I would only have received the project if I had submitted a contract with a broadcaster or a cinema distributor (from the so-called white list issued by the film promotion agencies).

In both cases, distribution of the DVD would have been possible only after a period of at least one year or more. I didn’t mean to. The film should be available to everyone immediately after completion.

Now, of course, it’s nice to have a movie on TV. Unfortunately, the reality is that there is no room for a documentary film of the planned length (120 minutes), only on theme nights and then only late evenings during the week. After that, the film will be in the media library for one to two weeks. In the meantime, resourceful hackers are able to copy movies from the media library. Or they’ll record him right on the air. The film ends up on the net and is then available free of charge – with the station’s logo. The broadcasters do nothing about it, because it is advertising for them and the film is paid in their eyes. Even if the broadcasters have large legal departments that would find it easy to take action against such theft, they leave it to the filmmaker to take care of the matter. No filmmaker can afford that.

For the rights to broadcast the film and to place it in the media library, a broadcaster contributes to the above-mentioned production costs of around €30,000. After that, I would never be able to pay my team. Like everyone else, my team and I want to be paid for our work, even if it were only symbolic, in terms of the work actually done.

For this reason, I will distribute the film in the cinema and via DVD and streaming (VoD) myself.

A contract with a movie distributor would have similar consequences. Here, too, DVD sales and streaming would be blocked.

If you want to go deeper into the subject, you can read more about it on the website of my first joint movie:

→ www. tisch-no6. de

Perhaps a three– or four-part version is made for a station, provided that a station wants the subject, and without blocking the cinema coverage.

If you want to get a deeper insight into media policy regarding documentary films, I recommend this article:

→ http://www. medienpolitik. net/2015/12/filmpolitikdokumentarfilme-sind-oft-nur-luckenfuller/