With foot traffic yesterday noticeably down on previous days,the European Film Market is winding down after five days of business whichproved more productive for international buyers than the UScontingent.

But despite the traditional grumbles, festival chief Dieter Kosslick said that rebooking of the market has been nearly100% for next year's Berlin.'We're not losing people,' he told Screen.'And some people want to rebook for ten years. I can't do it because I onlyhave a five-year contract.'

Prolific European companies like Celluloid Dreams and WildBunch echoed Kosslick's optimism. 'We had a bettermarket than last year and that was very good for us,' said Celluloid'sCharlotte Mickie.

'The market is on the level of Cannesand the AFM,' said Wild Bunch's Vincent Maraval. 'Distributorsare pre-buying movies, but I don't think many completed movies are sold here.'

'All the buyers are here,' said HanWay'sTim Haslam. 'But it's a market of four to five days.Next year, the festival needs to recognize that markets are always shorter thanfestivals and make it shorter.'

The festival selection has so far not sparked much marketexcitement, although The ElementaryParticles sold well for Celluloid Dreams after its world premiere, and The Road To Guantanamo was causing excitement.

US buyers were walking away empty-handed althoughAustralia's highly anticipated Candyhas still to screen and Bavaria Film International was capitalizing on goodbuzz for its Friday world premiere Requiem,with sales to Lucky Red in Italy and Ocean in France.

USsellers complained that the timing of EFM was off coming less than two weeksafter Sundance and three months after AFM. Factoring in the December break andthe fact that everyone wants to hoard their best for Cannes,the consensus was that there was precious little time to prepare a fresh slatefor Berlin.

"It's too close to Sundance and that makes it verytough," Katapult's Thomas Mai said. I don't thinkI'd come here if I didn't have new product," added Hyde ParkInternational's Lisa Wilson.

GreeneStreet's Ariel Veneziano said the dearth of new product worked to hisadvantage since he could score some solid pre-sales on Pleasure Of Your Company.

And Lionsgate International's NickMeyer stressed that his company did have new films to sell. 'We are verypleased with the response our slate has received from the internationaldistributors,' he said.

Buyers and sellers expressed concern that buyers weren'tgetting into festival screenings, especially press screenings where press weregiven preference over industry.

Hottest market titles included Summit'ssea-bound thriller Adrift and variousnature films from Shochiku's Helen The Baby Fox which just sold to France'sMetropolitan and Korea'sIMX Inc to Wild Bunch's The Fox And The Child which just scored a major Japanese deal.

Meanwhile Kosslick said that hispriority for next year is to open up a blocked-off street that joins Potsdamer Platz to Martin-Gropius-Bau and open a third floor in the museum which wasnot used this year.

'I'm not growing the market, but I will let it grow,' hesaid. 'The market will grow whatever we do. Next year people are coming back,more people are coming, and it will be much bigger.'