ECCO Entertainment

29/08/2026

HARALD REICHEBNER- 1948 in Wien geboren, ist Gründer von ECCO Film Entertainment und Berlin Creativ Media Fonds GmbH und Co KG. 1968- 1974 Studium der Rechtswissenschaften in Wien und Köln. 1974 Regiestudium am Max-Reinhard Seminar in Wien. Von 1976 - 1979 folgen einige Jahre als freier Theaterregisseur und Produzent. 1979: Übernahme der Co-Direktion des Wiener Volkstheaters. Während dieser Zeit entstehen 27 eigene Regiearbeiten und 10 Fernsehaufzeichnungen. Verleihung der Kainz-Medaille und des Nestroy-Preises sowie des Skraup-Preises. 1981 und 1982: Auszeichnungen für die Regiearbeiten der Erstaufführung von Fassbinders „Die bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant“ sowie „Volpone“ von Stefan Zweig. Co-Direktion der Freien Volksbühne Berlin.
Es folgen danach zahlreiche Film- und Fernsehproduktionen aus der Reihe „Tatort“ sowie aus der Serie „Polizeiruf 110“. Zu den wichtigen Kinoproduktionen zählen unter anderen: „Europa und der zweite Apfel“ mit Klaus Maria Brandauer, Matthieu Carriere, Bernhard Minetti uva., Beitrag der Berlinale 1988 „Der Brocken“ - Regie Vadim Glowna, vielumjubelter deutscher Wettbewerbsbeitrag der Berlinale. „Der Fuchs der Jäger“ von Herta Müller, Berlinale-Beitrag 1993 und zum Oscar nominiert, wobei ich persönlich die Nominierung zurückzog, sowie 1994 „Le Jardin des Plantes“, in der Regie von Philippe de Broca, mit Claude Rich in der Hauptrolle. Zu den international großen und überaus erfolgreichen Kinoproduktionen gehört „Nostradamus“ mit Amanda Plummer, Julia Ormond, Rutger Hauer und F. Murray Abraham in den wichtigsten Rollen. In dieser Produktion wirkten insgesamt zwölf „Oscar“ - Preisträger mit und der Film war in allen Film-Hitlisten zu finden und spielte in Kino und TV weltweit über 100 Mio. US Dollar ein. 60 weitere Spielfilme folgen unter anderem: Koproduzent von „Never Talk to Strangers“ mit Rebecca de Mornay und Antonio Banderas in den Hauptrollen sowie Koproduzent der Fox-Produktion „Rainbow“. Im gleichen Jahr entsteht die Kinokomödie „Kondom des Grauens“ mit zahlreichen deutschen Stars, wie Udo Samel, Iris Berben, Peter Lohmeyer, u.v.a. In den deutschen Kinos sahen mehr als 450.000 Personen diese Produktion. Der Film entwickelte sich zu einem Verkaufsschlager im Videogeschäft. Derzeit läuft „Killer Condom“ in USA und in Japan in den Kinos und im TV-Streaming. Neben zahlreichen anderen großartigen Kritiken widmete die New York Times diesem Film eine herausragende Kritik. Unter anderem großartige Filme wie „Hund und Katz“ – Regie: Michael Sturminger, sowie „Josef und Maria“ von Peter Turrini in der Regie von Vera Löbner und einige sehr erfolgreiche Spielfilme in Indien und „Jardin des Plantes“ von Oscar-Preisträger Philip de Broca. Der Spielfilm. „Pinocchio“ und die „Abenteuer von Pinocchio“ mit Oscar-Preisträger Martin Landau und Oscar-Preisträger Michael Anderson als Regisseur haben bereits mehr als 20 Millionen Zuschauer – Verfilmung von „General Mannerheim“, Verfilmung von „Bandidos“ und „Prisoners of the Sun“ mit Oscar-Preisträger Roger Christian.
Geplant sind drei Spielfilme: „Galileo Galilei“, „The Voice of Peace“ und „Black Angel“. Aus diesem damaligen Kurzfilm entstand „Star Wars“. Es liegen noch ca. zwanzig fertige Drehbücher in der Firma vor.

26/07/2026

GALILEO GALILEI - a feature film project.
Rome. The Vatican. October 1992 AD. - A young priest walks in a rush along a large corridor carrying a black leather bag. Two Swiss guards greet him when he enters a massive wooden door. In the elegant room three cardinals are arguing with each other: his eminences the Cardinal Poupard, the Cardinal 2 (Joseph Ratzinger) and the Cardinal 3.- The young priest takes some documents out from the bag and passes them to the Cardinal 2.- The Cardinal observes the pages quickly and then begins to read to the others some sentences. Those sentences are part of the speech that the Pope will give in a few weeks in the Vatican Academy of Sciences. The two cardinals seem to be happy with what Cardinal 2 reads until he finds a sentence which disappoints him. He hands the paper back to the young priest who is trying to reply something. Cardinal Poupard’s intense gaze makes him understand that he’d better say nothing. All of them know that this speech is of utter importance. It is the first time the Roman Catholic Church pronounces itself in terms to condemn some mistakes it made in the last centuries of its history. This document must be an epochal step towards the coming new millennium!
The young priest dares to say that he is only one obeying to the will of the Holy Father. Cardinal Poupard excuses his assistant’s arrogance which is caused only by an excess of enthusiasm. Greeting the two cardinals Cardinal Poupard escorts the young priest outside the room. Walking down the monumental staircase Cardinal Poupard explains the meaning of the speech to the young priest who listens silently.
The central point is the case Galileo Galilei. To comprehend the difficulty of this task, the young priest should research the life of this Italian genius. When they enter the pope’s audience room we enter in a flashback.
The Flashback leads us to Rome, in 1630 AD. Two cardinals are discussing the “Galileo problem”. It seems that the theories of the famous scientist are going to be discussed in front of the inquisition’s tribunal.
At that time the Catholic church was going through the darkest and most insecure time of its whole history.
To bring Galileo in front of a tribunal, after the ex*****on of Giordano Bruno and many other intellectuals accused of heresy, is a very delicate thing which has to be carefully considered. The schismatic protestants are going to discuss the absolute authority of the Pope on the European Battlefields. If the Pope wants to maintain the control of the legitimate sciences, he knows he must accept some compromises. However any theoretical position which is about to raise doubts about the Catholic’s Dogmas will have to be punished.
Who has really been Galileo? Of which revolutionary importance have been his intuitions?
We will unveil the incredible and exemplary life of the man who probably started the Modern Age, following the most important facts of his life from his mature years, as he was a famous and successful mathematician and physician in the court of the Duke of Mantua, through Venice, Florence, and Rome where he was submitted to the most infamous trial in history. Humiliated and scared he was forced to abjure his thesis and condemned to life imprisonment. The epilogue will be set in his later years, as he was prisoner in his Villa in Arcetri, blind and broken in body and soul but still a symbol of the fight of reason against the bigotry of a corrupted church. A battle which many men of science began openly to fight inspired by the courage and moral integrity of the Italian master.
The ideal acme of the Galileo’s contribution to the universal history should be set in Rome, almost 450 years after his death, when the Pope - and through his voice the entire Catholic church - will officially proclaim the fundamental importance of Galileo’s discoveries and sets a mile stone in the Church’s history.
And with the words pronounced by the Pope John Paul II the film will end.
There are many reasons for producing a film about the life of Galileo Galilei.
The most evident of them is the lack of a film which is able to analyze and to present to a large audience not only the biography of one of the most important intellects of universal history (in fact he wasn’t only a scientist, but also a literate, a philosopher, an art historian…) but also the most controversial decades of European history, during the first half of the XVII century when radical changes were going to shape the form of the contemporary world.
The XVII Century has been one of the darkest centuries in human history, enlighten by the sacrifices of the “martyrs of the intellect” who offered their life in name of the “Reason” and of the freedom to bring Culture and Sciences outside the close milieu where they were jealously protected in order to maintain the political power of the Catholic Church.
A few years after Galileo’s death his lesson opened the way to the Scientific revolution, setting and ideal red-line between the Renaissance and the Illuminism.
Though the difficulties of such a complex topic, we will certainly give the priority to a clear and simple access to the story which will follow the rules of a mainstream product, conceived mostly for entertainment purposes.
However it doesn’t exclude the effort to educate the audience through the faithful adaptation for the screen of well documented historical sources.
“Galileo Galilei” will show that it is possible to entertain and at the same time transmit culture: a difficult challenge which is rarely pursued by the film industry (in particular Hollywood).
The screenplay will be entirely based on original sources and some of the best documented biographies of Galileo. The spirit of the XVII century will be transmitted through all the sensations which are so vividly painted in the masterworks of the art (Caravaggio, Gentileschi etc.), Music (Monteverdi, Palestrina, Gesualdo da Venosa etc.) and literature. A “realistic” photography will interpret in the film language the lights and shadows of the visual arts of the time of the contra-reform and a “classical inspired” soundtrack should bring to life the clarity and purity of the early baroque music. Nonetheless the adventure of Galileo will take shape in a modern form, ready to be presented coherently with the revolutionary words of Pope John Paul II which have transited the Church into the new millennium.

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26/07/2026

Proposal for a FEATURE FILM "UNFORGIVEN - the last letter"-The only real and TRUE STORY about 9/11– a German female doctor, 48 years old, a woman with no relatives, no past?
In January after 09.11, she got a new identity - the woman who received the last phone call from the plane.
Background: Ziad Jarrah was one of the dead pilots of September 11, 2001, who became radical Islamists in Hamburg. His love affair with the German-Turkish woman, whom he married in a Hamburg mosque, lasted a total of five years. Immediately following the terrorist attacks, Jarrah was plagued by intense self-doubt. The other terrorists feared that he would no longer cooperate. They had already gotten a replacement for him. Clashes broke out with the leader of the death pilots, Mohammed Atta. Only when he visited his wife for the last time in Germany did Jarrah finally decide in favor of mass murder. His wife, a female doctor, continues to live in Germany under a pseudonym- a woman with no relatives.