VEB FILM Leipzig is a netlabel, primarily known for producing straight to internet movies.

The first movie "Route 66 - an American (bad) Dream", a 104 minutes experimental, gonzo-style road movie, was released under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA in 2004 and quickly became popular as Germanys First Open Source Movie. Footage and other sources of the movie are being used by Universities, VJs and other artists.
The second major VEB FILM Leipzig production is announced to be released under Creative Commons BY in 2008 and is expected to be the first free High Definition feature film.
The founder and driving force behind the labels Free Culture ideology Stefan Kluge frequently represents the label on events related to Open Source, Net Culture and Digital Culture in Germany.

You are looking at the new VEB homebase. We are already moving in and relocating Toms sound studio from Aachen and the video equipment from Leipzig, making this our country estate for production and post production.
Tom has been looking for something like this for two years now. It's a 2.6 hectares lot with 600 m² living space, so certainly no neighbor will complain if we shoot a war drama at 4 AM. That should serve for the next few years :D

Are you kidding? No. Tom took out a serious loan and I suppose the bank won't laugh about any funny phone calls from us. Sweat and tears are going to flow and Tom is the one who will be personally responsible. I have the highest respect for this decision.
VEB will profit from:

Progress: Sounds trivial, but I wouldn't underestimate it. If a project takes 4 or more years you do need kind of a lighthouse that shows you the direction and makes you realize, that you are still moving. Especially if you are not connected to the project in a traditional way, like an employee - which also means, that you have to keep motivated as well during the less interesting parts of production. This was our last production facility, by the way.

Headquarters: In order to save the rent, we moved out of our office/studio after the shooting of The Last Drug. Everybody went to his private apartment for post production. Since then, the pick-up shootings have been a pain in the ass and we had to get journalists into studios of friends, to show us working. It makes even the smallest of things difficult, if you don't have a base.

Big... attracts big. I'm not so sure if this expression works in English as it does in German, but you get the point. The script for our next movie will again involve stuff that we already have or that we can obtain easily. This is one of the advantages if the writer is also the producer.

Here is an interesting idea: we could setup a few rooms the way rooms have appeared in our movies. An original Route 66 motel room and a The Last Drug sick room, where you can of course watch the movies, when you join us in our maniac mansion for a weekend. We will put games- and digital culture references everywhere, of course - that's our background. A digital theater would be nice, too.
It's pretty common in the Open Source Software business to make money out of services related to your digital goods, instead of selling the goods themselves. Maybe this works in Open Source Filmmaking as well. However, we are in a good position to try this now.

Applause for Tom and Andrea, who just might have set the course for VEB more than we realize, by now.