The Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin, home of the EFM. (Photo: Ralf Hirschberger/Getty Images)
Berlin's European Film Market wrapped on Wednesday. Attendance was up 5% with over 12,500 professionals on the ground, 606 films screened (up from last year), and nearly 1,800 buyers showed up. There were also some solid deals to show for it. The highlights:
- Sony won a bidding war for the 'Skeletons' package (Brie Larson, JJ Abrams, JT Mollner) at a reported $25M, beating out Warner Bros., Paramount, and Neon. Easily the biggest deal out of Berlin.
- Neon scooped up 'Clarissa,' a package from the Esiri twins for a Nigerian-set 'Mrs. Dalloway' adaptation starring Ayo Edebiri and David Oyelowo.
- Sumerian Pictures grabbed completed Sundance hit 'Josephine' (Channing Tatum, Gemma Chan) in a competitive seven-figure domestic deal.
The bigger picture: The $100M+ package days are a relic of a different era, and the market is still working through some real growing pains. Attendance was up, but actual deal closures during the market were thin. The Sony 'Skeletons' deal stood out partly because there wasn't much else near that price level. There's also a growing trend of buyers taking longer to commit, with deals increasingly playing out over months and picking back up at later markets like Cannes or Toronto rather than closing in Berlin. Add in audience fragmentation, with younger viewers drifting toward serialized and platform-native content, and it's easy to see why buyers are playing it safe.
Still, the overall mood was noticeably more hopeful. A lot of people feel like the indie business has hit rock bottom and is finally heading back up. New distributors like Black Bear, Row K, and Subtext are filling the gap left by studios pulling back. International pre-sales are holding strong. And the market itself is evolving, with new programming around animation and gaming IP drawing fresh faces to the floor.
