Berlinale Co-Production Market: Submit Feature Film and Series Projects Now and Find International Partners
Date Posted: September 5, 2017
Experienced producers from around the world are invited to submit new feature-length film projects in need of co-producers to the 15th Berlinale Co-Production Market (February 18 – 21, 2018). The closing date for applications is Wednesday 11th October.
The budget for each project should be between one and 20 million euros, and at least 30% of the financing or local production support should already be in place.
Projects from countries with difficult conditions, where projects are produced with smaller average budgets, are subject to a lower budget rule in order to facilitate easier access to the international market. Once again, producers from regions supported by the World Cinema Fund – Latin America, Central America, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East, Central Asia, Southeast Asia and the Caucasus – may submit projects with budgets of approximately 750,000 euros or more. This exception also applies to feature-length projects from Greece, Spain, Portugal and Southeast Europe.
In addition, three promising new “Berlinale Directors” projects will be included in the selection – these are projects by directors who have had films presented at the Berlinale in previous years. These projects also do not need to have the full 30% financing in place to submit, and so can begin finding partners early in their development.
By late December, approximately 25 feature film projects will have been selected from all submissions to the Berlinale Co-Production Market. Another ten projects will be presented at the “Talent Project Market” in cooperation with Berlinale Talents – the submission deadline for this programme is September 4.
The Berlinale Co-Production Market team creates a tailored meeting schedule for each selected project. Around 1,300 individually pre-planned one-on-one meetings with interested potential co-producers, financiers, sales agents, distributors, TV channels and other supporters take place during the market. Producers and financiers looking for co-production projects can apply for participation in November 2017.
In addition to the feature-length film projects, a number of international companies without projects will also be introduced at the Berlinale Co-Production Market “Company Matching” programme. At the pitching events “CoPro Series” and “Books at Berlinale”, participants once again have the opportunity to discover new series projects and novel material for the screen.
Drama series projects may be submitted for participation in the much sought-after “CoPro Series” pitching event until October 23. Series projects are not subject to strict financing criteria. Again, projects in development and financing stages from all over the world are welcome to submit in order to search for international co-production partners in Berlin. In addition to the series pitch, the Berlinale Co-Production Market team also organises meetings with potential partners for their producers as part of “CoPro Series”. The event takes place within the “Drama Series Days”, a cooperative initiative by the European Film Market, Berlinale Co-Production Market and Berlinale Talents.
Projects introduced at “CoPro Series” in past years include the highly anticipated series Babylon Berlin by Tom Tykwer, Achim von Borries and Henk Handloegten, as well as The Vanishing by Hans-Christian Schmid, and the Norwegian hit series Valkyrien.
The Berlinale Co-Production Market is part of the European Film Market. Its main partners are the MDM – Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung (since 2004) and Creative Europe – MEDIA, a programme of the European Union (since 2005).
Online submission forms and more information on project submission for 2018 are available here.
