07/12/2010

Best-selling children’s author Cornelia Funke, six of whose novels have already been adapted into hit films (including The Wild Chicks [+see also:
trailer
film profile] series and Hands Off Mississippi [+see also:
trailer
film profile] ), has once again provided inspiration for a film, When Santa Fell to Earth. Shooting starts today, December 7 in Munich.

The project, scripted by Benjamin Bien and Robin Getrost, is produced by famous producer and children’s film specialist Uschi Reich (behind films including A Year Ago in Winter [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Buddenbrooks – The Decline of a Family [+see also:
trailer
film profile]) for Bavaria, in partnership with Constantin and with backing from television network ZDF. It will be helmed by Oliver Dieckmann (Pizza and Marmelade).

The film recounts the thrilling adventures of young Ben and Charlotte, a girl in his class that he finds stuck-up. They will help the last true Father Christmas, Niklas Julebukk (Alexander Scheer, Steve in Olivier Assayas’s Carlos [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile]), who has fallen out of the sky two weeks before the celebrations, and stop nasty Waldemar Wichteltod and his army of nutcrackers from putting a spoke in his wheels. The cast also includes Jessica Schwarz, who will play Ben’s mother.

Shooting, part of which will take place in Austria, will last until March. Constantin plans to release the film on German screens on November 24, 2011.

(Translated from French)