07/01/2009

Despite the current economic climate, Beki Probst, head of the European Film Market (EFM), and Dieter Kosslick, director of the Berlin International Film Festival, confirmed yesterday that film professionals’ participation at the upcoming Berlinale (February 5-15) will remain stable.

“We are very pleased that all exhibit stands at both EFM locations [The Martin-Gropius-Bau and the new EFM Marriott Offices] are completely booked. Buyer and seller registrations from Europe are particularly stable at present,” noted Probst.

For his part, Kosslick praised the dynamic EFM director who for the last 20 years “has created high international standing for the EFM” and “stability and consistency” at the market. Some 6,400 film professionals attend the EFM each year.

In 2009, the main novelty will be the additional three floors of offices at the Marriott Hotel on Potsdamer Platz, in response to the increasing demand from professionals for exhibition space. The extra Marriott offices will also be used as a venue for the new EFM initiative Meet the Docs, a connection platform for documentary filmmakers, organised in conjunction with the European Documentary Network.

Meet the Docs will complement EFM’s existing collaborations with other partners, such as Books at Berlinale, co-organized with the Frankfurt Book Fair, Straight from Sundance, presenting the latest US independent films, and Latin American Works-in-Progress.

Another novelty this year is the introduction of E-Cinema. All digital and video films will be converted into unified files and played back by servers, which will enable the screening of more formats and provide greater security during screening. Last year, almost 400 films with diverse video formats screened at the festival and the EFM.