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Berlin / Potsdam - Medienboard has supported eight projects with a total of 353,000 euros in its second round of funding for series formats in the sector of new media funding.

 Helge Jürgens, Managing Director, Medienboard New Media Funding: “The trend in the market for series for innovative material continues unabated! A great development is that, in addition to the high-end sector, more and more platforms and also channels are actively participating in the development and production of original series material. It's yet another positive signal for the storytellers active in the series region Berlin-Brandenburg!"

An overview of the projects:

Marwan and Moshe have overcome the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians and want to show there's another way. Together they open the “Two State Café” in Berlin. Through the lens of a German camera team, the fictional series (Sperl Film, 40,000 euros) is staged in the style of a humorous “mockumentary”. Stand-up comedians Ori Halvey (Israel) and Fabian Barahmeh (Palestine) along with the successful producer Dr. Gabriela Sperl (among others “NSU German History X”, Tannbach) aim to promote understanding and reconciliation.

The series "Hartes Pflaster" (“Tough Place”) (Storyhouse Productions, 100,000 euros), subsidised by the RTL2 cooperation, takes viewers on an emotional journey into the cosmos around the motorway where different fates and characters collide. The new series shows the multi-faceted world of the people who live and work each and every day at, on and beside the motorway. Parallel plots of action are used to accompany primarily women who assert themselves in a male-dominated business.

Don't try, buy! "Nitronauten" ("Nitronauts") (Wieduwilt Film & TV Production, 90,000 euros) accompanies a team of stunt women and men, pyrotechnicians, physicists, inventors, nerds and survival experts (the nitronauts) who pursue questions from various fields of knowledge in a practical way. The science and experiment-based show will be an "outdoor adventure" and aims to whet the appetite for knowledge. The series is being produced for RTL Nitro.

In the comedy web series "#PRICKS" (Lupa Film, 25,000 euros), two therapists, Gloria and Lin, meet a handful of #MeToo-bruised men hoping for a social comeback. They've lost everything thanks to their bad behaviour. In a secluded resort the men submit to the women, without knowing that the latter themselves have a corpse in the cupboard. “#PRICKS” wants to contribute a mercilessly honest and funny series to the ongoing #MeToo debate – to be broadcast on ZDF.

The Fitzke family from Berlin are up to their necks in debt. All they have left is the old excursion steamer "Spreeperle" ("Spree Pearl") (Friday Film, 35,000 euros). The series narrates how a quarrelling family constructs new hope from a piece of the past. Different customers come on board in each sequence of the series: Hamburg bachelors, Italian party tourists, Arab wedding parties, wine tasters from Prenzlauer Berg, a gay yoga club – it's about the old and the new Berlin.

In the thriller series "Phantomschmerz" ("Phantom Pain") (Imago TV, 28,000 euros), the protagonist Ann is inexplicably connected to a stranger: whilst sleeping she suffers the same injuries as this woman in captivity. Ann sets out in search of the perpetrator and her associate and becomes part of a mysterious criminal case. Sky Deutschland has already expressed interest in a joint development.

Paul and his mother are taken to a remote location in Brandenburg, Denbach – a worst-case scenario for 11-year-old Internet freak. Adventures, though, come thick and fast. The children's series "Alarmstufe Paul" ("Alert Phase Paul") (Android Dreams Film, 15,000 euros) narrates stories of the smell of warm wood, secrets, an (almost) closed-down fire station and adventurous places to meet in a contemporary fashion.

The documentary series "Geld" ("Money") (Endorphine Production, 20,000 euros) sheds light on the concept of payment: its history, current state and, above all, its future. The individual episodes also show more sustainable and secure money systems along with the visionaries behind these. The contextual but also geographic journey ranges from the skyscraper canyons of Singapore to the start-up backyards of Berlin, from London's financial district to the hills of Athens.

Find all funding results => here. 

The next submission date for series formats: 2 July 2019