Profile

Producer Stefan Arndt and directors Wolfgang Becker, Dani Levy, and Tom Tykwer founded the production company X Filme Creative Pool in 1994 to join forces and create a production platform for a wide variety of ideas. They took their cue from United Artists with the aim of producing sophisticated (audience-friendly) films – or, as Variety put it: “intelligent films that people want to see.”

These films won numerous awards and were successful in local cinemas and abroad, proving the theory that it is possible to produce German films that are both sophisticated and accessible to an international audience. Big box office and critical successes such as Tykwer’s RUN LOLA RUN, Levy’s GO FOR ZUCKER, and Becker’s GOOD BYE, LENIN! paved the way for international co-productions such as Michael Haneke’s THE WHITE RIBBON (which won the PALME D’OR and the GOLDEN GLOBE, among others), AMOUR (awarded the PALME D’OR, a GOLDEN GLOBE, and an OSCAR), followed by CLOUD ATLAS, directed by Tykwer and the Wachowskis (at the time the most expensive independently financed European film), which proved that you don’t have to go to Hollywood to produce remarkable international feature films.

In recent years, X Filme has produced or co-produced several outstanding series, including the EMMY and GOLDEN GLOBE award-winning series THE QUEEN’S GAMBIT and BABYLON BERLIN (winner of the first EUROPEAN FILM AWARD for a TV series). Other series projects include OTHER PEOPLE’S MONEY and the GRIMME PRIZE-winning TV series TINA MOBIL. The company also remains true to its cinematic roots and is adapting the bestselling book series THE KANGAROO-CHRONICLES into two films.

Founded in 2000, the distribution company X Verleih handles the marketing and distribution of the films—in cinemas or home media—always on the lookout for new and unusual avenues and collaborations. Today, all X films are produced under one roof—from conception to production to distribution. X Filme and X Verleih currently consist of more than 30 people who work continuously in friendly discourse to create a label for good films and series. A label that does not stand for a single project, but gives all its films – whether international co-productions, major German feature films, or high-quality TV productions – a reliable name that is recognizable to a wide audience.