EFM 2026 After the Applause: Attendance Up, Deals Down, and the Industry’s Slow-Motion Correction

Berlin’s European Film Market closed with rising attendance, expanded programming, and a visible industry presence that reinforced its role as the year’s first global convening point. More than 12,000 professionals moved through market venues and hundreds of films screened across the week, underscoring EFM’s continued importance as a networking and discovery platform for distributors, producers, and financiers alike.

Yet behind those activity metrics, tangible deal momentum remained comparatively thin. Conversations were active, packaging discipline was evident, and interest clustered around a small number of commercially legible projects, exemplified by Sony’s high-profile move on the Brie Larson vehicle “Skeletons.” For much of the slate, Berlin reinforced a familiar pattern: evaluation periods extending beyond the market window, buyers favoring diligence over speed, and deal announcements shifting into the weeks that follow rather than the days on the ground.

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Activity Up, Deals Still Pending

The contrast between participation and closure has become a defining feature of the contemporary market cycle. EFM once again delivered the density of meetings, screenings, and industry interaction expected of a major international gathering. Attendance growth, expanded programming strands, and strong venue traffic collectively affirmed Berlin’s continued relevance as an early-year marketplace where projects are introduced, relationships are reinforced, and strategic positioning takes shape.

But the commercial tempo unfolding across the market floor told a more nuanced story. For buyers, sellers, and financiers circulating between the Marriott, Gropius Bau, and a network of improvised meeting spaces around Potsdamer Platz, the dominant takeaway was not acceleration but latency. Negotiations progressed, packaging conversations matured, and financing structures were refined, yet comparatively few transactions reached a definitive conclusion during the week itself.

That dynamic aligned closely with the structural trajectory outlined in FilmTake’s pre-market analysis, which framed Berlin less as a closing venue and more as an origination point within an extended deal cycle. EFM 2026 ultimately reinforced that perspective. The market functioned effectively as an initiation mechanism, a place where interest coalesced, and negotiations advanced, but where final commitments increasingly depend on subsequent due diligence, multi-party financing coordination, and downstream distribution alignment.

In this context, growth in participation and moderated deal closure are not contradictory signals. They are complementary indicators of an industry recalibrating how and when transactions materialize. Berlin remains indispensable as a convening environment, but the economics of independent film now favor longer negotiation horizons, tighter underwriting standards, and cross-market progression before deals crystallize.

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The Headline Deal — and the Silence Around It

The clearest example of the market’s current pattern came from the largest widely reported transaction: Sony Pictures’ worldwide acquisition of the genre package “Skeletons,” starring Brie Larson, in a deal worth $25 million.

The project generated strong buyer attention and competitive positioning, illustrating that well-packaged, commercially legible films can still command significant advances. It also reinforced a recurring market principle: capital remains available for assets that combine recognizable talent, coherent genre framing, and credible global positioning. But the significance of “Skeletons” lies not only in its scale — it lies in its isolation.

Markets historically characterized by clusters of comparable transactions now produce singular outliers. While smaller territorial deals and incremental sales occurred across the market floor, few approached the magnitude or clarity of the Sony acquisition. Activity was present, but concentration was evident. In practical terms, Berlin functioned less as a deal marketplace and more as a negotiation staging ground.

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Participation Growth vs Commercial Throughput

EFM’s programme activity reflected sustained industry engagement, with specialized forums, innovation showcases, and cross-IP initiatives attracting consistent traffic throughout the week. The breadth of participation across these strands highlighted a market increasingly oriented toward exploration, partnership formation, and strategic positioning rather than immediate transactional outcomes.

In practice, this shift manifested as longer evaluation cycles and more layered negotiation processes. Buyers approached acquisitions with deeper diligence, sellers emphasized packaging clarity, and financiers applied more rigorous underwriting frameworks before committing capital. As a result, Berlin’s growing role as a forum for dialogue and deal origination now operates alongside a diminished expectation of rapid closure. This duality ultimately defined the character of EFM 2026.

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Deal Velocity and the Extended Closing Cycle

One of the most consistent observations across the market was temporal extension. Transactions are not disappearing. They are elongating.

Several factors contribute to this dynamic:

• Buyers increasingly require comprehensive materials, including audience modeling, marketing strategies, and distribution pathways.
• Financing structures frequently involve multi-party equity stacks, public support layers, and complex waterfall arrangements.
• Windowing strategies and platform negotiations now carry greater economic consequence, prolonging underwriting processes.

The result is a shift from festival-centric decision windows toward multi-market deal arcs. Berlin initiates conversations. Cannes advances them. Toronto or AFM often finalizes them. This progression reflects a structural evolution rather than cyclical softness. Deals remain possible — but immediacy has become the exception rather than the norm.

In an environment where negotiations extend across markets and territories, access to reliable streaming licensing benchmarks has become increasingly central to maintaining pricing discipline.

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Institutional Stress Signals: Wild Bunch and the Independent Buyer Squeeze

Developments beyond Berlin’s meeting rooms also shaped market sentiment. Receivership proceedings initiated against Wild Bunch France, historically one of Europe’s most visible independent distributors and production entities, served as a stark reminder of the pressures facing mid-tier buyers. The company entered a six-month observation period after payment defaults, highlighting the financial fragility of firms operating between publicly funded models and global studio scale.

Wild Bunch’s situation does not represent an isolated incident. Instead, it reflects broader structural compression affecting independent distribution across Europe:

• Declining theatrical attendance in several territories
• Increased competition from vertically integrated media groups
• Rising acquisition costs relative to revenue potential

For sellers navigating Berlin, the implications were immediate. Each weakened buyer reduces bidding tension. Each consolidation event narrows acquisition pathways. Each capital constraint reverberates through presale modeling. The health of independent distribution infrastructure remains a central determinant of market liquidity.

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The Audience Equation and Breakout Scarcity

Beyond financing mechanics lies a more fundamental challenge: audience fragmentation. Independent films achieving meaningful crossover success have become rarer, particularly among younger demographics whose consumption patterns prioritize serialized content, creator-driven ecosystems, and platform-native storytelling. While international titles and animation properties continue to demonstrate strong performance potential, breakout narratives capable of bridging arthouse prestige and commercial scale remain limited.

This scarcity feeds directly into buyer caution. Without reliable audience conversion signals, acquisition models shift toward conservatism. Without demonstrable cross-territory appeal, presale assumptions weaken. Without sustained theatrical upside, downstream value projections compress. EFM’s crowded meeting schedules cannot mask an underlying demand constraint.

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FilmTake Away: EFM Initiates More Than It Concludes

EFM 2026 captured a paradox now familiar to the independent film economy: crowded meeting rooms, sustained dialogue, and comparatively modest deal visibility. Participation growth reaffirmed Berlin’s importance as an early-year convening point. Yet transactional concentration, institutional pressure points, and shifting audience dynamics underscore the constrained commercial environment in which independent film currently operates.

Deals are not disappearing — they are extending across longer timelines and broader market pathways. Buyers remain engaged but increasingly selective, and Berlin’s role continues to evolve from a closing venue into a cycle initiator. Whether the conversations seeded during EFM ultimately convert into meaningful transaction volume in the months ahead will shape the market’s legacy. Still, for now, its primary contribution was diagnostic clarity; a snapshot of an industry adjusting its tempo rather than abandoning its trajectory.

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