BDE spoke to Stefan Kloos, veteran doc producer (Last Men in Aleppo, Holy Cow, Hi, A.I.) and head of Rise & Shine. Founded in 2007, the Berlin-based sales agency has gradually emerged as one of the leading industry players marketing and selling high-quality documentary films to broadcasters and local distributors around the world. During our chat, Kloos zoomed in on the two main titles of his company’s line-up and shared his take on the current state of the non-fiction market.
“This year at the EFM, we focus on two market premieres,” Kloos tells BDE. “The first is that of Love Alone Can’t Make a Child, which just snagged the Audience Award at the renowned festival Max Ophüls Preis. This prize shows how important, emotional and intriguing this story is for the theatrical audience.”
The picture, filmed over the course of 10 years, follows a lesbian couple, Maria and Christiane, through their efforts to fulfil their desire to have a child, facing immense challenges. A German-Norwegian co-production, the feature is directed by Judith Beuth. The market premiere will take place on Sunday 19 February at 11 am in Virtual Cinema 7.
The second market premiere on offer is Send Kelp!, directed by Blake McWilliam. A Canadian production, it follows a bootstrapping “seaweed nerd” who takes on climate change and global food insecurity, armed with nothing but determination when she sets out to start her own kelp farm.
“This uplifting story of eco-hope sporting great underwater cinematography takes us to Canada, where aspiring young lawyer Frances decides to take another route in her professional life and starts a kelp farm. Visually and stylistically, it’s somewhere in between My Octopus Teacher and The Biggest Little Farm,” explains Kloos, adding how this crowd-pleaser story boasts “lovely characters” and carries “an important message.” The market premiere is scheduled on Monday 20 February at midday in Virtual Cinema 6.
Similarly to many colleagues operating in the field, Kloos seems well aware of the problematic state of documentary sales. “We know that the market has become more and more difficult over the past years. Cinema releases are getting more and more challenging, a lot of broadcasters focus on mainstream factual content instead of the emotional power of high-quality documentary films.”
“[Therefore] diversification of licenses to many platforms has become a key factor. But we expect more courage from TV buyers again to programme relevant high-quality films in order to re-shape their profile for their audience,” he continues.
Rise & Shine handpicks 15 films each year, which usually premiere at big film festivals.
Commenting on the expectations of this year’s EFM, Kloos says things will be nevertheless “business as usual”: “EFM primarily is a sales market for us where we meet with buyers to discuss our new and recent acquisitions for possible licensing. Of course, we measure success by the outcome of these meetings.”
In 2023, the German sales outlet handled a number of titles including festival favourites such as Roman Liubyi’s Iron Butterflies (which premiered at Sundance), Kilian Armando Friedrich and Tizian Stromp Zargari’s Nuclear Nomads (premiere at Berlinale 2023), Bernhard Braunstein’s STAMS (premiere at the Berlinale), Marianna Kaat’s The Last Relic (premiere at Tallinn), Isa Willinger’s Plastic Fantastic (premiere at CPH:DOX) as well as In-Soo Radstake’s Selling a Colonial War and Nahid Persson’s Son of a Mullah, both of which premiered at IDFA.
