Read Brian's blog post from his time in Berlin:

"Having the opportunity to attend the Berlinale and EFM is enabling me to promote the company I work for as a whole as well as raise the profile of particular projects and talent we are nurturing...

... and It's been a great 48 hours.

I attended Initialize Film's European Finance panels.  Each panel has three speakers - a funder from that country, a producer and either a sales agent, distributor or post house. The panels, which are each focussed on a particular European country, give you the low down on the realities of securing finance from that territory.  They gave me a great insight, and I now have a much better understanding of how the funding works in Spain, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and Belgium.  It has enabled me to make new contacts from these countries that will be good for future European co productions. What would have taken me weeks of research, I achieved it all within the space of a day.  At Sigma we do alot of co productions and this has been invaluable to me.

I've also been over at the EFM.  Most distributors, sales agents, broadcasters are not based within Scotland and therefor my presence at the Berlinale and EFM has allowed me to have meetings that would not normally take place.  I currently have one film in the final stage of post production called CITADEL that I am producing with Katie Holly from Blinder Films.  It is a co production between Scotland / Ireland funded by the IFB (Irish Film Board) and Creative Scotland.  The film is having its world premiere in SXSW in March, and we are having meetings to discuss US and International representation.  There is lots of interest and a great buzz about the film which is very exciting."