Berlinale

Hello All, I have been away at the Berlinale Film Festival last week which was a very productive trip. The parties were fun and as a bonus its always great meeting new people and also new friends.  

One thing which struck me was the film market. DVD distributors currently appear to be in no mans land when it comes to picking up titles since there is currently a dilemma regarding what they feel is most lucrative and profitable etc to distribute (if it doesn't have a star in it). If there is a risk involved they won't take it on. So, it was refreshing to see that the film market was very very busy as it suggests that people want to buy stuff.

Secondly, the films which were on sale looked very high quality. Whilst talking to several sales agents they mentioned that you have to have high quality stuff to sell nowadays as you can't get away with selling rubbish because no-one will take it on, and secondly, it looks bad on the agent if they agree to sell poor quality films.

The thing I love about Cannes and Berlinale is that besides being business festivals, they are very useful because you learn so much about the film world. I think to sum up the industry I'll nickname it 'the eel', due to it having such slippery eel-like unstable attributes. :)