Babylon Berlin producers X Filme and Beta Film join RTL Deutschland’s TVNOW on a 1920s Berlin shopping spree in the glittering “House of Promises”

Munich, 3 September 2021. It is a glamorous and highly emotional tour into the world of wishes and promises of 1920s Berlin: TVNOW, RTL Deutschland’s streaming service, X Filme Creative Pool and Beta Film are partnering on the visually stunning drama House of Promises (WT). The high-end series, which is currently being shot on location in Berlin, Brandenburg and the Saxon city of Görlitz, chronicles the dramatic turn of an era from the perspective of a young woman and a Jewish family, owner of a state-of-the-art department store at Berlin’s Torstrasse 1. As home of the Berlin branch of the club hotel Soho House, the beautiful Bauhaus building remains a well-known and prominent address of modern-day Berlin.
 
The 12 hour series is the latest collaboration between X Filme and Beta Film, whose long-running, internationally acclaimed series Babylon Berlin (produced with ARD and Sky) was sold to more than 140 territories worldwide.
 
Journeying into the vibrant, magical world of yesteryear, House of Promises will initially air on RTL Deutschland’s streaming service TVNOW (soon to be known as RTL+) in the first half of 2022 and later on VOX. Beta Film is handling world sales and will present the first moving images of the series at this fall’s MIPCOM.
 
House of Promises (12x1h) follows young Vicky (Naemi Feitisch), who arrives from the provinces to the dazzling Berlin of the 1920s, a golden decade that is nevertheless marked by great poverty. She quickly achieves what many only dream of, becoming a saleswoman in the newly opened Jonass department store. Vicky’s fortunes continue to rise: In a dance bar she falls in love with the seemingly penniless pianist Harry (Ludwig Simon). Later, however, he turns out to be the son of the department store owner Arthur Grünberg (Alexander Scheer). And so begins an impossible love across the class divide that nevertheless – or precisely because of it – outlasts time.
 
The series stars up-and-coming lead actors Naemi Feitisch and Ludwig Simon as well as Nina Kunzendorf (Phoenix), Alexander Scheer (Blood Red Sky, We Children from Bahnhof Zoo) and Samuel Finzi (Allmen, Generation War). Following A Regular Woman, 3096 Days and Desert Flower, award winning director Sherry Hormann once again focuses on complex, multi-layered female characters whose experiences are at the center of the action. Austrian award winning director Umut Dağ (Vienna Blood, Breaking Point) helms episodes 7-12.
 
The series’ main location remains an iconic site in today’s Berlin: Torstrasse 1 is now the address of the private club and hotel Soho House. The impressive building is steeped in history: In the early 1920s, the Jewish Gollhuber family founded Berlin's first credit department store here. After its expropriation by the Nazis, the building served as the headquarters of the Hitler Youth, and during the era of the German Democratic Republic, of the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). In 1996, the heirs of the original owner reclaimed the property. Set Designer Stephan Gessler (Cloud Atlas) recreated the Jonass department store on 2000 square meters in a historic building in Görlitz, which also served as the main set location for The Grand Budapest Hotel.
 
House of Promises is produced by X FILME CREATIVE POOL GmbH (Babylon Berlin, Good Bye, Lenin!) for TVNOW. Uwe Urbas, Stefan Arndt and Michael Polle are producing. The scripts are based on Sybil Volks' novel “Torstrasse 1” and written by head writer Conni Lubek in collaboration with Silja Clemens, Holger Joos and Carola M. Lowitz. Maximiliane Prokop und Mariella Santibáñez serve as producers.
Cinematographers Cristian Pirjol (eps 1-6), Xiaosu "Xax" Han and Andreas Thalhammer (eps 7-12) provide the enchanting images of the historical series. Ute Paffendorf (The Invisibles) is responsible for the authentic costume design. Brigitte Kohnert (Executive Producer RTL Deutschland) serves as commissioning editor under the direction of Hauke Bartel (EVP Fiction RTL Deutschland). The series is funded by Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (MDM), Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the German Motion Picture Fund (GMPF).