By Kaleem Aftab, Berlin International Film Festival 2013

Annemarie Jacir

Annemarie Jacir’s Jordanian set film When I Saw You, following the adventures of an 11-year-old boy living in the Harir refugee camp in 1967, successfully premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last year. The film is now premiering in Europe at the Berlin Film Festival and the popular director explains how this gap between the American and European premier is all part of the tough business of selling a movie.

“We have good German sales agent, ‘The Match Factory’, we got them by stalking them,” says the director. “They were familiar with Salt of the Sea, the process started early when we showed them the script, they followed the different drafts of the script and when we were editing they looked at the rough cut and it was when we were editing that they finally came on board, a couple of months before Toronto.”

It’s unlike selling a house where a real estate agent seems happy to try and sell whatever is available. Since the credit crush precipitated an economic crash it’s been so much harder to sell films, even good films, the price of product has also come down significantly. It’s tough time for sellers and sales agents, especially ones as prestigious as The Match Factory only want to take on films they know they can sell.

“The Match Factory hold the rights in all territories except The Middle East, which we know well. Since Toronto they have been selling the film at the American Film Market, Rome Film Market and now they are here. Berlin is a great platform. We had to wait for our European Premier and that was important to Match Factory, we were accepted to a bunch of European festivals and as a filmmaker you want to go because you want to show the film everywhere, and the worst thing on Earth is to say no to people who like your film and want to screen it.”

The film is showing five times in the official selection of the film festival and there has also been a market screening, which is open only to buyers. The reason Berlin is desired is because all the major players are in town watching the films. But it’s tough times even for an acclaimed filmmaker with a critically acclaimed film: “It’s hard, we are not doing mainstream commercial films and for all independent films times are tough.” She adds, “I have no idea what buyers want. Salt of the Sea sold very well all over Europe and Asia, it took awhile in the US but eventually we sold. But in those days the market was significantly better, with this new film they are making sales, but what’s interesting is that right away we sold Columbia, HBO Latin America, we are selling South America quickly. Of course I have no idea what that means.

And then Annemarie who also works as a producer at Philistine Films is always thinking about the next film. “We have three projects at the Berlinale. We are showing When I Saw You, Philistine Films have a project in the co-production market, A Dog’s Tail, which is the only Arabic project selected that Rami Yasin is directing and Ossama Bawardi is producing, we also have a short film showing too.”