European film market in Berlin heats up amid subdued Live Film Festival – The Hollywood Reporter
Visually, this year’s Berlin Film Festival has been somewhat quiet and often bleak, with major stars absent, red carpet attendees sparse and largely due to the union’s strict COVID regulations. cheerful, lacking the glitz and glamor.
Even so, Berlin’s fully virtual European Film Market (EFM) is hot. Sony Pictures’ massive $60 million deal for worldwide rights to upcoming Tom Hanks comedy A man called Otto is the largest in EFM history – surpassing Netflix’s $55 million pre-purchase for Christian Bale/Harry Melling period thriller Light blue eyes last year. And it sent a clear signal that buyers were betting on a recovery in the theatrical business. Marc Forster’s English adaptation of the 2015 Scandinavian hit A man called Ove Shooting is expected to begin later this month, with Sony reportedly planning an extensive movie theater in the state for Christmas this year.
Eight-figure price tag for Otto bidding packages sold by STX International and CAA Media Finance are out of reach of most independent buyers, but international distributors remain optimistic, citing EFM’s plethora of quality projects offering.
Among the many titles expected to sell out by the end of the market are Flu richa pandemic social commentary thriller that kills only the rich, directed Communication who directs Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia and stars Rosamund Pike; Saoirse Ronan TV series The Outrun from director Nora Fingscheidt (Unforgivable); and high-concept thriller by Asa Butterfield, Natalia Dyer All the fun and games.
“We’ve been in meetings and doing deals since Sundance and the business has really grown rapidly, we’re seeing a lot of strong prices, real money coming into the market. ,” Arclight CFO Brian Beckmann, whose upcoming titles include fantasy adventure story movable door starring Sam Neill and Christoph Waltz, and Poker Face, directed by Russell Crowe and starring. “There’s a really hungry market for the kind of content that can leverage a theatrical release to drive other revenue, premium pay-TV deals, and streaming.”
But where to be a movie in the (hopefully) post-pandemic world is a big question. Audiences of indie and art films, a segment of the population that tend to be older, have yet to return to cinemas. Comedy Emma Thompson Good luck to you, Leo GrandeThe film, which went on sale to most of the world before Sundance and Berlin bowed, was picked up by Fox Searchlight in the US, but the film, aimed at an older female audience, will skip theaters in water and go straight to Hulu.
“We haven’t seen the older audience come back yet, but we think they will. “All the old people won’t stay on the couch forever,” says Monica Naldi of Italian distributor Barz and Hippo.
Multiple Territorial Trades for Phyllis Nagy’s Call Jane, a feminist drama starring Elizabeth Banks and Sigourney Weaver, which premiered after its Sundance premiere and just before EFM, shows that buyers are still interested in teen dramas. big. Photo of the main character sold Call Jane to DCM for Germany, Austria and Switzerland; Umbrella Entertainment for Australia and New Zealand; Mis.label for Scandinavia and Eagle for Italy among other deals. Roadsideists received the US rights to the film in January and is planning a wide release this fall.
But an impressive and growing list of art house titles on streaming services – check out Netflix’s Oscar nominees The power of the dog and Daughter is gone or AppleTV+ of CODA – means greater competition for traditional distributors. And less room for error.
“As more and more people get used to streaming such high-quality originals produced by Hollywood streamers, their expectations [for] Miyuki Takamatsu, founder and CEO of Japanese sales studio Freestone Productions, said: “Takamatsu, who has handled worldwide sales for popular local artists such as Koyoshi Kurosawa and Naomi Kawase, said if Japanese indie films want to attract people to theaters, they will need to up their game.
“Indie movies need to polish themselves to reach a wider audience or become more radical, just like older generations of Japanese indie directors did.”
Patrick Brzeski contributed to this report.
