BERLIN PICTURE COMPANY

Background

The Berlin Picture Company was established to provide a framework for project development, production and consultancy in 1998, by John Clark and Karin Hahn, who were both working as freelances across a range of cultural activities. The first productions were a couple of radio plays in German, adapted from classic english stories, 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'The Wind in the Willows', which fifteen years later are both still in distribution as audio books via the Hoerverlag (Munich). At the same time, we advised a UK business establishing a European Science TV Channel on setting up in Berlin, which was achieved via an IPO on the London Stock Exchange and collaboration with many organisations in Germany.

What followed has included the creation of a pioneering VOD service for academics and public intellectuals (Content-TV, 2002-2005) in collaboration with the Humboldt University of Berlin and the Einstein Forum, Potsdam, which includes presentations from speakers as varied as historian Eric Hobsbawm, film director Wim Wenders, philosophers such as Hilary Putnam and Richard Rorty, political figures like former East German spymaster Marcus Wolff, or Islamist Tariq Ramadan.

Consultancy work has included projects for a media production business in Krakow, a New York cable tv company active in Europe, a media training organisation in Los Angeles, among others.

Our screenwriting programme, BPC-Screenplay was developed in collaboration with the University of Potsdam.

Karin Hahn

Literary critic and journalist, Karin Hahn can regularly be heard on Deutschlandfunk and Deutschlandradio Kultur. Her articles can be found in Buchmarkt, the magazine for publishers and booksellers. She is a juror for 'Die Besten Seben' and her notes on the books she has recently read can be found here: blog

She studied Linguistics and German Literature at the Humboldt University of Berlin (diploma:1984) and has made programmes for numerous radio stations including, Bayerische Rundfunk, Hessisches Rundfunk, Antenne Brandenburg, MDR, NDR, etc. Alongside her projects with Berlin Picture Company, Karin Hahn also directs audio book production.

John Clark

Writer-director, John Clark has worked on over 300 productions for cinema, broadcast tv, commercials and business television. As well as producing and collaborating in project development, he writes books and scripts. As a guest lecturer at the HU-Berlin, he led seminars on 'Digital Drama' and 'Colour Theory'. 'Writers' Block' is his first full length fiction film. Sometime juror for 'Prix Europa', he has also been surprised to be published by the Royal Institute of Philosophy. He studied economics and politics in Bristol, art history and film in Newcastle and business at the Durham University Business School.

A Premake Production

"Writers' Block" is a finished film for audiences to enjoy, but it has also been produced as an experimental 'Premake Production'.

The 'Premake' concept has been devised by the Berlin Picture Company to create a bridge between the world of independent film and that of 'high end' projects, borrowing from theatre to redefine the way movie projects are conceived.