the German/Japanese British co-production "Stratosphere Girl" in Cologne. "Sometimes we have two to three international of film trick per week in the country", say the director/conductor of the film donation, Michael Schmid Osbach proudly. Directly several such in North-Rhine/Westphalia films come in the next time into the cinemas. Beside "Blue print", with Franka potent one, also "Solino", the new film of Fatih Akin.