Florian David Fitz: Not LA, Potsdam maybe.

German movie Industry might be new to some of you. Maybe your first contact with it was via Florian. Others via some international successeful Geman movie such as Run Lola Run, Good Bye Lenin (my favorite), Downfall. Or, you might still have known the German actors, before the movies itself, from international productions, Til (In Enemy Hands), Daniel (Ladies in Lavender), David Kross (The Reader), Matthias Schweighöfer (The Red Baron), August Diehl (Salt), Diane Kruger (Troy). However, Germany has a long tradtion already in this business. In Germany is located one of oldest studios in the world, Studio Babelsberg. Next year will be its centenary, nowadays internatonal coproduction is the main goal for the company. Some of then were Oscar contenders and big blockbusters, Inglorious Basterds (where you can see most of the actors mentioned in here in action) and Valkyrie, with Tom Cruise, are examples. The "Three Musketeers" is one of its latest work, Til and Austriac Oscar winning Christoph Waltz are on the cast. Florian, in one of the many interviews he gave during Männerherzen 2 promotion, said he doesn't want to go to LA to make films. The interviewer asked him if now with all the awards he got and all the success that came along, LA wouldn't be next. That was Florian's answer, he still says that great movies can be done in Germany, he wants to do more good films on his own country, on his own language. This is a respectable attitute I would say, but why not then Babelsberg prejects? International fans wouldn't complain, more Florian outside Germany without him leaving his homeland sounds good to me.

First time I heard about the studio I was inside the S-bahn on my way to Berlin, coming from Potsdam. Babelsberg is situated in Potsdam, Berlin surrounds, my home in Germany. My friend who also took me to see an exhibition about Chaplin, still in Potsdam, told me about the cinema tradition of the city and the studio. Potsdam has its name on history, if you know a bit of history you probably have heard about the city. It's a beatiful city full of Parks and peace. It's well known for its scientifc background, Albert Einstein Science Park, and the Prussian casttles, like Sanssouci. By the way, the palace gardens were my back yard. I lived right beside the main entrance. It's a beautiful place, I think the gardens are even bigger than Versailles, the University of Potsdam is in one of the other castleslocated in the park. Whenever you go for a visit to Berlin, make sure to include Potsdam and the Studio Babelsberg, if you are a hard fan of cinema. Speaking of it, if you want to go to a cinema in Germany, here is a tip, most of the cinemas have the movies translated to German, but few shows the original version. It's important, cause if you are just a beginer in German and go watch Shakespeare, like I did, might be a not so pleasure experience and Midsummer night's dream becomes a nightmare. And here is another tip, don't leave Potsdam without eating apfeltasche in any Bäckerei! yummy! Ops, if you are wondering how I ended up in Potsdam, I was a trainee at the Deutsches Institut für Ernährungsforschung (Dife). Wow, it's always funny to hear myself saying that, translation: German Institute of Human Nutrition.

Link for Florian's original interview here and here is the translation. And if you are interested in visiting the Studio, there are tours for tourists. Check here.