First Real Market Test of 2026: What EFM Signals for the New Deal Cycle

The European Film Market (EFM) returns to Berlin February 12–18, 2026, and this year’s message is unusually clear: the business isn’t “back” in any nostalgic sense—but it is moving, and in more directions than it has in the past two years. EFM is expanding its programming footprint (animation, cross-IP, startups, finance, and talent), while the sales floor arrives with a slate that looks intentionally calibrated for today’s narrower, more disciplined buying environment. 

The rosier read isn’t that buyers are suddenly reckless again. It’s that the market is adapting in visible, practical ways. Sundance just delivered a small but meaningful uptick in activity—deals happening faster, new distributors entering, and a mood of cautious optimism from people who have spent the last 18 months saying “no” for a living. That matters heading into Berlin, because EFM is where selectivity becomes price discovery.

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EFM: Bigger Program, Clearer Strategy, More On-Ramps

EFM’s expanded 2026 programme is a signal about where business development is headed. This year introduces EFM Animation Days (Feb 12–14), adds EFM Beyond (focused on innovation, cross-media collaboration, and future business models at Gropius Bau), and continues to formalize the market’s role as the film industry’s “first-quarter lab” for financing structures, technology, and cross-IP monetization. 

EFM is also leaning into connectivity:

• EFM Startups (12th edition) continues spotlighting media-tech entrepreneurs across production, distribution, rights management, exhibition, and audience engagement. 
• The Investors Forum returns after last year’s pilot, bringing finance leaders into the same ecosystem as sellers, producers, and programming. 
• New talent infrastructure arrives with the Berlinale Film School Summit (up to 100 directing/producing students, Feb 17). 

None of this replaces the commercial core of EFM, but it does broaden the reasons companies attend and how projects are developed and positioned before they reach Cannes.

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The Market Mood: Not “Rebound,” But Real Signs of Life

Sundance’s final run in Park City offered a useful temperature check. The headline wasn’t a buying frenzy; it was movement—multiple deals closing during the festival (including a reported ~$10M outcome for Olivia Wilde’s The Invite with A24) and the sense that deal velocity was slightly faster than the recent pattern of late-week or post-festival acquisitions. 

More importantly, sources pointed to new entrants and expanding specialty operations as confidence catalysts: Warner Bros. launching a specialty label, Black Bear expanding into U.S. distribution, and newer players like Row K, 1-2 Special, and Subtext pushing in. As producer Justin Lothrop put it, some are seeing “trend upside or opportunity,” and Verve’s Amy Beecroft described the benefit of new companies sitting alongside established buyers as “helpful in creating a real marketplace.” 

EFM will test whether that optimism converts into Berlin math: controlled risk, sharper packaging, and fewer “maybe” conversations that drag into summer.

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What EFM Buyers Will Actually Reward in 2026

FilmTake’s view going into 2026 is straightforward: the distribution reset is no longer theoretical. Buyers are still active, films are still selling, but the economics are different—smaller advances, fewer territories closing, and less tolerance for assumptions from the peak-SVOD era. 

For teams negotiating in Berlin, FilmTake’s Global SVOD Reports provide territory-by-territory rate cards and licensing terms that clarify what streamers are actually paying today — a rare counterweight to anecdote in a market that increasingly rewards evidence over instinct.

The market now divides along a simple axis: scale versus precision. Scale players can control windows and scarcity; precision players endure by structuring smarter deals, prioritizing territories that still pay, and rejecting legacy projections. The weakest position is the middle — companies too small to command leverage, yet still acting as if the pre-reset market remains intact.

This intersection is where EFM becomes useful: it doesn’t just sell titles—it reveals which projects have credible pathways to audience and value.

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See What Streamers Pay in Major Markets

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The Data Reality Check: Territory Counts Shrunk, But Pockets Still Pay

If you need a single datapoint that captures the current era, it’s this: what used to sell 20–35 territories can now close in the 8–18 range, with contracted MGs across much of the map. 

But contraction doesn’t mean uniform collapse. FilmTake’s Advance Index framing is valuable heading into Berlin because it identifies where MG durability (or growth) still exists:

• France is the most stable MG market, which continues to support auteur, prestige, and elevated commercial titles. 
• Japan continues to pay selectively for projects that are genre-specific. 
• GCC / Middle East emerging as a rare growth zone for cast-driven thrillers and commercial fare. 

Conversely, several major territories are increasingly defaulting to low advances or rev-share structures, and China’s role in the ecosystem remains diminished.

Sellers using FilmTake’s Global SVOD Reports can benchmark expectations before meetings, pressure-test assumptions, and calibrate streaming prices in real time across the UK, France, Germany, Nordics, Benelux, and the Americas.

The rosier angle here is not “everything is up.” It’s that the map is becoming more legible—and legibility is leverage for sellers who price correctly.

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What’s Selling: Berlin Packages With Clear Commercial Geometry

On the sales side, EFM 2026 is arriving with packages that look engineered for the current buyer mindset: recognizable cast, defined genre lanes, and distribution logic that doesn’t require fantasy back-end.

Beta Cinema is one of the clearest examples of “festival prestige + market logic” in a single slate, led by the Panorama premiere Four Minus Three from Adrian Goiginger and supported by multiple market premieres and screenings across drama, literary adaptations, and thrillers with crossover appeal. 

Among the market titles and packages drawing attention in pre-market coverage are:

• Doctor Caligari’s Cabinet Of Wonders (Michael Shannon; sales: Anton) 
• Clarissa (Okonedo, Oyelowo, Ayo Edebiri; sales Neon) 
• The Exiles (Worthington, Duchovny; sales Mister Smith) 
• A Head Full Of Ghosts (Harbour, Hall; sales Lionsgate) 
• Last Flight (Benedict Cumberbatch; sales Protagonist) 
• Sweat (Ana de Armas; sales AGC International) 
• This Is Pleasure (Chastain, Pine; sales The Veterans) 
• Unforgettable (Nat King Cole biopic; Lionsgate) 
• Wildwood (Laika; FilmNation sales; US theatrical dated) 

This isn’t a random list—it’s a snapshot of what remains financeable and saleable: pre-awareness, cast heat, and genre clarity, with packages designed to withstand cautious underwriting.

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The “New” EFM: Animation, Cross-IP, Morocco, and Genre as a Market Product

Two additions matter for anyone building a slate strategy for 2026–27:

1) Animation Days: EFM is creating a dedicated platform for global animation creators, studios, producers, buyers, and financiers—plus an Annecy Animation Showcase of works-in-progress targeting buyers and festival programmers. 

2) EFM Beyond: This cluster aims squarely at future business models—cross-media IP expansion, worldbuilding, and cross-IP acceleration (in collaboration with SpielFabrique and Annecy). If you’re a producer thinking beyond a single film sale, this is where the market is telling you to stand. 

Meanwhile, EFM’s Country in Focus: Morocco is a practical reminder that co-production pipelines and location-driven production economics are becoming a competitive strategy, not just a creative choice. 

And for genre sellers, EFM Frontières Focus formalizes what has been true for years: elevated genre is one of the most export-resilient lanes left, and the market is increasingly packaging it as a curated, high-signal showcase.

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FilmTake Away: Berlin Will Reward Discipline—and That’s Good News

The optimistic case for EFM 2026 is not that the industry has “recovered.” It’s that the industry is finally acting like it understands the rules of the current cycle. Sundance suggested buyers are willing to move when the project clears modern thresholds; EFM’s expanded programme suggests the business is widening its playbook; and the market slate suggests sellers are packaging with clearer commercial geometry than they did in 2024–25. 

The winners coming out of Berlin will look familiar to FilmTake readers: teams with scale, or teams with precision. They will budget for the market that exists, target the territories that still pay, and build financing stacks that can close without miraculous downstream assumptions. And if EFM 2026 delivers anything resembling steady deal flow, the real story won’t be “a comeback”—it will be something more useful: A market that is smaller, sharper, and finally price-discovering again.

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