{"id":12900,"date":"2019-06-17T14:00:39","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T18:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dev2.worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/worldscreen.com\/"},"modified":"2019-06-17T14:15:01","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T18:15:01","slug":"terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Terra Mater’s Walter K\u00f6hler"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"After a storied three decades at ORF, Walter K\u00f6hler founded Terra Mater Factual Studios (TMFS) to further his passionate commitment to high-end documentary filmmaking. From activism feature films like The Ivory Game<\/em> to specials with natural-history icon David Attenborough to ambitious science docs like The Moon: Our Gateway to the Universe<\/em>, TMFS has been serving the documentary needs of broadcasters and platforms across the globe. K\u00f6hler talks about the company\u2019s recent distribution partnership with Off the Fence, the new film Sea of Shadows\u00a0<\/em>and the significance of delivering films that speak to the importance of conservation.<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> What was the reasoning behind your new distribution partnership with Off the Fence?
\nK\u00d6HLER:<\/strong> This was a logical step in our development. I always took the word \u201cstudio\u201d in Terra Mater Factual Studios very seriously. We want to protect our content from the cradle to the grave. But in nine years, we produced more than 220 hours of prime content! Dinah [Czezik-M\u00fcller, Terra Mater\u2019s COO] and I talked a lot about if we should build up our own distribution business. The figures routed us in the other direction. Ellen [Windemuth, CEO and founder of Off the Fence] and I are age-old friends. We knew each other before Off the Fence was a reality. So this was a natural fit. It\u2019s amazing that the corporate cultures in our two companies are really similar. So Ellen is doing all of our post-sale business and we are doing all the co-productions and presales. We are good at production. This is where our heart is. Therefore, to have a partner in distribution is a natural fit. Then there is the German team coming on top with ZDF Enterprises [Off the Fence\u2019s new parent company]. That\u2019s quite helpful! [Laughs<\/em>]\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> Tell us about your investment in conservation docs such as Sea of Shadows<\/em>, about the endangered vaquita whale in Mexico\u2019s Sea of Cortez.
\nK\u00d6HLER:<\/strong> I\u2019ve been in this business for more than 30 years. I\u2019ve lived a good life on natural history. My feeling is that it\u2019s time to give a bit back. The first attempt was The Ivory Game<\/em>, where, from the start, we not only wanted to produce a film\u2014we wanted to change politics with the power of film. We achieved that. With\u00a0Sea of Shadows<\/em>, we wanted to do the same, but [go further]. Where Ivory Game\u00a0<\/em>was about a species, Sea of Shadows\u00a0<\/em>is on a whole ecosystem. It was a thousand times more dangerous [to film]. It\u2019s really hard to accept that the smallest whale on the planet is dying out, five hours away from Los Angeles [in the Sea of Cortez]. It\u2019s not somewhere in the jungle. It\u2019s one of the busiest tourist spots. We also wanted to show that it\u2019s not only the conservation of animals; it\u2019s also the conservation of humans. What the Chinese Mafia and the drug cartels are doing there [supporting poachers] is destroying the local economy, too. One of the main protagonists [in the documentary, Carlos Loret de Mola], who is a renowned journalist in Mexico, made a live [broadcast about the vaquita crisis] and 30 minutes later, the new minister of the environment called and said, You have pictures of the vaquita? We were going to declare it extinct! If they declare it extinct, they don\u2019t have to do anything. We said, This film is coming out in Mexico, so you better search for a solution. Otherwise, you have a problem. This worked. They are now searching for [solutions].<\/p>\n

TV REAL:<\/strong> There are so many threats to the environment. How do you and your team figure out which ones you want to tackle in your films?
\nK\u00d6HLER:<\/strong> On the vaquita, it was simple because it\u2019s one of the first mammals to go extinct now. And it\u2019s not just for the animal; it\u2019s for the whole Sea of Cortez. If this goes, you cannot count the number of species that will go. And this will have a significant impact on biodiversity. We also invested in Watson<\/em>, our newest film with Participant Media on the founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Paul Watson. He says the same thing. At the moment, the overfishing rate is so enormous that we have to think about whether we can live on a planet without fish. He thinks this is quite impossible. If a whole group is missing in the food chain, the biodiversity rules will go against us. We have to think about this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The founder and CEO of Terra Mater Factual Studios on the significance of delivering films that speak to the importance of conservation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":290,"featured_media":12901,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[780,2291],"class_list":["post-12900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-interviews","tag-terra-mater-factual-studios","tag-walter-kohler","pmpro-has-access"],"yoast_head":"\nTerra Mater's Walter K\u00f6hler - TVREAL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Terra Mater's Walter K\u00f6hler - TVREAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The founder and CEO of Terra Mater Factual Studios on the significance of delivering films that speak to the importance of conservation.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TVREAL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-06-17T18:00:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-06-17T18:15:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/12\/2017\/07\/WalterKoehler-TMFS-619-th.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"600\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"319\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Mansha Daswani\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019\/\",\"name\":\"Terra Mater's Walter K\u00f6hler - TVREAL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-06-17T18:00:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-06-17T18:15:01+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/terra-maters-walter-kohler-2019\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Terra Mater’s Walter K\u00f6hler\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/\",\"name\":\"TVREAL\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/worldscreen.com\/tvreal\/#\/schema\/person\/83da304c8bad8bfdb3edd7eb47cfe5ad\",\"name\":\"Mansha Daswani\",\"description\":\"Mansha Daswani is the editor-in-chief and associate publisher of World Screen. 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