For those of you that have never been to a film festival with a market attached before, let me tell you a little bit about it. First of all, imagine yourself in a large room filled to the brim with hundreds and hundreds of books. Your job is to go through all of the books, one by one, and find the 4 in the room that have the word “apple” as their 175th word. So, you open each book, one by one, and have to skim through, counting words to figure it out. But wait! There a ton of books that have “apple” as their 174th or 176th word, so you better be paying close attention!

It is, to put it lightly, exhausting. You schedule as many meetings as you can before you get there, and then spend all of your time which is not already scheduled in meetings meeting more people to take more meetings with. And most of these people are nowhere near as interesting as books. Especially the aforementioned books which seem to be about orchards.

Now, the good thing is, you can knock out the number of meetings which would, in LA, take about 6 months to get through, in a week. Simply because everyone is here, focused, and, well, taking meetings. So you meet financiers, distributors, sales agents, territory buyers, etc from the time your feet hit the market floor in the morning until you leave at night. Meetings generally take an hour at least, and as you sit talking to who you are in the meeting with, invariably people you know will walk by and stop to say hello. You introduce them to the person you are meeting with, everyone trades cards, and BAM there’s another meeting to be set. But don’t worry, because five minutes later, someone the person you’re meeting with knows will walk by, and the favor will be returned.

Berlin is currently bitter, bitter cold. Getting to Potsdamer Platz is less than a quarter mile away from where we are staying, but we still mostly grab taxis as the idea of walking even that short distance seems foolhardy in the cold and wind.

So far, I have seen exactly zero movies this trip. And that sucks. One of the best parts of being at a festival is the opportunity to see films that may not come out for a couple of years…or may never get released at all. Unfortunately, taking the two hours to watch one is a luxury which is unavailable during the first half of the festival and market when all of the buyers are in town. I’ll try to grab a couple during the second half, when the crowds thin out a bit.

So for now, I’m reveling in the few minutes of quiet while I catch up on some other business before diving back in. Reveling and relaxing with a bite of something to eat (the Turkish food in Germany is amazing) and a beer (it’s Germany for heaven’s sake!) PROST!!!