Successful series “Babylon Berlin” will be continued

The ARD series “Babylon Berlin” is entering its finale with a fifth and final season. As the partners X Filme Creative Pool, ARD Degeto Film, SWR, WDR, Radio Bremen and Beta Film announced on Tuesday, the directors and authors of the previous seasons – Henk Handloegten, Achim von Borries and Tom Tykwer – are currently working on the final draft of the scripts. They are based on the novel “Märzgefallene” by Volker Kutscher, and the action takes place in February 1933. Filming of the eight episodes is scheduled to start in October. Volker Bruch is again playing Gereon Rath and Liv Lisa Fries is playing Charlotte Ritter in the main roles.

Search for new partners

The continuation of “Babylon Berlin” was uncertain for a long time because the previous production partner, the pay-TV company Sky, had pulled out. Sky Germany no longer produces series. After that, the ARD had to look for a new partner – and has now found one.

Thomas Schreiber, Managing Director of ARD Degeto Film, said: “‘Babylon Berlin’ has set international standards: Germany can do series! We at ARD Degeto Film are all the more pleased that we can produce another season.” The scripts promise great images and extremely exciting moments of the decision between resistance and adaptation to the new circumstances. The finale should “not be forgotten”.

“In the final season of ‘Babylon Berlin’,” the series’ authors and directors, Henk Handloegten, Achim von Borries and Tom Tykwer, are quoted as saying in a press release, “we are putting February 1933 under the microscope: Seldom has a society been thrown more radically out of joint in such a short time than Germany in this chaotic month. Not just Gereon Rath and Charlotte Ritter – all of our protagonists have to realize that they have very few options left.”

The X Filme Creative Pool producers Stefan Arndt, Uwe Schott and Michael Polle said they were “incredibly grateful that we can now end this cycle with 1933 and show what the end of a democracy looked like. We very much hope that the new season will not be mirrored in the present.”