Studio Babelsberg demands the immediate release of Roman Polanski and supports the petition of Cannes Festival’s General Delegate Thierry Frémaux and film producer Harvey Weinstein against the US extradition of the director Roman Polanski, arrested in Switzerland. Studio Babelsberg co-produced Roman Polanski’s Oscar winning film The Pianist as well as his latest project The Ghost starring Pierce Brosnan and Ewan McGregor. Both films were shot almost completely in Germany.
Christoph Fisser, COO Studio Babelsberg and co-producer of The Ghost:
„Roman Polanski is one of the world’s most renowned directors. We are dismayed by the way a public cultural event is used for a police operation of that kind. The authorities have to find a solution as soon as possible.”
To protest against the arrest, Henning Molfenter, Managing Director of Studio Babelsberg Motion Pictures and co-producer of The Pianist and The Ghost, cancelled his attendance as a jury member at the Zurich Film Festival. “There is no way I’d go to Switzerland – I can’t imagine watching films knowing that at the same time the famous director Roman Polanski is sitting in a prison in the same city”, Molfenter said.
