Most of the Oscar talent just emigrated to Holywood: Hans Zimmer, Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich. Talented French moviemakers don't tend to emigrate that much. So it's probably indeed a cluster/economic geography story, where people who are great at film-making don't find a good working environment in Germany.
The industry is quite large here, but most productions are made-for-TV like the Tatort polar movie series. Those are very special culturally and not made to win Oscars. Their production deliverables are indeed inside an extremely conservative band. They are ordered by the public TV broadcasters. And here we come to another explanation: most of the money in German moviemaking comes from the public broadcasters, which are funded by a TV tax. They're very conservative in what they buy.
Most of the Oscar talent just emigrated to Holywood: Hans Zimmer, Wolfgang Petersen, Roland Emmerich. Talented French moviemakers don't tend to emigrate that much. So it's probably indeed a cluster/economic geography story, where people who are great at film-making don't find a good working environment in Germany.
The industry is quite large here, but most productions are made-for-TV like the Tatort polar movie series. Those are very special culturally and not made to win Oscars. Their production deliverables are indeed inside an extremely conservative band. They are ordered by the public TV broadcasters. And here we come to another explanation: most of the money in German moviemaking comes from the public broadcasters, which are funded by a TV tax. They're very conservative in what they buy.