Crafty Table: How to Sell Your Film at Cannes, AFM, and AFM (and why most people don't)

Every year, filmmakers fly to Cannes, AFM, or EFM with the same quiet hope: that being there is somehow the thing that makes the sale happen. That proximity alone, the badge, the meetings, the cocktails, the accidental elevator conversations, will magically convert into a licensing deal.

It almost never works that way.

Markets don’t sell films. Preparation sells films. Markets simply expose whether you did the work early enough — or not at all. Cannes, AFM, and EFM are not interchangeable, and treating them as such is one of the fastest ways to burn money, relationships, and momentum.

If you understand what each market is actually designed to do, you stop chasing miracles and start engineering outcomes.

First, Understand What You’re Really Selling

The first mistake filmmakers make is believing they’re selling a movie. They’re not. They’re selling risk management.

Buyers aren’t asking whether your film is “good.” They’re asking whether your film is understandable, positionable, and defensible inside their current mandate. That means clarity of genre, clarity of audience, clarity of cast value, and clarity of where this title fits in their programming ecosystem.

If you can’t explain your film in one sentence without referencing theme, symbolism, or your personal journey, the market will eat you alive.

Your job before any market is to strip the project down to its commercial skeleton. Genre comes first. Audience comes second. Cast comes third. Everything else is decoration.

Cannes: Where Perception Is the Product

Cannes is not a sales market in the way most filmmakers imagine it. Cannes is a signal amplifier. Deals do happen, but they happen because the film already feels inevitable.

Cannes rewards projects that look expensive, feel international, and suggest cultural relevance. Buyers at Cannes are reacting as much to heat as they are to materials. Who else is circling? Which territories moved first? Is this a film that feels like it belongs in the conversation?

If you arrive at Cannes without pre-set meetings, without a clear territorial rollout plan, and without sales representation who already knows who they’re targeting, you are not late — you’re invisible. Cannes is where momentum is displayed, not created.

Films that sell well at Cannes usually had interest before Cannes. The market simply legitimized it.

AFM: Where Clarity Beats Prestige

AFM is the most misunderstood of the major markets, mostly because people expect it to behave like Cannes. It doesn’t.

AFM is transactional. It favors clean genre, recognizable value, and realistic expectations. Buyers here are often more blunt, more budget-conscious, and more focused on whether a film can survive in a fragmented North American ecosystem.

This is not the market for ambiguity. If your deck is vague, your comps are aspirational, or your pricing is fantasy-based, AFM will expose that immediately. On the other hand, if your film knows exactly what it is — a contained thriller, a faith-forward drama, a commercially viable horror title — AFM can still be very effective.

AFM rewards films that understand the math.

EFM: Where Strategy Matters More Than Scale

EFM sits somewhere between Cannes and AFM, but it plays its own game. Berlin is a thinking market. Buyers here are analytical, internationally oriented, and often more willing to look at non-obvious titles — provided the strategy is sound.

EFM is particularly strong for films with European co-production elements, international casts, or themes that travel culturally without being dependent on U.S.-centric humor or references. It’s also a place where sales agents and buyers actually talk about long-term performance rather than opening-weekend fantasies.

If your film has a smart international plan, EFM can be where the foundation gets laid — even if the deal closes later.

Why Most Films Don’t Sell at Any Market

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: most films don’t fail at markets because buyers are cruel or unfair. They fail because the films arrive unfinished as products, even if they’re finished creatively.

Missing deliverables, unclear rights, unresolved music, shaky cast contracts, or fuzzy windows will quietly kill deals long before anyone critiques the movie itself. Markets are not forgiving environments. Buyers don’t have time to fix your problems for you.

Another common failure point is misaligned sales representation. If your sales agent doesn’t actually believe in the commercial viability of the film — or worse, doesn’t understand how to position it — no market will save you.

The Only Question That Matters at a Market

Every buyer, whether they say it out loud or not, is asking the same thing: Can I justify this acquisition to my boss or board in one paragraph?

If your film makes that paragraph easy to write, you have a chance. If it doesn’t, no amount of networking, schmoozing, or festival glamour will change the outcome.

Markets are accelerants. They don’t create value — they reveal it.

If you treat Cannes, AFM, and EFM as what they actually are — three very different tools — you stop hoping for lightning and start building circuits. And that’s when films start selling.