Time capsule movie studio’s 100 years old

The world’s oldest major film studio celebrates its 100th birthday tomorrow with Hollywood stars and European players ready to toast the mythic Studio Babelsberg outside Berlin.

It survived the Nazis and the communists and is now capitalising on its legendary status among cinema history buffs like Quentin Tarantino to beat back tough competition from the likes of London, Prague and Budapest.

Marlene Dietrich smouldered on its sound stages, science-fiction trailblazer Metropolis took off from Babelsberg in 1926 and Alfred Hitchcock learned the ropes here as a fresh-faced assistant director.

“All the Hollywood people say ‘What a history, it’s an honour to work here’, whether it’s Tom Hanks or Mr Tarantino, who of course knew every film that was ever made here,” Eike Wolf, Babelsberg’s head of publicity, said ahead of the centennial jubilee tomorrow.

Mr Hanks has just wrapped up filming Cloud Atlas, which, with a budget of around €76 million, its producers have called the most expensive German-produced film of all time.

On a walk across the lot, a visitor can struggle to picture Ms Dietrich as just another blonde in the crowd of young actresses who turned out for the casting call of The Blue Angel which would rocket her to immortality. “In today’s Marlene Dietrich Studio, there are corridors with wooden floors that Marlene actually walked on,” studio chief executive officer Charlie Woebcken said. “We left them as-is to maintain that historical flair.”

The golden age promptly ended as Nazi propaganda chief Joseph Goebbels took the reins under the Third Reich. Babelsberg became a movie factory, churning out light entertainment and vile anti-Semitic propaganda.

After the war, the communists also recognised the power of cinema to influence the masses, and the then-DEFA Studios were dubbed “Honnywood” for long-time East German leader Erich Honecker. After the Berlin Wall fell, Babelsberg went through another few incarnations before mounting a spectacular comeback in 2004 under Mr Woebcken and his partner Christoph Fisser.

Babelsberg’s facilities stretch across 25,000 square metres. More than 3,000 films have been made here, in recent years thanks in part to German state subsidies.

The costume department, whose Lisy Christl was just nominated for an Oscar for her work on Roland Emmerich’s Shakespeare drama Anonymous, is a vast treasure trove of period get-up.

Row upon row of replica Nazi stormtrooper uniforms, suits of armour, glittering evening gowns, hoop skirts and neckties clustered by decade and colour await the next production.