Inside the walls of the European Film Market — and just in time for Valentine’s Day — love is in the air.
Alongside the continued dominance of genre packages, such as horror, action and thrillers, more films about relationships and romance have hit the market, hoping to make buyers’ hearts (and budgets) flutter.
Leading the pack is the buzzy rom-com “Hello & Paris,” launching via Patrick Wachsberger’s 193 and offering the potentially sizzling pairing of Javier Bardem and Kate Hudson. Other romance-driven titles in the market include Todd Haynes’ long-gestating queer love story “De Noche,” now revived at MK2 with Pedro Pascal and Danny Ramirez; Emily Mortimer’s directorial debut, “Dennis,” starring Alison Oliver and Yura Borisov; Lucy Hale-starrer “The 12 Dates of Christmas”; and “Next Life,” toplined by Emilia Clarke and Edgar Ramírez. Others bend the genre further, folding romance into bolder frameworks, including the musical-horror-love story “Stuffed,” starring Jodie Comer and Harry Melling. Even the “I Love You” anthology franchise is returning with “London I Love You,” signaling renewed confidence in relationship-driven storytelling.
And yet, for all the talk of love stories, Berlin remains unmistakably Berlin. The festival’s opening-night selection — Shahrbanoo Sadat’s Afghan “No Good Men,” which tackles misogyny with humor and even romance — is hardly the most obvious red carpet kickoff, lacking global or even German stars. But that’s precisely the point. “We want to surprise people,” says Berlinale chief Tricia Tuttle, who joined the fest from the BFI London Film Festival last year and intends on keeping Berlin’s DNA.
Behind the romance, however, the mood among buyers remains measured rather than euphoric.
“There was a lot of health in Toronto, and some of that carried over to AFM. It feels like the international distributors who tend to default to ‘the sky is falling’ were cautiously optimistic at AFM,” says Scott Shooman, head of IFC Entertainment Group.
That cautious optimism reflects a market in flux. “There’s a lot of changes in the business, and there’s a lot of new distributors out there, so there’s a lot of fresh money that can be infused into the business. So I’m hoping that there’s some interesting packages and some quality movies in Berlin. We need to find new movies all year, and Berlin has provided us some great opportunities,” Shooman continues.
Berlin has been particularly important for specialty distributors navigating the challenges of international cinema in the U.S.
“Historically, IFC has bought a decent amount of films out of Berlin, whether it’s ‘Happening’ or a few others. As international films struggle a little bit more at the U.S. box office outside of the awards-y films, that business is trickier, and that’s where the Berlin Film Festival shines,” Shooman says.
That flexibility extends to the independent sector more broadly. “The independents are very fluid and very fast-moving and really responsive to changes in the audience and habits and genres and storytelling. I’m eager to see what type of projects hit the market,” Shooman adds.
For U.K. distributor Eve Gabereau of Vue Lumière, the distinction between markets is palpable. “At AFM a lot of the films for sale there are really, really commercial, therefore very expensive, and for the most part not made yet. Then you get to Sundance, the next big market, which is also very North American focused and expensive. And then you get to Berlin, where you can start to engage with films from around the world that are slightly more reasonable. There’s a bit more reception to creative deals about ‘How can we make it work.’ And you notice it at Berlin, people don’t talk about minimum guarantees nearly as much as Sundance,” Gabereau says.
For Paris-based sales company Lucky Number, which represents “No Good Men” internationally, Berlin remains central to navigating the realities of the indie market. Founder Olivier Barbier launched the company in 2024 in response to what he saw as an increasingly demoralizing discourse around auteur cinema.
“We started the company with a very basic idea, which was to counter a discourse that was becoming widespread and a little depressing, a discourse that was partly true, based on the polarization of sales between certain auteur films that would do very well and others that would not find their audience,” Barbier says.
Berlin, he says, is uniquely suited to that approach. “Festivals and markets remain extremely important. They are still the starting point,” Barbier says. “For us, Berlin has been essential. The company launched with two films in competition [in 2025], and around 80% of the sales were done in Berlin.”
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Shooman notes, “The independents are very fluid and very fast-moving and really responsive to changes in the audience and habits and genres and storytelling. I’m eager to see what type of projects hit the market.”
Pre-sales remain viable — but with a caveat. “Pre-sales are possible today for arthouse cinema, but they are driven by fairly strong concepts,” Barbier says. “A strong concept doesn’t have to be high concept — it can be original in form, in pitch or in narrative. Distributors need elements they can project onto and say there are things here we can work with.”
That emphasis on originality is echoed by Mark Gooder, co-president of Cornerstone. “We always come back to: What is original about the story? Who will care about the story? That’s the fundamental question that you have to ask yourself if you’re going to bring something to the market. And then you build out from that, and part of that model is finding like-minded champions of that piece of material and building it out so you can actually find a path to production.”
For Tuttle, the mission remains bridging art and commerce. “I really hope we have good, adventurous distributors who want to pick these films up because there are some really, really beautiful films that audiences are going to connect with if they get the right distribution and exhibition platforms.”
“We really want to join the two sides of the brain: the market, which is so important, and our public program. We need to prove to buyers and to filmmakers that we can help them launch bigger films and help them find the right press and right distributors
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“The eye-catching ones are one thing, but there are also these really exciting discoveries,” she says.