In total, European Film Promotion (EFP) has granted more than €38,000 in Film Sales Support to 20 European films at this year's American Film Market, helping European sales companies promote their films and reach buyers and distributors outside Europe.
While this year’s American Film Market (10–15 November) prepares for another edition in Los Angeles, there is no going back to business as usual for the film industry. Major challenges remain for one of the world's most commercially driven international film markets. How can the industry adapt to a changing distribution landscape, with audience behaviour and consumer choices becoming increasingly unpredictable?
This uncertainty is also reflected in this year’s films applying for FSS funding, with several titles drawing to established IPs and familiar stories. One example is Germany’s The Perfect Holiday (Bora Dagtekin / Picture Tree International), a sequel to The Perfect Secret, which attracted over 5 million cinema admissions in 2019. The Perfect Holiday has already drawn more than 500,000 viewers to German cinemas and is on track to become one of this year’s most successful German productions. Another example is Bibi Blocksberg – The Bewitched Time Travel (Gregor Schnitzler, Germany / Epsilon Film), the fourth feature film in the much-loved children's franchise.
The same trend can be seen in films based on successful books, including Germany’s The Unicorn That Said No (Marc-Uwe Kling, Johannes Weiland / The Playmaker Munich) and The Method (Lena Stahl / Beta Cinema), Spain’s The Editor (Dani de la Orden / Latido Films) and the German-Austrian-Spanish co-production Pirate Mo and the Legend of the Red Ruby (Florian Westermann / The Playmaker Munich). All point towards a growing reliance on familiar stories and established IPs as a way of reducing commercial risk.
Ultimately, strong stories are key. Sonja Heiss is one of only three female directors represented among this year’s funded films. Her film Raging Moms (Germany / Picture Tree International), centred on a group of menopausal women, tackles a topic that has recently gained more attention and could also prove popular with cinema audiences.
see complete list of supported films HERE
FSS support for El Gouna Film Festival
Under EFP's new funding call for promotional campaigns at internationally recognised film festivals outside Europe, French sales company Salaud Morisset has received €3,850 in Film Sales Support for Yesterday the Eye Didn't Sleep by Rakan Mayasi (Belgium, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, 2026). Selected for the Feature Narrative Competition at the El Gouna Film Festival 2026, the film is set in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, where a young woman's disappearance and a fatal incident involving rival clans threaten the fragile peace of a close-knit Bedouin community. The funding supports the film's international promotion and visibility at the festival.
Film Sales Support is backed by Creative Europe MEDIA and has been approved by the following national film promotion institutes: Cinecittà (Italy), German Films (Germany), Instituto de la Cinematografía y de las Artes Audiovisuales (Spain), Norwegian Film Institute (Norway), Swedish Film Institute (Sweden), and Unifrance (France) for the AFM, and Wallonie Bruxelles Images (Belgium) for the El Gouna Film Festival.
