AFM Set to Break Last Year’s Attendance Record

SANTA MONICA, November 1: The AFM has announced that
attendance in all categories for this year’s market is pacing ahead of last
year’s record attendance of 8,208, with a projection of more than $800 million
in deals on 1,000-plus projects slated to be sealed over the week.

For the fourth consecutive year, AFM has reached full
capacity, having sold out all exhibition space at the Loews Santa Monica Beach
Hotel and Le Merigot Beach Hotel. A total of 430 production and distribution
companies from 30 countries are exhibiting at this year’s AFM.

Throughout the week, the AFM will hold more than 900
screenings of 537 films. Every two hours, 30 films are screened, and 34
languages will be featured on this year’s screenings slate. This year’s AFM
will also include 104 industry world premieres and 371 market premieres.

World premieres include Carnera, starring F. Murray Abraham and Paul Sorvino (Epic
Pictures Group); Flick, with Faye
Dunaway (AV Pictures); Sanjuro,
written by the late Akira Kurosawa (Toho Co.); Smart People, with Thomas Hayden-Church, Sarah Jessica Parker and
Dennis Quaid (QED International) and The Neighbor, with Matthew Modine (Curb Entertainment
International Corp.), among others.

The AFM will also feature a diverse schedule of 16 seminars
and conferences, with more than 100 panelists addressing topics such as
distribution, budgeting, finance, locations, fair use, production incentives,
digital distribution, film adaptation and mobile.

—By Irene Lew