Naturally, we booked our flight to pass through Frankfurt on the day of an airport workers strike, because what is life without the unexpected! Dear friends let us recommend to you the lovely town of Düsseldorf! With a surprise 12 hour layover there we had time to explore the town, visit the wonderful market, and enjoy a truly smashing Lebanese lunch.
In all our commute to Berlin from NYC took 24 hours as a result of the Düsseldorf detour, but 'Lunch in Dusseldorf' will forever now be our euphemism for making lemonade out of lemons!
The European Film Market in Berlin was a fascinating first look for us at the business end of the movies. Though a dive into the deep end of a pool is always slightly overwhelming, we were very lucky to have support in the form of a gregarious and amazingly generous Scotsman named Mike Murdoch from Trinity Studios. Mike was introduced to us recently by director Michael Hines, and he very kindly took us under his wing as we made the rounds at the different venues to meet sales agents and distributors. Lita Robinson a friend from NYC who works for Magnolia pictures was also a friendly face in the crowd, and on Sunday we had a great chat with Martin Moszkowicz from Constantin Films, the company that first distributed The NeverEnding Story. Martin was truly gracious and incredibly knowledgeable, and we hope to connect with him again later in the spring when Tami visits Bavaria Studios with documentarian Lisa Downs who is working on a film about life after The NeverEnding Story.
On the last day we also met with a small group of fans from around Germany who were in attendance at EFM, and Tami was able to sign photos and makes some plans for appearances at festivals and conventions in Germany later in the year. We had hoped to find that there was interest from German audiences in Tami returning to the screen in theaters in Germany, and any doubts we may have had on that score were put to rest when we connected with the fans. There is a generation of Germans who have never forgotten Tami from their childhood. They assured us that if we bring our film there, they will fill the theaters in support. Since in a real sense we made the film for them, it was great validation to hear it straight from the source.
After a whirlwind few days, we're now back in NYC, following up on conversations we had in Berlin and some that are happening 'offstage' as it were in LA. We hope to have more to tell you on that subject, very soon. For now all our thoughts remain bent on finding the right distribution partner for the movie.
We can see there is a waiting audience for a 'new' 80s style fantasy film like Man & Witch, and slowly but surely the industry seems to be getting that message.
One thing we've learned is that in a real sense 80s kids are forgotten by the entertainment business writ large. Busy with kids, and sick parents, and life, it's been hard to get out to the movies and so Gen X and late Millennial types are kind of ignored by the major studios, who assume that it's impossible to get them out to the theater.
We have a different idea.
We think that one of the reason more of us 80s kids don't go to the movies these days is because producers have gotten away from making the kinds of movies we like. We think Man & Witch is that kind of movie. And we think if it gets into theaters that people like us WILL come out to enjoy it.
Of course, as always, the more people who join us here on the website the easier it is to make the case that our audience is really ready to turn up.
So please keep sharing these updates and posts with friends. It makes such a huge difference in our ability to get the word out about the movie and make our case with the distributors who are currently evaluating the film.
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