The Berlinale’s European Film Market (February 10-17, EFM) has just wrapped its second virtual iteration after the rise of the Omicron variant dashed hopes of a return to an in-person edition this year.
EFM figures released on Friday (February 18) suggest professional engagement remained high, with the market maintaining its place as an important date in the international film business calendar.
A total of 600 exhibitors from 62 countries signed up for the EFM’s online platform this year, against 504 from 60 countries in 2021. There were 1,300 market screenings, against 1,452 in 2021, and 827 films were shown against 821 last year.
Dennis Ruh talked to Screen about this year’s market and how its activities are set to run beyond its official dates.
This was the EFM’s second year online. There’s a lot of talk of Zoom fatigue among professionals as the pandemic enters its third year. Was it tougher getting exhibitors and buyers onto the virtual platform?
We had around 600 exhibitors this year, which is more than last year when 504 separate exhibitors signed up. There were also a handful of new territories: Costa Rica, Malaysia, Mongolia and Uruguay. Another first was hosting the Belarussian Filmmakers Network, which is aimed at giving visibility to Belarussian filmmakers who have had to leave their country to make films.
Was this the first time the EFM hosted a territory-based stand for exiled filmmakers? Its sounds like something that could become a more regular occurrence given the rise of totalitarian states worldwide.
It was, and absolutely. We at the European Film Market are part of the Berlinale and the Berlinale has always played a political role and is a political festival. It comes from its history. It puts us in a position as a market to give filmmakers at risk a voice.
Was buyer engagement with the EFM platform still high? The official EFM figure for buyer registrations this year is 1,168. How does this compare with 2021?
Last year, we had 1308 buyers, so it was a little bit less, but we were much stricter this year in giving the buyer’s label to an accreditation. It really only went to buyers and people doing acquisitions for a company this year. In the past, some festival delegates and programmers also qualified for this label but that was not the case this year.
In terms of actual engagement around screenings and online meetings do you have any data for that yet?
We don’t have final numbers for online views yet, with screenings going right up until the final day (February 17) and catch-up screenings running until March 8. What I can say is that we had 827 films screening this year, 600 of which were market premieres, which is more than last year.
There may have been a little less online interaction because some people were watching films here in cinemas, which is the right place to watch films, but there was not much less online activity. It was pretty comparable to last year.
Do you think deals got done?
The market helped create momentum. We were following the trades and could see that deals were being done, especially on festival titles, such as the sales achieved for the Chinese title Return To Dust which sold to a number of European distributors. Business was really going on. I heard from sales agents they were busy both online and with in-person meetings for those who came to Berlin.
The EFM also ran an online conference programme bannered “Shaping Change” and tackling core areas of “Inclusion and Diversity”, Sustainable Development” and “Future”. What was your big takeaway from this programme?
The big message was that the change is already here. You can’t deny it, but there are things we can do to shape this change. It’s time to start changing this business, take action and align our mindset to this imminent change.
What’s next for the EFM? Are you going to be doing any special initiatives to keep it on the industry’s radar ahead of an expected return to an in-person edition in 2023?
We will continue to publish some more episodes of our podcast series over the coming weeks. The latest one titled ”New Native Cinema: Indigenous Film Criticism In Focus” goes live on Friday (February 18). Guest speakers Leo Koziol, Leena Minifie and David Hernández Palmar will talk about the lack of indigenous film critics worldwide, and how this gap impacts the way in which Indigenous-led films are covered.
We will also start preparing the next edition which will be a physical edition, of course, with some online elements included. We also expect to announce our next country in focus for 2023 in the coming next weeks.
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