European Film Market 2017

As a filmmaker From Nepal, I was given a privilege to visit the European Film Market 2017. This time I had a chance to work with the core team of EFM and it was a great opportunity for me.

The market seems extremely busy and chaotic on the first few days of the week. Every one were really stressed in the first few days because they are willing to sell their movies. There are lots of international buyers and sellers in the market. Market has been growing pretty fast since 2006 and now i got to hear the market had grown exponentially in the past 10 years.

Then there were the filmmakers and the producers running around. They are also looking at the EFM website and trying to make their best match in the film festival to make the best use of time. In the Festival the exhibitors were a bit depressed to see the film makers. And one of the exhibitors said directly on the face that lets do the acquisition after few days because they are really stressed due to the pressure to sell the movies.

If you act as a buyer you would get lots of coffee and chocolates and if you are this lone running filmmaker or a producer you would be facing a lots of closed doors in the Market.

Since Germany had grown really big in the past 10 years which is also mirrored in the response of the market. The major players where the European countries in the market. Countries like Germany, Spain, Italy, France and the Scandinavian countries had big stalls and big impact in the market.

There were some Arabic companies too in the market and the participation from London, America and Australia was also there tho they were not that prominent. Regarding the Asian cinema the Japanese companies and the Korean companies also had some market representation.

Apart from Martin bau building there was one more location for the European Film market in Berlin at this time of the year. This location was in Mariott Hotel and there were some expensive suite in this building so may be more expensive companies are taking part in this hotel building.

One interesting thing i heard this year was the Black European Market, this was some companies  who doesn’t directly take part in the Berlinale and the EFM. But they rent some good rooms in the hotel nearby and they are doing business from these hotel room. This worked because there are so  many people coming to Berlin at this time so that was an interesting story of the Black EFM.

This market all in all seems to be more for big players in the market and for the ones who have completed films and want to sell the movie in European region.

There was something called Co-Production market which can be a place for searching possible producer and other people or companies who can support your project if its interesting enough.

Then there was the Meet the Docs and the white room at the top of the Martin gopious Bau building where people can meet freelance documentary producers and in the white room people usually have some seminar meeting to discuss some interesting things which are happening in the market.

As my second Year to this EFM i am really learning a lot and tried to pitch some movies to some companies. The problem would be we haven’t worked with such big budget which involves Millions of Euro that’s why its pretty hard to break the ice if you are a starting producer or filmmaker. But the journey is always like that. I have felt the movie business is pretty big and comes with lots of frustration and failure.  I find many people like to say that i am a Director and producer with wide chest in contrary we also have this part where people are dying to do their first feature length movie.

Hope you guys learned a little from My experience, You can see me in the picture above too working with EFM team which was the best experience I had and i learn a lot in this year’s Festival.  I have not mentioned about the screening of the movies nor the movies participating in the festival because my focus was more to know how the festival works and how to find the potential co-producer to finance a feature length movie. You guys can always email me for more information or anything regarding film making camera and other geeky stuffs.

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