[6] With more than 580 members, the BVR is the largest association of film and television directors in Germany, and represents the artistic, social, legal, economic, and labour interests of filmmakers from the areas of cinema, television, documentary, dubbing, music video, and other areas.
It negotiates minimum rates of pay, as well as filming conditions and copyrights, with streaming services, broadcasters, and producer associations.
[10][11] At the meeting of the BVR General Assembly in 2010, two major decisions were taken:[3] In 2024, the BVR, along with the German Screenwriters Guild, the alliance of film and TV producers, the federal acting association, and the producers association, called for public broadcasters to commit to investing at least half of their budgets to making shows, in an open letter to German state and federal governments outlining their "50+ for Programming" plan.
Public television was being criticised by Germany's growing far-right populist movement, including the AFD.
[19] A German-Brazilian co-production directed by Hans Block and Moritz Riesewieck, The Cleaners, won the Best Documentary Directors Award Metropolis.
In that year, they chose In the Fade, directed by Fatih Akin, as Germany's official submission for the 90th Academy Awards, in the Best Foreign Language Film category.