WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN | Overview

Since we are fans of the German movie "Bang Boom Bang" (which won the Bayerischer Filmpreis among others), we have always dreamed of making a movie with actor and Grimme award winner Oliver Korittke ("Mann tut was Mann kann," "Die Musterknaben").

With the help of a mutual friend of ours, we met with Oliver Korittke and showed him our screenplay. He then called back that same night and greeted us with the words, "guys, the DJ in your screenplay is just like me!"

Only a few days later, we outlined our movie project together with actor and multiple award winner Frederick Lau ("Die Welle," "Neue Vahr Süd," Deutscher Filmpreis, Deutscher Comedypreis, Grimme-Preis) at the Echo award ceremony. Frederick was also very enthusiastic about the movie immediately.

He then suggested charismatic actor Kida Ramadan ("Kebab Connection," "Knallhart," "Tatort"), who was very eager to play in a comedy instead of playing yet another villain.

Kida, in turn, suggested Barnaby Metschurat ("Solino" by Fatih Akin, "Anatomie 2," Bayerischer Filmpreis), who is a superb actor and a native of Berlin-Kreuzberg (where we filmed most of our movie). 

The Actors

Once we had come up with this wild bunch, we knew that we needed an equally likeable actress for the female lead. Still, we did not find our favorite actress for this role until Ellenie Salvo Gonzalez (who starred in "Vollidiot", a movie grossing five million euros in German cinemas, together with Oliver Pocher) walked through the door. "She is natural, likeable, and charismatic. It is a pleasure to work with this woman."

As we have been planning, financing, implementing, and publishing movie projects for many years, we soon found investors in our own network. After two years of hard work with a professional team of 80 people, the movie has been edited completely and is almost ready for its theatrical launch in Germany.

During filming with an experienced team led by award-winning cinematographer Raphael Beinder (winner of Deutscher Kamerapreis 2008), we created an appropriate and modern setting for our star ensemble. Parts of the project were unconventional, but this fact only led to more fun during filming and can easily be noticed in the entire movie. In fact, our team spirit was far better than during the average German movie project. Both the renowned actors and the other team members did not charge their usual salaries for WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN because they were immediately convinced of our common movie project and still are today.

We were able to come up with the production budget using our own capital and investments by several friends and long-term business partners. Both we producers and our network financed the movie using our private funds because we are all convinced that our movie will be successful. Ultimately, everyone will profit.

Thus, the entire film project has been supported by a growing crowd of actors, team members, and investors from the very beginning. 

Over the last few years, we producers subordinated everything else to our vision of a successful movie and oriented our entire life around this movie. Now, the movie has been completely filmed and edited. Thus, at this point, we have already done the lion's share of the work before the movie's theatrical release. The next steps will be digital image and sound editing (post-production) and marketing. This is why we need you, the crowd!

The theatrical release of our movie is scheduled for early 2016

In order to make our vision come true together with the crowd, we will enable Companists to invest in a movie for the first time. Our investment model includes the following aspects:

• If a total of 1 million euros is invested, the community of Companists will receive €1 per ticket sold for the first one million tickets and €0.50 per ticket sold for every additional ticket.

• After the theatrical release, the movie will be made available on Blu-ray/DVD, via video on demand, and on pay TV and free TV. The community of Companists will then receive a 10 % share in the proceeds.

The Investment Model

"Direct, honest, blunt, funny, personal, naive, perhaps even a bit eye-opening" – Barnaby Metschurat

The authentic urban comedy WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN shows the ongoing conflict resulting from attraction between women and men with all its misunderstandings and emotions. A group of friends from the trendy Kreuzberg neighborhood in Berlin is struggling with the various challenges of growing up. In doing so, they do not mince their words. But it is precisely this direct everyday language that has led to a romantic urban comedy for a large audience.

Excerpt from Filming

The public has already become aware of the female perspective through "Sex and the City" and "Traumfrauen:" Sometimes, women talk about men in a romantic way, and at other times, they talk about men in a rather blunt way. Now, however, the public will find out the naked truth about how men talk about women (as the movie's German title WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN indicates).

Successful movies like "Fack ju, Göhte" (7.5 million viewers) prove there is huge demand for movies with direct language. This is especially true for young moviegoers in Germany. 

WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN reflects the zeitgeist of a time in which nobody really wants to or is able to grow up. The plot is set in Kreuzberg, the trendy Berlin hot spot that is on everyone's lips in Germany and abroad and thus provides the ideal setting for a modern German urban comedy.

 Excerpt #2 from Filming

Through "WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN," we want to entertain people in the most authentic way possible. The result is 90 minutes of pure entertainment.

Feature films delight millions of people and generate approximately 1 billion euros in annual revenues in German cinemas. Comedies are among the greatest box office hits.

The main target group of our movie consists of people between 16 and 49, which represent the largest proportion of moviegoers. An urban comedy offers great potential for identification, and female viewers in particular may now experience how men really talk about women. The majority of moviegoers are women,* who also significantly influence movie choices.    

German movies had a market share of 26.7 percent (i.e., 32.1 million viewers) in the 121.7 million German moviegoers in 2014 and thus generated approximately 250 million euros in revenue. German movies not only conquer the hearts of moviegoers, but they have also become economically important.

Movie production may be a profitable activity for producers and investors, for movies generate revenues in various ways during their exploitation chain (ranging from exploitation in cinemas to the sale of free TV rights). 

Indeed, the theatrical release, which immediately generates revenues through ticket sales, is followed by exploitation on the home entertainment market. On this market, movies generate additional revenues through Blu-ray and DVD sales, video on demand, and pay TV. Just like the music streaming market, the streaming market for movies is growing particularly fast.

The home entertainment market and the cinema market combined generated constant revenues of over 2.5 billion euros in the last five years alone.

Development of Revenues on the Cinema and Home Entertainment Market

Through the sale of TV rights to free TV stations, the movie keeps generating revenues even several years after its theatrical release. Experience has shown that TV broadcasts may cause sales on the home entertainment market to increase once again. 

Development of a movie with years

Our movie WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN positions itself precisely within the genre that has the greatest market potential in Germany.

Using our sense of popular movie subjects, we have already supervised several successful movies from the initial idea to the market launch. These include the multi-annual documentary project "Rap City Berlin" (which featured Sido, Kool Savas, and Marteria among others and reached number 1 of the music DVD charts), selling more copies than necessary for gold status, and the internationally renowned graffiti art documentary "Unlike U", which may currently be watched on the "Open Doku" channel of German online magazine Spiegel Online.

Moreover, our producer Henrik Regel played a major role in developing the career of German rap artist Prinz Pi between 1998 and 2008, and he exploited the works produced during this period through his own music label. These works include numerous albums and DVD projects.

Henrik Regel - Producer / Managing Director

I celebrated my 33rd birthday with a few friends at the Berlin bar "Muschi Obermaier." This bar was opened by my older brother Carsten more than eight years ago, so my buddies and I don't pay too much for our drinks there. At midnight, Carsten presented me with a hardcover screenplay titled "Wie Männer über Frauen reden" (how men talk about women). He smiled at me and said, "now you can finally read what I have to experience here every night." Once I was halfway sober again the next day, I read the screenplay and thought it was so entertaining that I was full of beans and gave it to my partner Björn. As always, Björn was very matter-of-fact about the whole thing, but he assured me that he would read the screenplay soon.

Björn Birg - Producer / Managing Director

I was sitting in my office one day when a very excited Henrik rushed in and put a screenplay on my desk. "This thing will keep us excited for the next few years!" he told me. And since Henrik had proven many times that he has a good sense of business, I became interested. Thus, I took the screenplay home and read it twice. A few days later, I told Henrik, "this will become our first feature film!"

Carsten Regel - Screenwriter

When a telephone call woke me up one day, I wasn't exactly thrilled. But it was Henrik who was calling me. He wanted to invite me to a spontaneous breakfast at Café Einstein in Berlin. I thought, "cool, he probably wants to thank me for the many drinks I bought him over the years." But he was sitting there with Björn, and my screenplay was lying on the table. After a short welcome, the two of them soon got down to business: "Dear brother, please don't show this baby to anybody else. WE are going to make this movie!"

Usually, funding a movie in Germany means applying for public grants in front of boards, which is very time-consuming. As entrepreneurs, we have intentionally avoided this very bureaucratic type of financing that largely depends on the legal framework. As our screenplay and our approach caused investors and actors to be very enthusiastic, we did not want this enthusiasm to get lost because of complicated application procedures.

Instead, we came up with our own budget for the production of a high-quality movie. This budget consists of the private capital of the producers, their friends, and their business partners. Our actors were immediately thrilled because WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN provided them with an opportunity to convey an authentic lifestyle, which is why they agreed to charge less than their usual salaries to make this movie possible.

Focusing on our filmic concept and on our individual business model, we succeeded in attracting Camelot Broadcast Service (which provides, for instance, series, documentaries, music videos, movies, TV commercials, and internet streaming portals with professional equipment for filming) and Lichthaus Berlin (which provides TV series and major German talk shows such as "Anne Will" and "Menschen bei Maischberger" with high-end lighting equipment) to the project. Consequently, we secured first-rate technological equipment at very low rates.

Moreover, our friends at the Buff Connection stunt company (e.g., "Grand Budapest Hotel," "Monuments Men," "Cloud Atlas," "Kokowääh 2," "Zweiohrküken," "Keinohrhasen") provided us with camera dollies and special equipment. Ultimately, our team consisted of 80 excellent people from various departments (production, direction, cinematography, lighting, sound, production design, costume design, make-up, catering) who successfully filmed the movie with us. 

Together with our network, we have thus already completed the most risky part of the project (screenwriting, budgeting, pre-production, filming) and are now proud to hold a completely edited version of our movie WIE MÄNNER ÜBER FRAUEN REDEN in our hands.

We are now looking forward to integrating the Companists into our crowd and to continuing our work using the crowd model we have been using since the beginning. 

Normally, a film production company submits its screenplay to film distributors, TV stations, and public boards in order to raise the funds necessary to make the movie. When these institutions provide the requested budget, producers lose most of their influence over their own project. In fact, producers even have to waive their exploitation rights in advance because marketing and distribution of the movie are financed by the distributor.

We, on the other hand, have opted for an independent type of financing to keep control over our movie. This is why we, the producers, still own 100 percent of the rights to our movie.      

Comme l'a montré l'exemple du film à succès allemand « Stromberg – Der Film », une campagne d'investissement participatif réussie peut booster le succès d'un film.

Grâce à l'investissement participatif, « Stromberg – Der Film » a été très présent dans les médias, ce qui a significativement augmenté la notoriété du film.

Et cette notoriété accrue s'est révélée payante pour les investisseurs participatifs du film. Ainsi, ils ont touché un rendement de 17 % après le premier décompte intermédiaire.

Our core team consists of the two producers Björn Birg and Henrik Regel.

The production manager, Björn supervises the organizational and commercial aspects of the movie project. Henrik, the creative director, is in charge of the creative and visionary aspects of the project.

We have launched a campaign on Companisto because we want to stick to the underlying crowd principle of our project in order to remain independent. 

We plan to use the Companists' investment for

• post-production (image and sound editing),
• the soundtrack,
• and the marketing campaign for our movie.

Post-production is so important because the "look and feel" of a movie is a decisive factor in the audience's perception of the movie.

For purposes of color grading (color correction), the technology team of Optical Art will provide us with its grading suite and an experienced colorist. Consequently, we will be able to use the highest quality available in digital image processing for the footage, which has been filmed using the Arri Alexa camera.

Picture of Grading Suite

Of course, the soundtrack we select will have significant influence on the movie's success. Since we have an excellent network in both the major and the independent music industry, we will integrate exciting artists into our project and ensure that our movie will be accompanied by the perfect urban soundtrack.

In terms of sound editing and final mixing, we will be supported by creative sound designers and sound engineers of postperfect Vision & Sound. During the final mixing and mastering process at the large theatrical mixing stage, these sound editors will ensure the perfect interplay of images and sound in our movie.

At the launch of the marketing campaign, we will also start the countdown to the theatrical release. During this countdown phase, our network will work to our advantage. The goal of our marketing campaign is to have raised maximum awareness by the time of the premiere. In order to do so, we will have to make people notice the movie and start our marketing activities as early as four to six months before the theatrical release.

The theatrical release of our movie is scheduled for early 2016.