The Film Market – How It Works

Buying films to distribute in New Zealand and Australia from Cannes Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, Berlin Film Festival…when I tell people what I do, almost everyone tells me it’s the best job they’ve ever heard of, and then immediately asks how the heck I got into it, thereby inferring they’d prefer I step aside or die so that they can take over forthwith. In reality, yeah, it’s an amazing job and I’m very lucky to do what I do, but it’s not as cruisy as you might think.

The big distinction is between the festival and the market. Everyone assumes, having seen the media coverage, that all I do is swan around on a red carpet and watch amazing films of an evening. Unfortunately that’s a rare occurrence. That stuff takes place as part of the film festival, the bit with the awards, the celebrities, the parties and the glamour. The film market is the business side, the bit with the terrible films, the sales sharks, the disgusting coffee and the distinct whiff of desperation coming from many corners. Sure, there are parties and it’s often said that’s where the best deals are done, but you’re more likely to find me watching screeners or replying to emails from work in my cramped hotel room at 1am than storming it up on the dance floor with vodka in hand (not to say that never happens, of course). When we do get to go to a premiere, we’re usually shunted through the side of the red carpet to avoid the photographers having to differentiate between the real stars and all us no-name plebs (seriously, they actually have a side entrance!).

The film market can be explained in very broad strokes by the personalities who attend, as follows:

The Sales Agent:

These are the ‘inbetweeners’, the teams who represent films from a number of different producers, and sell them to distributors. Usually they have several sales people who sell to different territories. Australia and NZ come under one territory and, depending on the agent, might be sold by the same person as all other English-speaking territories, or might be thrown into the same group as Asia. They have to try to meet every distributor from every territory they look after, it’s a busy job. The agent will also have someone who meets with producers and film-makers, and attends screenings of films which don’t have an agent yet, seeing if there are any prospective titles available for them. Very broadly, the majority of sales agents come from the US, UK, France, Japan and, increasingly, China.

The Producer:

There are two categories here. The first is the ‘successful producer’ with a film being sold in the market, who’s there to help the sales agent close some deals for their movie and get an overview of how the whole process works.  The second is the ‘struggling producer’ who’s trying to get a film financed, or get a sales agent on board for a film that is in production or already completed. A producer will potentially be wearing both these hats at the same time.

The Film Festival Programmer:

Getting to watch more films than almost everyone else at the market, this is the job that I reckon has to be the best of the lot. Picking films you absolutely love and taking them back to your home country to show the masses. Bliss. Of course, they have to meet the sales agents or producers and do the deals, and I’m sure they have shareholders and boards and audiences to please, so it’s still not a walk in the park.

The Distributor:

These are the companies who buy independent films for local distribution, and this is what I do. Mostly, we meet with sales agents to find out what’s new and see teaser promos, get scripts, get prices for titles we’re interested in, and of course to do deals.  We also watch films although, to be more accurate, we actually watch lots of bits of films, running from screening to meeting, usually managing 10 to 20 minutes before having to leave. This is why most producers are discouraged from attending market screenings: it’s not necessarily that the distributor didn’t like your film, they just generally don’t have time to watch it all. Some lucky (read: bigger) companies have a massive acquisitions team so some specifically do meetings, and some specifically go to screenings. In the Australia / NZ territory there can be up to 20 different distribution companies in attendance, and several more small companies who acquire titles; we’re told that along with the UK we’re the most competitive territory in the world. It should also be noted that all the big studios will also be in attendance; they buy independent films just like us lil indie companies do.

The Screen Agencies:

These guys are showcasing their home countries in two ways. The first as a location for filming, and the second to highlight all the local films recently released and coming up. NZ is one of only four (I think) countries in the world where the ‘film commission’ is intertwined with the sales agency, so we’re very unique in that respect.

The Media:

The media are mostly in attendance for the Festival part of proceedings but there are some media who report solely on market dealings. Every day at each market there are magazines from each of the big players such as Variety, The Hollywood Reporter and Screen International detailing newly announced projects, deals and reviewing numerous titles.

So those are the key players you’ll find at each market, along with a multitude of others including lawyers, financiers, agents, film makers and occasionally even actors. As an example, the American Film Market in LA last November had 8,000 attendees in total. 1,500 of those were buyers and there were over 400 different sales companies in attendance (imagine trying to see 400 different companies in one week along with 1,499 other buyers!). Over 700 screenings were held over the course of the week, from 39 different countries, and approximately 10,000 films were for sale.

To leave you, and show you the quality of some of the films we come across, here’s my favourite poster from last year’s AFM.