UK sellers are poised for a prompt start to business at the European Film Market (EFM) and are reporting full diaries ahead of the market’s official first day of Thursday, February 12.
“On Tuesday, my day is already packed. There isn’t a single slot that’s available,” says Janina Vilsmaier, Protagonist Pictures’ senior vice-president of sales and distribution.
Sellers are eager to hit the ground running, with the last major market of 2025, the American Film Market (AFM), pleasant enough, but lacking in hefty deals.
“My feeling is that the pre-sale business is tightening again. [AFM] was fine, it was okay,” says Cornerstone’s co-president Mark Gooder.
“AFM was great location-wise; it worked out seeing everybody, but from the business point of view, it was a bit slower,” notes Vilsmaier. “Berlin, the way people are excited about it, the way packages have come together – we have one of our busiest line-ups in a long time.” Protagonist’s EFM slate includes Babak Anvari’s thriller Last Flight starring Benedict Cumberbatch.
For Berlinale head Tricia Tuttle, programming a festival lineup that engages the industry is a priority and is music to the ears of sales agents.
“Berlin occupies a very important place [for] foreign-language cinema and cinema from all around the world [that is] more adventurous or boundary-pushing,” says Shane Kelly, senior vice president, international sales and acquisitions, at Mister Smith Entertainment. “Audience tastes have changed, the Oscar selection this year is a testament to that,” says Kelly. “All festival programmers are conscious of that and are trying to find something that cuts through. You can see that a little this year from Tricia’s selection.”
Mister Smith is handling world sales on Grant Gee’s Competition title Everybody Digs Bill Evans and acquired John Early’s Toronto and Rotterdam comedy Maddie’s Secret on the eve of the EFM.
What’s working and where?
UK sellers are less preoccupied with what genre is on their slate and more with keeping budgets realistic.
“The price point in the budget has been the thing that has been driving [Cornerstone’s] business, so that we don’t have any big disappointments,” explains Gooder, who is screening new footage of UK theatre director Bijan Sheibani’s debut The Arrival, starring Kingsley Ben-Adir, Archie Madekwe and Joanna Scanlan, to buyers
“Cast needs to be the right cast – which does not mean it needs to be the biggest names, but it needs to fit with the budget level,” adds Protagonist’s Vilsmaier.
North America remains a difficult territory to sell into, but a slew of recent new entrants, including Row K and Black Bear, are an optimistic sign.
“The US is an interesting place to keep focusing on, with the new buyers announced, and the Warner speciality label [for lower budget releases targeting younger audiences] – it’ll be interesting to see what they’re all looking for,” reflects Gooder. “[But] are the US buyers going to be actively pre-buying? I’m not sure, I don’t think much will change there.”
Deals to airlines are becoming increasingly difficult, as competition for consumer attention on flights intensifies. “Wi-Fi being introduced on so many planes now via [high-speed internet app] Starlink has spooked a few people in terms of [pre] buying, unless they know it’s going [soon] into production, because they just don’t know what that landscape is going to be in 2027 or 2028,” notes Kelly.
East Asian territories remain a tough region to sell into and EFM attendance from the region’s buyers is on the lower side. Executives from Japan, Korea and a few from Taiwan are expected, but China is poorly represented from an aquisitions point of view.
“Asia is getting harder to sell to because they have a lot of local content. If you have the right movie, it does cut through. Recognisable cast really helps [for selling to Asia],” observes Vilsmaier, “and really well done horrors, or, amazing filmmakers or festival winners.”
For documentaries, Dogwoof sales manager Katie Bench notes that while films following popular culture figures remain a major market driver, audiences in Benelux, Northern Europe, Spain and Australia are increasingly coming out for films with a sense of heart and optimism. Dogwoof is launching sales on Orlando von Einsiedel’s The Cycle Of Love, about a street artist from India.
“We had a Scottish film [The Golden Spurtle] about the Super Bowl of porridge making,” says Bench. “Very character-driven, gorgeous, sounds like a real ‘festival darling’. It did amazingly at the box office in Benelux. That’s converted elsewhere, buyers have really picked up on that.”
The year ahead
This week’s EFM is the first major international sales market since Netflix announced its planned acquisition of Warner Bros in December, and the ensuing Paramount offers. With the ink not dry on any deal on the eve of the EFM and a transaction not expected to close until 2027, sales executives are trying to ride out the uncertainty.
“All we hope is that there are more movies to be made and not fewer,” says Vilsmaier. “With mergers, it is always questionable if that is what’s going to happen… There are probably so many more twists and turns [in the acquisition to come].”
“Are we just looking at another year of uncertainty?” says Gooder. “We’re all getting used to it. [Uncertainty has] become the certainty. You have to cut your cloth to what the market actually is. All you can really do is focus on the stories and find what you think will stand out.”
“Some of the loyal buyers for docs are in the Warner family, HBO, CNN,” says Dogwoof’s Bench. But she believes the upheaval has provoked an upside. “It’s got people talking about theatrical commitment, care and passion for that.”
One area in which UK sellers are feeling optimistic for the year ahead is the prospect of increased support from the UK Global Screen Fund (UKGSF) launched in 2021 to boost international development and distribution opportunities for the UK’s independent screen sector following the UK’s withdrawal from the European Union. It has had its funding increased from £7m to £18m per year.
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