News | RTL Group | Cologne, Potsdam, 10/23/2020

Exclusively For TV Now: UFA Fiction Films Angela Merkel’s Life

UFA Fiction is filming the life of Angela Merkel exclusively for TV Now. The documentary, to be produced by Nico Hofmann, Marc Lepetit and Sebastian Werninger, is scheduled to start airing in late 2021. Stefan Aust, author and publisher of “Welt” and “Welt am Sonntag,” is writing the screenplay for the film project.

Praised by some, criticized by others for her immigration policies: Angela Merkel is in her fourth term of office and her last year as Chancellor of Germany. UFA Fiction is now filming her life as a four-part documentary exclusively for TV Now. The documentary, to be produced by Nico Hofmann, Marc Lepetit and Sebastian Werninger, is scheduled to start airing in late 2021. Following the filming of the Wirecard scandal, this is the second time Mediengruppe RTL Deutschland’s streaming platform has commissioned UFA to make a film based on complex, politically and socially highly relevant material. Stefan Aust, author and publisher of “Welt” and “Welt am Sonntag” and long-time editor-in-chief of the news magazine “Der Spiegel,” is writing the screenplay for the film project. Stefan Aust already has previously worked very successfully with UFA Fiction on the documentary “Hannelore Kohl – die erste Frau” (Hannelore Kohl - The First Lady).

Stephan Schäfer, Managing Director Content and Brands at Mediengruppe RTL, said: “Besides top-class fiction, entertainment and live sports offers, we want TV Now to be the home of sophisticated documentaries and reports as well. This four-part series about Angela Merkel will definitely be a program highlight on TV Now in 2021. We are delighted to have UFA Fiction as an excellent partner, and Stefan Aust as a bona fide expert in contemporary German history, on board for this project.” 

Nico Hofmann, Producer & CEO of UFA, added: “Following the great success of our documentary about Hannelore Kohl, we are teaming up with Stefan Aust to devote a major format to the life story of the politician Angela Merkel. The project involves a great deal of responsibility – a woman who has risen to the forefront of world politics over decades. Disruptions to her life, her open-mindedness, and the unconditional will to political power as a means to shape the future are not mutually contradictory for me in Angela Merkel’s biography – quite the opposite: her political handling of the crises of recent years bears particular witness to her inner aplomb and integrity.” 

And Stefan Aust commented: “This project, a multi-part documentary about Angela Merkel, is of particular interest to me. It is the story of an extraordinary politician and her time - her rise to power, her chancellorship, her struggles, her influence on German and international politics – and her last year as chancellor. Over the years, I have followed Angela Merkel’s career from a critical journalistic distance in various roles. So I am particularly pleased that Nico Hofmann and his UFA team have entrusted me with this major and responsible task, and that I get to work with TV Now for the first time in this connection.”