German Cinema w/o UFA

Pretty much everyone who knows anything about the history of film knows about the importance of German cinema in the years following the Great War (roughly 1919-33); what is less known is that one production company, Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft, dominated this industry, and it did so as it was specifically set up as a government monopoly in 1917, as part of the war effort, by consolidating various smaller private production studios making up the German cinema at the time. In other words, had the First World War been avoided or been brought to an end at least a year sooner (scenarios often discussed on this site), the German film industry would have looked very different during the 1920's and early 30's.

So what do you guys think? How would German Expressionist Cinema look different without UFA?

CONSOLIDATE: Some initial thoughts - without being consolidated, do any of the smaller production companies try to make high budget epics to compete with Hollywood (eg Nibelungen or Metropolis)? It seems unlikely, in any event, that Alfred Hugenberg (head of the DNVP) evokes the massive film mogul Germany got OTL.
 
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Making movies in Germany was cheap during the hyperinflation time. Foreign investors would be interested in any case, UFA or not.
 
Also, IIRC UFA was an attempt to try to replicate the Hollywood studio system as it existed during that period. It most likely was not the only one and Germany could house other major Hollywood-style movie studios, even regionalized to some degree like the Bavaria Film studio in Munich, for example. (Thank you, IOTL, NeverEnding Story for reminding me that studio existed.)
 
It most likely was not the only one and Germany could house other major Hollywood-style movie studios, even regionalized to some degree like the Bavaria Film studio in Munich, for example.
I hadn’t thought of that either; actually, a more reguonalized German film industry does sound more likely, which (in my humble impression) would mean that Berlin is significantly less important as a center of German film. Could even be that Grunwald becomes something akin to German Hollywood.
 
Alfred Hitchcock apprenticed at the Babelsberg Studios, which predated UFA, though that organisation took them over in 1928. Deutsche Bioscop (Decla Bioscop) had produced films there since 1912. It was a large and impressive facility before this merger, possibly the most advanced in the world - Dr Mabuse, Die Nibelungen, and Metropolis were all shot there.

So there's a large, non-UFA facility, capable of making any kind of film. Don't know if budgets would have been as generous.

Film History on the German expressionist influence on Hitchcock.
 
@mudhead Looking them up on Wikipedia, didn’t Babelsberg merge with Decla in 1920, after our PoD? Actually, that touches on another potential effect - even those studios that didn’t merge with UFA, or merged much later, were still subject to other mergers to compete with the growing consolidated studios.

If not founding UFA curbs this merger craze, that could have implications for the landscape of German film for years to come, even if a consolidation craze still comes later.
 
...didn’t Babelsberg merge with Decla in 1920, after our PoD?
Quite correct. Of course, it means that the government-decreed consolidation could be avoided by studios with enough clout.
So what do you guys think? How would German Expressionist Cinema look different without UFA?
Smaller studios with less physical and financial resources may have focussed even more on Expressionist portrayals of their stories:
Unable to afford the huge sets, lavish costumes and extensive props of Hollywood films, German film-makers looked for new ways to convey atmosphere, mood and emotion.
From: Weimar cinema piece in Bauhaus.
 
Smaller studios with less physical and financial resources may have focussed even more on Expressionist portrayals of their stories
On how he other hand, I can’t help but wonder if as many of them would be shot entirely in studio; Cabinet of Dr Caligari was a major trend setter in this respect, and it’s entirely possible that said film ends up butterflied TTL.
 
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