From CAA’s Conference to Deals, Buzz Movies, Five Takeaways from San Sebastian

variety.com:

San Sebastian Grows (Again) “There are markets that have improved during COVID-19, and others that haven’t and San Sebastian is a festival that’s improved thanks to its industry activities,” says Film Factory’s Vicente Canales.

That build comes from afar, with a Films in Progress strand in 2002, an Europe-Latin America Co-Production Forum from 2012, the Ikusmira Berriak development residency from 2017 and now a Creative Investors Conference.

There’s a form of cross collaterization here. Competition movies can blow hot or cold. The 40 titles, often entirely unknown,  brought onto the market by these four industry strands guarantee something of interest for producers and sales agents who decide where their hottest films premiere as well. “At the industry level, more and more things are happening here, and it’s highly interesting for me to be in San Sebastian,” said Filmax’s Iván Díaz, head of international at Filmax, which is selling Cesc Gay’s ensemble comedy “Stories Not to Be Told,” premiered on Thursday at the San Sebastian Festival as an RTVE Gala.  Sales Business Slows (Even More) “There was a race to catch up with Netflix among streamers and now people are recognizing that that’s not necessarily the best business model,” said 30West’s Trevor Groth. “So now there’s there’s a sort of a pause.

I think there’s gonna be a push back, a swing back towards theatrical distribution and exhibition.” That pause, however, compounded with uncertainty about when an adult audience will come back en masse to theaters, looks to be currently hurting the sales business.