The starting signal for the first Albstadt Film Days will be given at the end of November. They are organized by Fabian Struwe and his colleagues. “We actually wanted to go to the Capitol cinema with the film days,” says Fabian Struwe. However, this is not possible for funding reasons.
Ralf Merkel, owner of the Zollernalb cinemas, praises the initiative: “It’s nice that young people want to organize such an event.” He would also have been happy to make the Capitol cinema available to them, as he says. However: Then the Filmtage makers would have had to forego funding from the ZIZ program.
ZIZ stands for “Sustainable Inner Cities and Centers”. The city of Albstadt can draw from this pot until mid-2025. But strict rules apply to subsidies.
Downtown yes or no?
“The reasoning was that the film days had to take place in the city center so that they could be supported with money from the ZIZ pot,” says Ralf Merkel. This statement really surprised him because: “I’m in the city center with the cinema.”
After all, he once had to pay the transfer fee set for the downtown area for parking spaces around the Capitol. “So the cinema is in the city center.”
The border is Hohkreuzstrasse. Here, after the cinema in a westerly direction, the city center ends. “So we’re still on the city center side with the cinema,” said Merkel.
I’ll be on hand when the film days get established.
Cinema owner Ralf Merkel
His astonishment is mixed with anger: the city administration cannot set two inner city boundaries. “When it comes to parking space transfers, the larger delimitation applies, and when it comes to funding, the smaller delimitation applies,” he criticizes.
Because there would be no funding for the film days in the cinema, they are now taking place in the KulTurm. No one doubts that this location is on Bahnhofstrasse in the city center area.
Inner city location according to the city’s definition and as far as the ZIZ scope is concerned: As part of the Albstädter Filmtage, the films are shown in the KulTurm on Ebinger Bahnhofstrasse. (Photo: Dagmar Stuhrmann)
However, the seemingly flexible inner city definition is irritating. However, the press spokeswoman for the city of Albstadt, Mona Lehmann, can resolve the alleged contradiction.
On the one hand, there is the inner city location defined by the city of Albstadt years ago, within which the cinema is actually in the city center. Regardless of this, however, there is the scope of the ZIZ funding program. “And this is actually significantly smaller than the inner city area defined by the city.”
Funding only for new ideas
The designated ZIZ area in which funding is available extends, roughly speaking, from the train station to Sonnenstrasse/Media-Markt and includes Hof and Untere Vorstadt.
It is also good to know: Only new events can be subsidized as part of the ZIZ funding. Like the film days now. However, there is no money for events that have already been established.
Not a flash in the pan
When the ZIZ money runs out in mid-2025, the funds will be able to be used until November. For the Filmtage, however, this means that if they were to be held again next year in the same form, they would have to do without funding. Because they would then be considered an established event.
Cinema boss Ralf Merkel sees a good chance that the film days will not remain a flash in the pan. In any case, he would be happy if there was a sequel. Things like that need to grow. The Biberach Film Festival also started small and is now known beyond the country’s borders.
