The European Film Market, which runs alongside the Berlin Film Festival, will be held online for the second consecutive year due to the pandemic. The festival, meanwhile, will be maintained as an in-person event, Variety can reveal, according to Variety.
The magazine says numerous sources indicate that the EFM has quickly changed gears following a rise in COVID cases in Germany.
The EFM is the world’s second biggest film market following the Cannes Marché du Film.
The festival has been grappling with rising COVID cases in Germany. The Robert Koch Institute for Infectious Diseases reported 56,335 new laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 cases on Thursday, as well as 264 deaths associated with the virus. Around 71.6% of the population have received both vaccines, but just 41.6% have received the booster. (The government has set an 80% target for double-dose vaccinations, and aims to administer 30 million booster shots by the end of January.)
