G-HC > STUDIOS > STUDIO BABELSBERG (UFA) > EMELKA
Ufa Through the Years - Part 2: 1919-Present
Cinematic History in Germany, France, and the USA
Also see: Part 1 (1891-1918)
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1 January 1919
The Munich Film Art Co. (Emelka), in an effort to form a southern German counterbalance to Ufa, converts to a stock company.
June 1919
Producer and director Peter Ostermayr purchases 37 hectares of land in Geiselgasteig near Munich, and construction of a glass-enclosed film studio begins in September. The Treaty of Versailles (June 28) officially ends World War I.
18 September 1919
Opening ceremonies in Berlin for the Ufa-Palast am Zoo, a new luxury theater. The featured film, Ernst Lubitsch’s Madame Dubarry (Passion in the US) becomes a world-wide hit.
21 June 1920
Production begins on the first movie to be filmed at the new Emelka studios at Geiselgasteig near Munich.
1920
In the Johannisthal district of Berlin, the Jofa-Atelier (Jofa Studio) is established. Among the classic pictures made there (by Prana Film) is Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens, directed by Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and starring Max Schreck as Count Orlok (aka Dracula). Interior scenes were shot at Jofa, but many exterior scenes were shot (in 1921/22) on location on the island of Sylt and in Lübeck, Rostock and Wismar in northern Germany, and even at Orava Castle and other locations in what is today Slovakia.
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| The interior of the Jofa Studio in Berlin in 1920. PHOTO: Bundesarchiv |
4 March 1922
Premiere of Murnau’s Nosferatu. Bram Stoker’s widow later sues the Prana Film for copyright infringement. Despite a few alterations, the German film’s Count Orlok figure and the story itself are a blatant rip-off of Stoker’s 1897 novel Dracula. The lawsuit bankrupted Prana and made Nosferatu the only film it ever made. The court ordered all copies of Nosferatu destroyed, but a US copy survived, and the film is still highly regarded.
17 September 1922
First public performance in Germany of a sound movie using a film sound track (Tri-Ergon) in Berlin. However, it will take another five years before sound really catches on.
2 December 1922
Ernst Lubitsch leaves Germany to work in Hollywood.
May 1925
Alfred Hitchcock begins filming The Pleasure Garden in Italy and at the Emelka Studios (later Bavaria Film) in Munich. It will be the first complete film directed by the future master of suspense.
17 September 1925
First edition of the Ufa-Wochenschau weekly newsreel, the result of the merger of the Decla and Messter newsreels.
24 September 1925
The remodeled Ufa-Palast am Zoo opens in Berlin with 2,165 seats.
October 1929
On October 28 ("Black Monday") the Dow Jones Industrial Average loses 13 percent of its value. The next day it drops another 12 percent. It is the start of the Great Depression and world-wide financial problems.
4 November 1929
Filming begins for Der blaue Engel (The Blue Angel) with Marlene Dietrich and Emil Jannings at Ufa’s new sound studios in Babelsberg near Berlin. Two versions are made: English and German. For a while, most sound films will be filmed in multi-language versions, an expensive process that later gives way to dubbing or subtitles.
2 April 1930
On the day after the German premiere of Der blaue Engel Marlene Dietrich leaves for Hollywood.
March 1931
Charlie Chaplin visits Berlin, causing such a commotion he is forced to cut his stay short.
28 March 1933
Reichsminister for Propaganda Josef Goebbels makes a speech to film industry representatives at the Hotel Kaiserhof in Berlin in which he says: “Art is free. However, it must conform to certain norms.” Two days later he bans Fritz Lang’s Das Testament des Dr. Mabuse as a danger to public order and safety. Lang leaves Germany that summer, later to end up in Hollywood.
Summer 1936
The XI Olympic games take place in Berlin. Jesse Owens wins a Gold Medal while Leni Riefenstahl films it all.
November 1936
A Goebbels decree forbids any film criticism in newspapers or on the radio. But most respected German film critics are already in exile.
1937
The German Reich government now secretly owns 72 percent of the shares of Ufa.
1942
All German film production is now incorporated in a state-controlled Ufa, which is dubbed “Ufi” to distinguish it from the former Ufa. There are no longer any privately-owned film production companies in Germany.
1943
Ufa marks its 25th anniversary (on 17 December 1942) with the production of the Agfacolor spectacular Baron Münchhausen (1943). Directed by Josef von Baky and starring Hans Albers and Brigitte Horney, Münchhausen was also intended as Germany’s answer to Gone With the Wind. It wasn’t even close. (Remade by director Terry Gilliam as The Adventures of Baron Münchhausen in 1989.)
1946-1948
Ufa has been disbanded, but the first post-war film productions in Germany (both east and west) are almost exclusively by former Ufa film people. In 1946, the Soviets allow the establishment of DEFA (Deutsche Film-AG) at the old Ufa facilities in Babelsberg (Althoff Studio) for the resumption of East German film production in 1948.
1952
The DEFA studios in Babelsberg become state-owned (VEB, Volkseigener Betrieb), part of the communist East German economic system.
1989
The Berlin Wall comes down in November. East and West Germany will soon be reunited, and East German concerns like DEFA will be privatized.
1992
The French concern Vivendi buys the Babelsberg studios, intending to make it an important European film center.
2000
The international production Enemy at the Gates becomes the most expensive film to be made at Babelsberg.
2001
More feature film productions: The Pianist, Taking Sides, and Joe and Max. In April, Henning Molfenter, formerly with New Line Cinema and Cinehaus in New York, takes over as head of the studio’s Production Division, specializing in international productions like The Pianist.
2002
Babelsberg Motion Pictures GmbH is now part of Vivendi Universal.
2003
Studio Babelsberg is chosen as a primary production site for the Jackie Chan film Around the World in 80 Days. Parts of Berlin stand in for Paris and other locations. The adjacent Filmpark Babelsberg is split off from the studio as a separate entity owned by Friedhelm Schatz. Vivendi sells all of its interests in the amusement park division. The film studio division handles almost 80 cinema and television productions worth about 20 million euros.
2004
Babelsberg remains popular for English-language film productions. Paul Greengrass directs The Bourne Supremacy in Babelsberg and on location in nearby Berlin. Kevin Spacey also chooses Babelsberg for his production of Beyond the Sea. The third Mission Impossible film (with Tom Cruise) is filmed in part at Babelsberg and in Berlin. In July Vivendi sells all of its interests in the Babelsberg studio to two investors for the symbolic price of one euro. The Michael Moore documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 was dubbed in Babelsberg for its German theatrical release.
2007
Babelsberg has one of its best years financially, with several successful Hollywood/international film productions, including Valkyrie with Tom Cruise, The International with Clive Owen, and The Reader with Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes.
March 2010
Christoph Waltz receives an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, which was filmed at Studio Babelsberg. The film received a total of eight Academy Award nominations, a record for any German production. Waltz also received the Best Actor in a Supporting Role award for Inglourious Basterds at the 67th Golden Globe Awards in Los Angeles.
2010
Studio Babelsberg earns a profit with a total of five international productions, including Roland Emmerich’s Anonymous and The Three Musketeers in 3D. According to a September 2011 press release, 2011 was not expected to bring a profit.
2012
Happy Birthday! On February 12, Studio Babelsberg will celebrate its 100th birthday. Berlin International Film Festival director Dieter Kosslick will award the Berlinale Camera trophy to Studio Babelsberg during ceremonies in the Marlene Dietrich Halle. A series of 10 classic Babelsberg films will round out observances during the 62nd Berlinale in February.
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Sources: Studio Babelsberg website; Chronicle of the Cinema, Robyn Karney, Ed., Dorling, Kindersley, New York, 1995; Geschichte des deutschen Films, W. Jacobsen, A. Kaes and H. Prinzler, editors. J.B. Metzler, Stuttgart, 1993; The Great German Films by Frederick W. Ott. Citadel, Secaucus, 1986; The UFA Story: A History of Germany's Greatest Film Company 1918-1945 by Klaus Kreimeier.
