Every year in November, German cultural minister BKM Bernd Naumann awards a prize for the best German short films, the Deutscher Kurzfilmpreis.A total prize money of €225,000 is awarded to nominations and Gold Winners with an additional €20,000 special award. The best films will then go on tour around cinemas in Germany. This year's upcoming dates are:

German regional film funder Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg has funded 43 film projects with a total of €5.3m. The production of 27 new films has been funded with €5.01m. Amongst these are the following documentaries:

POP THE GLOCK, production company OVALfilm, was awarded €50,000. It portrays a singer moving between dream and psycho thriller, and dealing with her death wish in her lyrics.

The following German documentaries will be shown at Documentary Edge Festival New Zealand in Wellington 17 May - 3 June 2012.

 BAD WEATHER by Giovanni Giommi, majade (GB/DE)

Promotional body German Films and German fim funders umbrella organisation Focus Germany are organising the 12th German Pavillion at Cannes Film Festival from 16-27 May. The Pavillion is part of Village International during the Marché du Film from 16-25 May.

Regional broadcaster Rundfunk Berlin-Brandenburg (rbb) and funder Medienboard have started Leuchtstoff, an initiative to support theatrical documentaries and feature films of high quality standards, passion and committment. A particular emphasis will be on films that were made in the Berlin-Brandenburg region, by both established film makers and newcomers.

Berlin Documentary Forum, from 31 May to 3 June 2012, is a biennial festival dedicated to documentary practices across a variety of disciplines. It seeks to explore documentary as an art form capable of constructing and reshaping realities and histories.

The entry deadline for DOK Leipzig is nigh: you can enter your documentaries and animation films until 15 May 2012. The festival runs from 29 October to 4 November 2012.

Producer Elke Baur has won her case against Amazon-offspring LoveFilm: Berlin's Local Court has banned the online rental service from renting out a film for which no rights had been acquired. Berlin-based lawyer Christlieb Klages, who fought the case on behalf of German documentary association AG DOK, is now working on several other cases where films have been rented out without legal clearance.

The first major survey into the economical situation of Germany's film and TV industry in first years has started in mid-April. It is looking for instance into how many hours of content are produced per year, business volume and the number of workplaces created, the development of production costs and budgets and, accordingly, producers' profits.

German culture and media minister (BKM) Bernd Neumann has funded 18 short films wth a total of €266.250.