Ufa Cinema preps 'Hanni & Nanni'

German co. to adapt Blyton book series

By ED MEZA

BERLIN — Recently launched producer-distrib Ufa Cinema is ramping up production with its second feature, “Hanni & Nanni,” Christine Hartmann’s adaptation of Enid Blyton’s 1940s book series “St. Clares,” about twins at a boarding school.

Hannelore Elsner, Katharina Thalbach, Heino Ferch and Anja Kling are set to star.

Pic, penned by Hartmann, Jane Ainscough (“Where Is Fred?”) and Katharina Reschke, has received e400,000 ($620,000) from Bavarian regional subsidy org FFF Bayern.

The popular British book franchise was adapted and updated for Germany in the 1960s and the stories transplanted to a German boarding school.

It was such a hit that German publisher Franz Schneider Verlag commissioned original German-language books in the 1970s and 1980s that continued the adventures of Hanni and Nanni, known in the original English-language versions as Patricia and Isabel O’Sullivan.

The property has gained wider exposure on TV. A 1991 Japanese anime TV series based on Blyton’s work, “Ochame na futago: Claire Gakuin monogatari” (Hanni & Nanni in Germany) aired on local children’s channel Kinderkanal.

Ufa recently announced production of “Mein Kampf,” an adaptation by Urs Odermatt of George Tabori’s theatrical work focusing on Adolf Hitler as a young man in Vienna.