{"id":9571,"date":"2026-02-11T15:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/9571\/"},"modified":"2026-02-11T15:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T15:04:09","slug":"berlin-film-market-opens-with-full-pockets-big-packages-new-buyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/9571\/","title":{"rendered":"Berlin Film Market Opens With Full Pockets, Big Packages, New Buyers"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf real estate is all about location, location, location, international<\/a> film markets are all about timing, timing, timing.<\/p>\n

\n\tBerlin<\/a> mid-February is not an ideal spot for red carpet fashion \u2014 pity the stars facing icy winds and sub-zero temperatures at this year\u2019s Berlinale<\/a> \u2014\u00a0but if you want to do business, the timing of the European Film Market couldn\u2019t be better.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re the first market of the year, international buyers arrive here with their pockets full,\u201d says Tanja Meisner, director of Berlin\u2019s European Film Market, which kicks off today. \u201c[The EFM<\/a>] has traditionally been a strong market for pre-sales, because buyers are really hungry in Berlin.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cLast year we sold The Uprising [the Paul Greengrass-directed period action movie starring Tom Hollander and Andrew Garfield] to Focus Features and Good Sex [Lena Dunham-directed comedy starring Natalie Portman and Mark Ruffalo] to Netflix,\u201d notes Alice Laffille, VP of sales at FilmNation Entertainment. \u201cBerlin has always been like a strong market for us to pre-sell movies, and it\u2019s going to be the case for us again this year.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFilmNation arrive in Berlin off of a strong Sundance, where they closed the biggest deal of the fest \u2014 an 8-figure U.S. sale<\/a> of Olivia Wilde\u2019s sex comedy The Invite<\/a> to A24 \u2014 and expect to build on that momentum at the EFM, pitching buyers on the creature horror Skeleton from Strange Darling director JT Mollner starring Brie Larson, and the fantasy animation feature Wildwood from stop-motion master Laika (Coraline, ParaNorman).<\/p>\n

\n\tRecent indie success stories, from the mega \u2014 Lionsgate\u2019s The Housemaid ($268 million worldwide gross) and A24\u2019s Marty Supreme ($126 million) \u2014\u00a0to the solidly impressive numbers put up by SPC\u2019s Nuremberg ($42 million worldwide) and Neon\u2019s The Monkey ($70 million) \u2014 bode well for business in Berlin.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cEven though these are times across the board [for independent film], on the international side, we saw more than $300 million in box office in the last two years,\u201d notes fellow FilmNation sales VP Rob Carney, \u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of optimism [in the market] that with the right projects, you can get audiences to go see movies.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBerlin certainly won\u2019t lack for packages this year, with new projects featuring Sydney Sweeney, Kate Hudson, Chris Hemsworth, and Zoe Saldana among the buzziest pre-sale tales on offer (see page XX).<\/p>\n

\n\tIf international markets remain robust, selling into the U.S. remains a challenge. The number of high-profile finished films premiering at the Berlinale still looking for U.S. distribution \u2014 titles like WME Independent\u2019s The Weight, an action adventure starring Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe, and Josephine, a family drama with Channing Tatum and Gemma Chan \u2014\u00a0is a testament to how risk-averse domestic buyers have become.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey want to see finished materials, to have a clear marketing plan and audience strategy, even wait for the reviews before they commit,\u201d notes Meisner.<\/p>\n

\n\tMarket uncertainty, however, hasn\u2019t stopped a wave of new indie distributors from entering the market. Last year saw the likes of Black Bear (Christy), Row K Entertainment (Dead Man\u2019s Wire), and 1-2 Special (Urchin) jump in. Ahead of Sundance this year, Warner Bros. launched its own specialty label, headed by ex-Neon executives, and industry vets Danielle DiGiacomo, Brian Levy, and Teddy Liouliakis rolled out new indie producer\/distributor Subtext.<\/p>\n

\n\tThen there\u2019s Markiplier, aka YouTube influencer Mark Edward Fischbach, who showed everyone how it\u2019s done<\/a> with his self-released directorial debut, Iron Lung, which has grossed $20 million+ worldwide to date.<\/p>\n

\n\tIt\u2019s too early to tell whether this new wave is a rising tide or just a bubble. But the fact that so many new buyers are entering the market, says Carney, is a sign of \u201coptimism that there is business to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tMeissner also sees hope in the success of international titles, from anime blockbuster Demon Slayer ($730 million worldwide) to Norwegian melodrama Sentimental Value ($20 million), something she attributes to the younger \u201cLetterboxd\u201d audience that is seeking out \u201cdistinctive, authentic stories\u201d of the sort Berlin and the EFM have in abundance.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere\u2019s a strong appetite in the market for distinctive, culturally rooted European, Asian, and other international stories,\u201d she says. \u201cFor a long time, it felt like these kinds of movies, this very distinctive, culturally-specific cinema, succeeded despite their identity. Now it feels like they succeed because of it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If real estate is all about location, location, location, international film markets are all about timing, timing, timing.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[112,760,3146,761,3148,190,762],"class_list":{"0":"post-9571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-berlin","8":"tag-berlin","9":"tag-berlin-2026","10":"tag-berlin-film-festival","11":"tag-berlinale","12":"tag-efm","13":"tag-germany","14":"tag-international"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}