Bavaria Film


Bavaria Film in Munich, Germany is one of Europe's largest film production companies, with some 30 subsidiaries.

History

The studios were founded in 1919, when Munich-raised film producer Peter Ostermayr converted the private film company he had founded in 1907, Münchener Lichtspielkunst GmbH, to the public company Münchener Lichtspielkunst AG, and acquired a large area for the studios in Geiselgasteig, a district of Munich's southern suburb Grünwald. The company was a direct competitor to UFA, which had begun operations in Berlin in 1917, and quickly absorbed several other film industry companies in the region. In 1930 investor Wilhelm Kraus and a consortium of banks bought a major shareholding in the company, and on 21 September 1932 the group took control and renamed it Bavaria Film AG. In 1938 the Bavaria Film was nationalised but privatised again in 1956.

Films shot at Bavaria Film

made his first film, The Pleasure Garden, in Geiselgasteig in 1925. In 1934 Peer Gynt was made there. The studios have been used by numerous directors, including Elia Kazan, Max Ophüls, Stanley Kubrick, Richard Fleischer, John Huston, Robert Siodmak, Billy Wilder, John Sturges, Robert Wise, Orson Welles, Jerzy Skolimowski, Mel Stuart, Bob Fosse, Wim Wenders, Ingmar Bergman, Robert Aldrich, Wolfgang Petersen, Claude Chabrol, and Oliver Stone.
The Studios in Geiselgasteig are the reason why Munich has become a site of crime in TV fiction, with detectives like Derrick, The Old Fox, and Der Kommissar investigating. Also Monty Python worked in Geiselgasteig in 1971 and 1972 for Monty Python's Fliegender Zirkus, the specials for German and Austrian television.
The Bavaria Film GmbH is a film production company known for television films such as Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Berlin Alexanderplatz and Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot, both also shown theatrically.
Also other production companies have produced films in the Bavaria studios, including Constantin Film, for example for Petersen's The Neverending Story, Oliver Hirschbiegel's Downfall and Tom Tykwer's .

Bavaria Filmstadt

The Filmstadt is an attraction offered for tourists. Visitors on tour see sets and props from The Neverending Story, Das Boot, Marienhof, and others.