Why has UFA managed to stay in business?
UFA was established in 1917 when the German government consolidated most of the nation’s famous studios. This German motion-picture production company that made artistically outstanding films during the silent era and its purpose was to promote German culture, was located in Berlin with the best equipped and most modern studios in the world. It encouraged and promoted experimentation and imaginative camera work and employed directors such as Ernst Lubitsch, known for directing sophisticated comedies.
The company was purchased in 1927 by the financier Alfred Hugenberg, a future Hitler supporter who mandated that the company devote itself to films that promoted German nationalism. But company was pressured to make National Socialist films almost exclusively when the Nazis came to power in 1933. The resulting films proved popular in Germany, but rising production costs and a shrinking international market resulted to large deficits. The government bought the company in 1937 and after started to control film content. The company ceased to exist after the war’s end in 1945. A new company called UFA was launched in 1956, but it eventually went bankrupt.