Books at Berlinale
Katharina Werdnik
T +49 (0) 69 2102-212
M +49 (0) 172-610 34 85
werdnik@book-fair.com
Books at Berlinale
Love story on the red carpet: book meets film
Frankfurt Book Fair fosters exchange between film and publishing industries
Film adaptations of literature are as old as the medium of film itself. It was only two years after the first ever public showing of a film that the forefathers of cinematography, the Lumière brothers, produced a film based on scenes from Goethe’s Faust. In the search for new material, the pioneers of film were already turning to the fund of sources in theatre and literature. To this day, nothing has changed.
Book Fair as a treasure trove: Forum Film & TV
Experts on the industry estimate that a third of international film productions are based on literary originals. The novel remains the most frequent literary source for films – the front-runner is “The Count of Monte Cristo” by Alexandre Dumas. Other genres also provide material for the dream factory.
Adaptations have been based on novellas such as Arthur Schnitzler’s “Traumnovelle” (“Rhapsody: A Dream Novel”) for “Eyes Wide Shut” by Stanley Kubrick (1999) and even historical non-fiction in the case of “Der Untergang” (2004) – “Downfall” – by Bernd Eichinger. Scouts, agents and producers have always sought inspiration at book fairs and festivals.
2003 the Frankfurt Book Fair launched a separate area for Film & TV, which was the first organised platform for cooperation between the two industries. In the Forum Film & TV publishing companies and institutions introduce themselves on what is now an area of 400 square metres. Producers, agents and scouts from all over the world came here in 2008, hoping to draw on potential film material, pick up information in workshops and discussions, and make contacts. Within the space of five years, the Forum Film & TV has become a meeting place virtually without equal worldwide: nowhere else is there the opportunity for such wide-ranging exchange between the film and publishing industries.
Profitable partnership
The Film Rights Centre is the key feature in the Forum Film & TV. It is all about business here. The medium of film is an important economic factor. In Germany alone, 12,180 companies in the film and TV industry produced a total sales volume of more than 23 billion euros. Thanks to cross-selling and cross-marketing, the publishing industry has long since profited not just from the sale of rights, but from the box-office success of a film adaptation. The showings in cinemas of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (2001-2003), for example, gifted publishers Klett-Cotta-Verlag more than a tenfold increase in sales figures in 2001 alone. Beyond that, with the start of the first part (2001), 100,000 film books and books for the film were sold in November and December alone. Another example is “The Kite Runner” by Khaled Hosseini. Although first published in 2004, coinciding with the start of the film, the novel found its way back to No. 1 on German fiction bestseller lists. It is scarcely possible to imagine how the planned spring/summer 2008 start in cinemas of Cornelia Funke’s “Tintenherz” (“Inkheart”) will impact on what are already staggering sales figures.
The business behind the scenes: partnership with the Berlinale
The Frankfurt Book Fair has been working closely with the International Film Festival in Berlin since 2004. The aim of this partnership is to intensify dialogue between those working in the worlds of literature and film and in this way to boost the synergies in the long term. To this end, the Frankfurt Book Fair takes part at the Berlin Film Festival with a collective stand and a wide-ranging professional programme, whilst the Berlinale is present in the Forum Film & TV at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October.
This year, 35 publishing companies from eleven countries are taking part on the Frankfurt Book Fair’s collective stand in the European Film Market at the Berlinale. The “Breakfast & Books” event brings together publishing companies and international producers for pitchings. Ten selected pieces of literature are introduced here in summary form and traded on the spot. They will include “Das Wochenende” (“Homecoming”), the latest novel by Bernhard Schlink whose international bestseller “Der Vorleser” (“The Reader”) is currently being filmed with Kate Winslet in the lead role.
From classics and crime fiction to non-fiction and how-to manuals: again and again in the cinema, we come across “old friends” from books. That will continue to be the case in future. Because good books are nothing but cinema in the mind and every film is based on a book. Or at least on a script.
Print
Send the page
Top
Back
