Staaken Studios was a film studio located in

Staaken Staaken () is a locality at the western rim of Berlin within the borough of Spandau. History First mentioned in a 1273 deed as ''Stakene'' (from Middle Low German: ''staken'', "stakes") in the Mittelmark region of the Margraviate of Brandenbur ...

on the outskirts of the German capital

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

. A large former

zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, pp. 155� ...

hangar A hangar is a building or structure designed to hold aircraft or spacecraft. Hangars are built of metal, wood, or concrete. The word ''hangar'' comes from Middle French ''hanghart'' ("enclosure near a house"), of Germanic origin, from Frankish ...

, it was converted to film use following the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

and operated during the

Weimar Republic The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...

. In July 1923 it was the largest studio in the world, with floor space of around 18,000

square feet The square foot (; abbreviated sq ft, sf, or ft2; also denoted by '2 and ⏍) is an imperial unit and U.S. customary unit (non- SI, non-metric) of area, used mainly in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pa ...

. It was used for the construction of massive sets on a series of major productions of the

silent era A silent film is a film without synchronized recorded sound (or more generally, no audible dialogue). Though silent films convey narrative and emotion visually, various plot elements (such as a setting or era) or key lines of dialogue may, wh ...

, including '' I.N.R.I.'', ''

Metropolis A metropolis () is a large city or conurbation which is a significant economic, political, and cultural area for a country or region, and an important hub for regional or international connections, commerce, and communications. A big city b ...

'', '' The Holy Mountain'' and '' The Ship of Lost Souls''. These epics were a part of the German attempt on world markets during the decade. The 1927 Anglo-German co-production '' The Ghost Train'' was shot at

. In 1929, following the Wall Street crash, the studio's owners collapsed financially and Staaken was acquired by the Deutsche Lichtspiel-Syndikat. It was equipped for

sound film A sound film is a Film, motion picture with synchronization, synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, bu ...

, but it increasingly struggled to attract new productions. Amongst the films shot during the early 1930s were ''

The Threepenny Opera ''The Threepenny Opera'' ( ) is a 1928 German "play with music" by Bertolt Brecht, adapted from a translation by Elisabeth Hauptmann of John Gay's 18th-century English ballad opera, '' The Beggar's Opera'', and four ballads by François V ...

'' and '' Ariane''. After 1934 it was no longer available as a film studio.

References

Bibliography

* Bergfelder, Tim & Cargnelli, Christian. ''Destination London: German-speaking emigrés and British cinema, 1925–1950''. Berghahn Books, 2008. * Kreimeier, Klaus. ''The Ufa Story: A History of Germany's Greatest Film Company, 1918–1945''.University of California Press, 1999. German film studios {{film-studio-stub

See also

References

Bibliography