News - Berlinale Co-Production Market

On Sunday, three cash prizes and one in-kind prize were awarded to selected feature film projects at the Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 17 to 21)..

The Eurimages Co-Production Development Award, endowed with 20,000 Euros, went to the producers of ForeFilms from Ukraine for their project Screaming Girl (director: Antonio Lukich). The award is presented by the European film fund Eurimages to promote the development of the project. Jury members this year were funding representative Emma Scott (Screen Ireland, Ireland), world sales agent Oscar Alonso (Latido Films, Spain) and producer Uljana Kim from Lithuania (Studio Uljana Kim, Lithuania).

The VFF Talent Highlight Award with the prize money of 10,000 euros, annually presented by the VFF – Copyright Agency of Film and TV Producers, promotes one promising project from the Talent Project Market organised by the Berlinale Co-Production Market in cooperation with Berlinale Talents. This year the award goes to Silence Sometimes (director: Álvaro Robles), pitched at the Berlinale Co-Production Market by the producer Mireia Vilanova (Cartuna, USA). Nominee awards of 1,000 euros each went to the producer and director Assel Aushakimova (Risk Pictures) from Kazakhstan and the producer Liselotte Persson (Snowcloud) from Sweden.

The ARTEKino International Award 2024 goes to Ich bin Marika by Hajni Kis, produced by Proton Cinema (Hungary). This award worth 6,000 euros is presented by ARTE to honour an artistically outstanding project from the Berlinale Co-Production Market.

For the second time, an in-kind prize, the World Cinema Fund Audience Strategies Award, will go to a Co-Production Market project from a WCF-supported country: the producers of Seera Films from Germany and director Fradique will receive extensive consultations on optimising the audience and communication strategies of their film project Hold Time for Me.

Congratulations to everyone!

On 20 and 21 February, the Berlinale Co-Production Market will be dedicated to Co-Pro Series: producers, editors, distributors and other series financiers will take part in the industry's highly renowned pitch event. Co-Pro Series is curated and organised by the Berlinale Co-Production Market and is also part of the Berlinale Series Market programme (Feb 19-21).

This time, multiple-warded directors like Katrin Gebbe, Daniel Burman, Elina Psykou, Aida Begíc and Carlota Pereda attached to the new, outstanding projects.Ten top-quality series projects from European countries, Argentina, Iran and Namibia are looking for suitable co-producers, distribution and broadcast partners, and financiers among the international industry. After the pitches, the producers of the projects will meet interested potential partners at a get-together and in individual meetings.

The "Co-Pro Series" selection can be found here, along with all selected projects of the Berlinale Co-Production Market

At theBooks at Berlinale Pitch, Networking and Matchmaking Event on18 February, the Berlinale Co-Production Market, in cooperation with Frankfurter Buchmesse, will present ten exceptional examples of literary material that lend themselves to adaptation. At the pitch event, which has been spotlighting new publications and bestsellers every year since 2006, film producers can get in contact with the film rights holders – renowned, internationally active publishers and booksellers. The presentation of the books by publishers and literary agencies will be hosted by Syd Atlas.

More than 100 books from over 30 countries were submitted for Books at Berlinale this year. The ten selected books will be presented by six publishers and four literary agents. The authors - 90 per cent of whom are women this time - come from Iceland, India, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Pakistan, France, Germany and Switzerland.

The “Books at Berlinale” selection 2024 can be found here.

For the 21st Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 17-21), 34 film projects from 27 countries have been selected to find partners, in order to secure their financing and get produced as international co-productions in the next few years. 17 of the 34 projects are directed by women.

The official project selection consists of 18 fiction feature projects with budgets between 600,000 and five million Euros being chosen from among 318 submissions. Among the award-winning directors whose new works are sure to spark interest are the UK's Sally Potter, Babatunde Apalowo (TEDDY Award 2023) from Nigeria, Kateryna Gornostai (Crystal Bear for Stop-Zemlia in 2021) from Ukraine, Andrea Pallaoro from Italy, Mirjana Karanović from Serbia, and the Chinese-Japanese directing duo Huang Ji and Ryuji Otsuka.

Two film projects are looking for partners at both CineMart Rotterdam and the Berlinale Co-Production Market as part of the Rotterdam-Berlinale Express. In the World Cinema Market section, the WCF-funded project Zone | Myths by Daria Yurkevich will be presented here.

In the Talent Project Market, which is organised in cooperation with Berlinale Talents, ten producers from all over the world who are still in the first decade of their careers will present their latest projects, having been selected from 171 submissions.

This time, the five companies in the Company Matching programme come from France, UK, Portugal, Sweden and Singapore; participants can request individual meetings with these companies in order to discuss structural ideas, or work on the basis of project slates.

The selected projects and companies can be seen here.

The Co-Pro Series selection 2024 will be announced soon.

We had the pleasure of preparing a new episode of the Industry Insights Podcast, together with our colleagues from the EFM.

This episode focuses on current producing strategies in the drama series landscape after the TV-series boom of the last decade. Hosted by Johanna Koljonen, guest speakers Ankica Jurić Tilić and Marike Muselaers share their experiences in financing drama series, their take on the current market landscape as well as financing strategies for producers in different parts of Europe, and explain how co-productions may play an increasing role today.

Find the podcast here.

Timeline and links for our 2024 edition:

Closed: July-September 4: submissions open for the Talent Project Market in cooperation with Berlinale Talents. 10 projects will be selected for the Talent Project Market 2024. Find more information here

Closed: August 16 to September 21: Call for the Official Selection: Experienced producers from all over the world could submit their new feature-length fiction projects with a budget range from 1 to 20 million Euros, with at least 30% of financing (or the local production funding) already in place, for which they are seeking international co-production and financing partners. Ca. 20 of them will be selected and presented at the Berlinale Co-Production Market 2024. Find details and the link to the online submission here.

Closed: August 16 to October 5: Co-Pro Series: Drama series projects in development and financing stages can be submitted for Co-Pro Series. A selection of 10 projects will be presented at the Co-Pro Series Pitch and Networking event. Check here for further information and the link to the online submission for drama series projects.

Closed: Late August to November 6: Books at Berlinale: literary agents and publishers can submit novels for Books at Berlinale, to be held in cooperation with Frankfurter Buchmesse during the Berlinale Co-Production Market. Find out more here

Till Dec 6: producers, financiers, sales agents, distributors, representatives of funds, TV channels and VOD platforms looking for projects, can apply to participate at the Berlinale Co-Production Market without a project.

We had the pleasure to help prepare our colleagues' podcast, EFM Industry Insights.

For episode Number 6, we checked in with producer Ewa Puszczynska, who is not only a regular at the Berlinale Co-Production Market, but also known for Academy Award-winning Ida by Pawel Pawlikowski, as well as Berlinale films like Kill it and Leave this Town by Mariusz Wilczynski (Encounters 2020) or as a co-producer of the Academy Award-nominated Quo Vadis, Aida?

Moderator Johanna Koljonen spoke with Ewa about her own, very personal approach to life as a producer and to the art of film. Find it here.