Touring Bavaria's Hollywood

By Whitney Robosson

Have you ever heard of Bavaria Filmstadt (Bavarian Film Studios)? Unless you’re a hardcore film buff, my guess is probably not. I mean, it’s no Hollywood, but it might be Bavaria’s Hollywood. It has produced some of Germany’s most popular (and profitable) TV shows and movies since it opened in 1919. According to one of our guides, just being near the set of the popular soap opera “Marienhof” is enough to make any 16-year-old German girl squeal in delight.

Honestly -- we squealed in delight, too.

After walking in the cold rain for hours we weren’t even presentable enough to visit the Bavarian Film Studios’ broom closet, yet we were invited to stand on the same sets as the famous German actors. We really got the “hook up” from our friends at HFF (danke, Mario!). When we first arrived, we bypassed dozens of tourists waiting to get on a tour bus (and maybe laughed and pointed a little bit, too). We were greeted by the two sales directors who showed us stuff that literally NO ONE gets to see. Not even our tour guide had seen the inside of the sound stages before! I personally felt very humbled.

We left the studios with insider information on such films as “The Never Ending Story” and “Das Boot,” a new appreciation for German film, and an excitement to see the TV shows whose sets we’d visited personally earlier that day.