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BERLINALE 2006 Market

Buyers flock to festival films

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At only two days before the end of the market, most deals had already been closed and the majority of buyers were heading home Tuesday night, but their overall mood was very upbeat as some territories in particular has been very aggressive bidders, especially the UK and France.

Although most sellers are reluctant to talk about specific deals at mid-market, some sales were nevertheless announced. One of the hottest titles at the market, Adrift, the directorial debut of German filmmaker Hans Horn, produced by Universum Film, was reportedly sold by Summit Entertainment to Pathe in the UK, with deals pending for France, Italy and Scandinavia.

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Match Factory, the "new kid in town" headed by former Bavaria sales executive Michael Weber, was highly visible with its two competition features: Grbavica by Bosnian director Jasmila Zbanic and El Custodio (The Minder) by Argentina’s Rodrigo Moreno. With a number of German films in the various official selections, Bavaria Film Sales was also very busy and waiting to sign several deals on its competition titles The Free Will by Matthias Glasner and Hans-Christian Schmid’s Requiem [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
interview: Hans-Christian Schmid
interview: Sandra Hueller
film profile
]
.

The Works, one of the UK’s biggest sales companies, which is handling Michael Winterbottom’s The Road to Guantanamo [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(in competition), added the Italian film Texas [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Fausto Paravidino
interview: Valeria Golino, Valerio Bin…
film profile
]
, directed by Fausto Paravidino produced by Fandango, to its Berlin slate. Fortissimo Film Sales sold the festival’s opening night film Snow Cake [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
to France (MK2) and was expecting high bids on its other competition entry, Candy, by Australia’s Neil Armfield, which will screen at the end of the festival.

Celluloid Dreams announced sales on Oskar Roehler´s competition film The Elementary Particles [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Franka Potente & Moritz Ble…
interview: Oskar Roehler
film profile
]
to no less than 23 territories, including France (TFM), the UK (Momentum), Italy (Lucky Red), Spain (Golem), Scandinavia (Non Stop Entertainment), Benelux (ABC), Portugal (Atalanta), Greece (Audiovisual) and Switzerland (Rialto). Trust Film Saleswas also ecstatic about the attention received by competition title A Soap [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Lars Bredo Rahbek
interview: Pernille Fischer Christensen
film profile
]
, by debut director Pernille Fischer Christensen, as well as Lukas Moodysson’s experimental film Container, which had deals pending for the US and the UK.

The Spanish sales company Latido, headed by Massimo Saidel, was pleasantly surprised by the very good response to Heaven’s Gate by Moroccan/Spanish directors Swel and Imad Noury, screened in the Panorama section. "The market is still in a transition period, but there was a lot of people around and although we only had one film in official selection, we did a lot of business across our whole slate", he said.

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