Books at Berlinale 2021: 10 Books will be Pitched for Screen Adaptation

By Pickle  February 8, 2021

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The Berlinale Co-Production Market on March 4 will present ten high quality books especially well-suited to screen adaptation at “Books at Berlinale”. At the pitch event, which was initiated in cooperation with the Frankfurter Buchmesse and has taken place annually since 2006, current new releases and bestsellers take the spotlight within the film world. The presentation of the books by publishers and literary agents will be moderated by Syd Atlas, and take place online this year.

Books from publishers, literary agencies and authors from Germany, France, Finland, Canada, the Netherlands, Norway, Taiwan and the USA were selected from over 160 submissions to “Books at Berlinale”.

The spectrum of the chosen material ranges from thrillers, biographies and children’s books to love stories and dystopias. Among the books in the selection is the vivid and literally epic portrait of French resistance fighter Anne Beaumanoir (“Epic Annette”), for which author Anne Weber received the German Book Award in 2020. Other books included in this year’s selection are the absorbing Norwegian psychological thriller “Reptile Memoirs” by Silje O. Ulstein, and the stirring Dutch children’s and youth book “Notes to Pelle” by Marlies Slegers.

Film producers active or interested in the area of screen adaptation, as well as publishers and literary agents, can register for participation in the online presentation of the books by February 22 at books@berlinale.de.

As part of “Books at Berlinale”, a matchmaking event will take place on March 5 where selected representatives of publishers and literary agents meet film producers in individual online meetings.

“Books at Berlinale” will take place online on March 4 and 5 as part of the Berlinale Co-Production Market (March 1 – 5). Telefilm Canada is hosting the “Books at Berlinale” pitch, and the matchmaking event is organised in cooperation with the Netherlands Film Fund. As a conceptual partner of “Books at Berlinale”, the Frankfurter Buchmesse is also on board.

The Berlinale Co-Production Market (March 1 – 5, 2021) is funded by MDM – Mitteldeutsche Medienförderung and Creative Europe – MEDIA programme of the European Union.

The following books were selected for “Books at Berlinale” 2021 (listed in alphabetical order of the presenting companies):

Epic Annette (Anne Weber, Germany), Agentur Kroll, Germany
Fatherland (Nina Bunjevac, Canada), Am-Book, USA
My Name is Selma (Selma van de Perre, The Netherlands), De Bezige Bij, The Netherlands
Belle Greene – May No One Discover Your Secret (Alexandra Lapierre, France), Editions Flammarion, France
The Confetti Flight Path (Marie-Ève Thuot, Canada), Éditions Les Herbes rouges, Canada
Reptile Memoirs (Silje Ulstein, Norway), Oslo Literary Agency, Norway
Land of Snow and Ashes (Petra Rautiainen, Finland), Rights & Brands Agency, Finland
Notes to Pelle (Marlies Slegers, The Netherlands), Shared Stories, The Netherlands
The Man with the Compound Eyes (Wu Ming-Yi, Taiwan), The Grayhawk Agency, Taiwan
The Double Puzzle (Holly-Jane Rahlens, Germany), Verlag der Autoren, Germany