Last take for Spielberg film

The secret agent thriller "St. James Place" tells the story of the "U2 Affair" in the early 1960s. At the height of the Cold War, US pilot Gary Powers was shot down in a spy plane over Soviet territory. Moscow later exchanged Powers for a top-level Russian spy in Berlin.

The sensational exchange of secret agents took place in February 1962 on the Glienick Bridge in then-divided Berlin. Working behind the scenes was American attorney James Donovan. His story is the narrative for Spielberg's film, with Donovan portrayed by Tom Hanks.

Filming at the original sites

"St. James Place" now goes into post-production and is set for release next year. Part of the filming in the final weeks was done on-site, at the former East German Hohenschönhausen prison, at Tempelhof Airport and in the Babelsberg Film Studios. German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently visited the otherwise off-limits filming and briefly conversed with Hanks and Spielberg.

German-financing for US productions

The American production "St. James Place" was partly publicly funded. The German Film Fund, recently extended by the federal government, contributed approximately 3.7 million euros, the state of Berlin-Brandenburg half a million. Various major international productions have been filmed in recent years in the German capital and at Babelsberg, in Potsdam, including a film on Nazi resistance figure Stauffenberg starring Tom Cruise and Quentin Tarantino's violent Nazi saga "Inglourious Basterds."

Jk/az/rf (dpa/Presse)