Finding Financing At AFM

+ sales agents as more than just distribution partners

Photo by Gerson Repreza on Unsplash

With AFM kicking off today, how many of you are making the trip to the market? Curious to hear your thoughts on it and how things go for you so be sure to drop me a line at stacey@filmspecific.com or comment below….

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Can You Find Financing At AFM?

This is literally the million dollar question (ha!) and the primary reason many of us make the trek…. but is it worth the effort?

At a time when Producers have to rely more on Distributors/Sales Agents to get their projects off the ground, it’s a perfect opportunity to try and meet some of these companies in person.

What I mean by this is with streamers contributing less funds to productions and commissioning less Originals at least for now, we’re having to rely more on distribution partners to help fill in funding gaps in the form of MG’s or deficit funding.

There’s a handful of sales companies who have gone so far to secure lines of credit to be able to facilitate green lighting projects for production. Of course they want a lot in return for this and act more as EP’s on projects but can make great partners for certain situations especially in adding an extra layer of credibility for equity investors.

So be sure to ask about funding methods when meeting with sales companies this week and figure out how reliable of a financing partner they can be. I would even go so far as to talk to other producers they’ve worked with in this capacity and see if there’s any unexpected ‘gotchas’ that could be blind spots.

I’ve curated my own lists of these companies for clients and even have them handy in the FS Pro Resource Hub (free for members) but you can do the legwork yourself if you’re so inclined.

And here’s my Pro Tip: Just register for Cinando even if you can’t attend AFM in person so at least you can access the database for future outreach. It makes a fantastic research companion when you’re putting together your own curated lists of companies that can become financing partners.

I’m here to answer questions all week! Like I said, drop me a note or comment below and I’ll be happy to guide you through the AFM process best I can :)

On that note, I’ll wrap it up for today. Stay tuned for my usual take-away’s as the market carries on and definitely at the end.

Have a lovely day and speak to you again soon!

Stacey

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