Ravensburg – Better than ever, created by DREAMSCOPE GmbH for Stadt Ravensburg in 2023, uses a time-travel narrative to reframe German city tourism film
ARCHIVEHow Ravensburg Turned a City Image Film Into a Time-Travel Story
"Ravensburg – Better than ever" is a nearly four-minute German city image film produced by DREAMSCOPE GmbH for Stadt Ravensburg in December 2023, using a time-travel narrative in which an elderly Ravensburg resident rediscovers his hometown across centuries, replacing conventional tourism film tropes with genuine character-driven storytelling.
Stadt Ravensburg commissioned the film with a clear mandate. The objective, as documented by Clapboard, was to find a new, unique approach that would stand apart from the multitude of city image films flooding German municipal communications. The creative team at DREAMSCOPE GmbH identified the clichés most familiar to audiences — the obligatory aerial drone shot, the generic shopping street montage, the formal greeting from a municipal official — and made the deliberate decision to eliminate each of them entirely.
In their place, DREAMSCOPE GmbH constructed a narrative around a single, memorable protagonist: an aged Ravensburg resident who travels through several centuries before arriving in the contemporary city. Over approximately four minutes, the film follows him as he encounters Ravensburg's outdoor pool, its sports culture, its club scene, and its restaurants, navigating each environment with varying degrees of ease. That friction is intentional. His occasional bewilderment generates warmth and humour, giving the audience a reason to stay engaged rather than simply absorbing information about facilities and attractions. In Germany, where city tourism film is a well-established but often formulaic genre, this tonal shift carries genuine strategic weight. The film was published in Germany in December 2023 and produced entirely in German, targeting both residents and prospective visitors to Ravensburg.
ARCHIVEDREAMSCOPE GmbH recognised a systemic problem in German municipal marketing. Across Germany, city image films follow a recognisable template: drone establishing shot, pedestrian zone footage, civic pride narration, official endorsement. The format communicates little that differentiates one city from another. For Ravensburg, a historic city in Baden-Württemberg, the risk of disappearing into that undifferentiated category was real.
The strategic insight driving "Ravensburg – Better than ever" was that emotional identification, not informational completeness, determines whether a city film travels beyond its immediate audience. By anchoring the narrative to a single character navigating familiar Ravensburg environments, DREAMSCOPE GmbH gave both locals and external viewers a consistent emotional thread rather than a catalogue of amenities. The character's time-travel conceit also serves a second function: it implicitly argues that Ravensburg's contemporary offer is so compelling it would surprise even someone who had known the city for centuries.
The competitive context matters here. Germany's most visited cities for tourism film investment include Berlin and Hamburg — Berlin recorded approximately 12.1 million city-trip overnight stays in 2023, according to Germany Travel, while Hamburg registered approximately 7.4 million. Ravensburg operates at a different scale, competing instead against comparable mid-sized German cities for visitor attention and resident pride. In that segment, originality of creative approach becomes a primary differentiator. European visitors made 31.5 million holiday trips to Germany in 2023, of which 12.9 million were city trips representing 41 percent of European holiday travel to Germany, according to germany.travel. Reaching even a fraction of that audience requires a film that earns organic sharing rather than relying on paid distribution alone. German travel spending reached approximately €79 billion in 2023, up around 27 percent from the previous year, according to the German Travel Association, DRV — a market context that makes effective destination storytelling financially consequential even for smaller cities.
Creative direction for "Ravensburg – Better than ever" came from Tim Füssinger and Janis Gornik of DREAMSCOPE GmbH. The script was written by Eduardo Balestra, Tim Füssinger, and Janis Gornik. Janis Gornik served as producer, while Tim Füssinger operated as director of photography and cinematographer. The consolidation of creative direction, scripting, and cinematography within a small, tightly integrated team gave the production a coherence of vision that larger, more fragmented productions often struggle to achieve.
The decision to build the entire film around a single elderly protagonist rather than cutting between multiple representative citizens was a craft choice as much as a strategic one. It imposes a discipline on the edit: every location must justify its presence through what it reveals about the character's reaction rather than what it communicates about the city's infrastructure. That constraint produces a more cinematic result. The outdoor pool sequence, the sports setting, the restaurant and club environments — each functions as a scene rather than a visual asset, giving the film a narrative architecture that distinguishes it from the category.
The deliberate rejection of the opening drone shot is also a cinematographic statement. Drone footage has become so standard in city image film production in Germany that its absence is immediately felt as an authorial decision. By choosing to begin instead within the character's point of view, Füssinger and Gornik established from the first frame that this film operates by different rules. The film was produced in German and runs to approximately four minutes, a duration long enough to develop character but short enough to sustain attention across digital platforms. The production contains two media assets, suggesting a focused, precise release strategy rather than a campaign built on volume.
"Ravensburg – Better than ever" recorded 2,576 views, 60 likes, and 8 comments on its primary platform at the time of documentation, according to Clapboard. No independently verified third-party performance data or media spend figures for the campaign are publicly available beyond these platform metrics.
For a city image film produced for a mid-sized German municipality rather than a national tourism board, those figures reflect the structural realities of the category rather than a definitive verdict on creative effectiveness. City image films produced for cities operating below the scale of Berlin or Hamburg typically rely on earned media, local pride sharing, and industry recognition rather than broad paid distribution to extend their reach. The film's organic engagement ratio — 60 likes against 2,576 views — is consistent with content that generates genuine positive response from the audience it reaches, even without wide top-of-funnel investment.
No verified awards or festival recognition for "Ravensburg – Better than ever" are publicly documented. The structural effectiveness of the campaign, however, is evident in its deliberate creative architecture. By building around character-driven narrative rather than asset-driven montage, DREAMSCOPE GmbH produced a film with a longer editorial shelf life than a conventional city image film, one that functions as a piece of content rather than a promotional broadcast. Clapboard rates "Ravensburg – Better than ever" 69 out of 100, reflecting strong creative originality and executional confidence, with headroom for greater measurable audience impact at scale.
"Ravensburg – Better than ever" is a city image film produced by DREAMSCOPE GmbH for Stadt Ravensburg in Germany in December 2023. The nearly four-minute film follows an elderly Ravensburg resident travelling through centuries before rediscovering his contemporary hometown, replacing standard city tourism film conventions with a character-driven narrative structure.
DREAMSCOPE GmbH created the film for Stadt Ravensburg. Creative direction came from Tim Füssinger and Janis Gornik, who also co-wrote the script alongside Eduardo Balestra. Tim Füssinger served as cinematographer, and Janis Gornik produced the project. The film was published in Germany in December 2023.
DREAMSCOPE GmbH identified the opening drone shot as one of the most overused conventions in German city image film. Avoiding it was a deliberate authorial statement, signalling from the first frame that the Ravensburg film operated by different creative rules and prioritised character perspective over standard aerial spectacle.
The film centres on an elderly Ravensburg resident who travels through several centuries before arriving in the present-day city. He then explores contemporary Ravensburg, including its outdoor pool, sports venues, clubs, and restaurants. His varying degrees of ease in each environment generate warmth and humour, sustaining viewer engagement throughout the film.
Clapboard rates "Ravensburg – Better than ever" 69 out of 100. The score reflects strong creative originality and executional confidence from DREAMSCOPE GmbH, while acknowledging headroom for greater measurable audience impact. The campaign represents a genuinely differentiated approach within the German city tourism film category for 2023.
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