Christoph Thoke

Christoph Thoke (born November 15, 1960, in Herford, Germany) is a German film and television producer.

Thoke began his career as an on-air promotion producer for the German broadcaster RTL 2 and the German-French broadcaster Arte. From 1996 to 2002, he was part of the management at German production companies Bavaria Film, TaunusFilm, and CineMedia. At Taunusfilm, he oversaw international production activities, including the Los Angeles office, while at CineMedia, he was involved in film acquisitions such as What Women Want.

During this time, Thoke co-produced Little Senegal (2001), directed by Rachid Bouchareb, which was Algeria's official entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 72nd Academy Awards. He also produced Lubov and Other Nightmares (Sundance 2002), Planet B: The Antman, and Detective Lovelorn and the Revenge of the Pharaoh (both Berlinale 2002).

In 2003, Thoke founded the production company Thoke + Moebius Film (TMF) with Axel Moebius.^[1] Through TMF, he co-produced several notable arthouse films, including Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Tropical Malady, which won the Jury Prize at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, and Bruno Dumont's Twentynine Palms (Venice 2003). He also co-produced The Buffalo Boy (Vietnam's Oscar entry) and The Wedding Chest (Kyrgyzstan's Oscar entry).

In 2007, Thoke founded his own production outfit, Mogador Film. Its first major project was Lorna's Silence, directed by the Dardenne brothers, which won Best Screenplay at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. In 2020, he co-produced the Iranian drama There Is No Evil (directed by Mohammad Rasoulof), which won the Golden Bear at the 70th Berlin International Film Festival.

A 2025 profile by Filmhaus Frankfurt described Thoke's producing approach as that of an "ambassador of world cinema" and a "bridge builder."^[2] His recent focus includes co-productions with Asian countries, most notably the Indian refugee drama The Clouds Woke No Clocks (directed by Aniket Dutta). For this internationally noted project, Thoke's Mogador Film teamed up with Frankfurt-based Stoked Film and renowned Singaporean producer Jeremy Chua (Potocol).^[3] The film received production funding of €120,000 from Hessen Film & Medien in 2025.^[2]

In total, films produced or co-produced by Thoke have been invited to more than 1,000 international film festivals^[4] and have won over 250 awards globally.^[2]

Thoke serves as an Honorary Professor at the film academy in Dhaka, Bangladesh, supporting local auteur cinema. For over a decade, he has acted as an expert evaluator for the Creative Europe MEDIA programme of the European Commission.^[2] Additionally, he serves as a jury member for the German Film and Media Review (FBW) in Wiesbaden, an institution responsible for evaluating films for national certification,^[5] and has served on the jury for the Atelier de Tétouan at the Tétouan Mediterranean Film Festival in Morocco.^[6]

He has extensive experience as a tutor and project consultant, having worked with the Producers Network at the Cannes Film Festival, MedaFilmsDevelopment in Marrakech, the Babylon Feature Film Project Development Workshop, and the Rotterdam Lab. Thoke is a member of the European Film Academy and the Deutsche Filmakademie (German Film Academy).

• Christoph Thoke at IMDb