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Cash luring filmmakers to Germany

It was more than just the historic settings in Berlin that drew Tom Cruise to Germany last summer to film his $80 million epic "Valkyrie," about a failed 1944 attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler.

It was also the cash.

The German government was able to show Cruise the money - writing a check for €4.8 million, or $7.1 million, for the MGM/United Artists production.

A fresh source of film subsidies has injected new vigor into Germany's rich cinematic tradition, which before the Nazis took power in 1933 had been a great rival to Hollywood, with classics like Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and Josef von Sternberg's "The Blue Angel," featuring a young Marlene Dietrich.
Read entire article at Reuters