SPK and ZDF/3sat extend media partnership
Press release from 06/22/2016
The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation (SPK) is continuing its successful media partnership with ZDF, which began 15 years ago. On Wednesday evening, 22 June 2016, ZDF Director General Thomas Bellut and SPK President Hermann Parzinger signed the extension of the partnership until 2020.
As part of the agreement, ZDF and its partner channel 3sat will accompany the work on the renovation and further development of the Museum Island Berlin and the construction of the Humboldt Forum in the Berlin Palace in their TV programme and online.
Foundation President Hermann Parzinger: "ZDF has been a chronicler of our work for many years. I am delighted that we are continuing our media partnership, which has become a classic, with new ideas, formats and perspectives. In addition to Museum Island and the Humboldt Forum, we will also be focussing on events at the Kulturforum with the new Museum of the 20th Century. This media partnership means a great deal to the SPK. For us, it is also a welcome opportunity to familiarise tomorrow's visitors with our cosmos of knowledge."
ZDF Director General Thomas Bellut: "We are delighted to be involved in the rebuilding and refurbishment of the UNESCO World Heritage Site Museum Island and the Humboldt Forum. Here, our global world is depicted on an island and promotes a better understanding of cultures with its art treasures. We would like to support this. The media partnership is therefore both a wonderful and important task for a public media organisation like ZDF."
3sat will continue its extensive journalistic coverage of the major Museum Island project with current reports in the weekday magazine programme "Kulturzeit". There are plans to try out new forms of presentation and storytelling from 2017 onwards, for example animated short films or a new and intensive form of filmic accompaniment of researchers and scientists.
Over the next two years, there will also be documentaries in the ZDF series "Terra X", which will focus on the origins of our civilisation, legendary explorers and the exciting discoveries of the art treasures on Museum Island.
Part of the media partnership is the long-term documentary "Jahrhundertprojekt Museumsinsel" by ZDF and 3sat, which has been broadcast annually since 2001. ZDF cultural journalist Carola Wedel reports on the changes in Berlin's historic city centre, where the Museum Island and the neighbouring Humboldt Forum are developing into a unique museum landscape in Europe. The subject of the current 45-minute documentary, which 3sat will show at the end of November and ZDF in December, is the James-Simon-Galerie, a building designed by star architect David Chipperfield that will welcome visitors to the Museum Island in future.
The online offerings on Museum Island will also be expanded. ZDF and 3sat hope to attract new groups of viewers to the Museum Island and its cultural treasures with these diverse offerings.