The Berlin International Film Festival and market may only have unfolded this week, but the mating game for development and production finance partners is already in full swing.

It kicked off in earnest earlier this month at the International Film Festival, Rotterdam which staged the 17th CineMart gathering for financiers, talent and producers to meet, greet and do deals.

A number of hot titles emerged during the four-day market from a strong field of 41 projects from territories as diverse as China, Brazil, Burkina Faso and a slew of both major and minor European territories.

Titles expected to attract attention during Berlin and throughout the countdown to Cannes as a result of buzz during CineMart include Susanne Bier's Through A Glass Darkly (I Et Speil, I En Gate) from Denmark, Icelandic director Fridrik Thor Fridriksson's Falcons (Falkar) and Susi Graf's Christina from the USA.

Bier's film is based on Jostein Gaarder's international best seller Through A Glass Darkly which revolves around a 12-year old girl, Cecilia, who suffers from cancer but uses her imagination to escape her every-day reality.

Falcons, from Fridriksson, is budgeted at around $3m and tells the story of an ex-convict who runs away with an illegal immigrant and a bird of prey.

Christina, which marks the second feature outing for director Graf and is budgeted at just over $2m, details the story of a sexually abused runaway who works her way up the ranks of the criminal underworld. The film will be set in Vienna, Graf's town of birth, and is inspired by the true story of mafia mistress Virginia Hill.

Industry insiders are also tipping another six CineMart projects to grab financing attention in the next few months. The six are: Marion Hansel's Nuages (Belgium); Veit Helmer's No Man's Land (Germany); Sardines from Austrian director Edgar Honetschlager; Bela Tarr's Werckmeister Harmonies (Werckmeister Harmoniak) from Hungary; Alex van Warmerdam's Grimm (Netherlands) and China's Zhang Yang's project Quitting (Jie).

But market organisers are keen to stress that a slot in the CineMart line-up will not guarantee funding. CineMart co-ordinator Ido Abram told Screen: 'CineMart is not a place where people come with bags of money or fat chequebooks. But it is a place where things start.'

Last year organisers took the decision to limit the number of titles in CineMart in order to maintain the intimate and relaxed air surrounding the meet and greet. 'I'm not afraid of growth but we should be careful that the friendliness is not lost. Because then it [CineMart] would simply turn into any other festival,' said Abram.