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New look for MIFF 37ºSouth Market

MIFF 37ºSouth Market.

This year’s 37ºSouth Market will welcome creatives from a broader range of industries when it returns with the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) in August.

Applications are open now for the event, which will for the first time see owners of IP relating to games, podcasts, stage, musicals, online content, and pieces of journalism able to pitch to producers as part of a new strand called Nexus. This complements the existing strand ‘Books’, which allows publishers to pitch their manuscripts to producers.

Also new this year is Linking Up, which promotes links and business for 37ºSouth’s partner agencies and private-sector organisations with screen producers through curated meetings and networking events.

Other changes consist of advance online screenings for Breakthru films seeking sales/distribution; an expansion of PostScript&Direct (PS&D) pitching event to include web series creators; and a broader State of Play panel offering for financing guests and producers to discuss pressing screen funding, sales, creative and distribution issues.

The new-look 37ºSouth Market will be the first since 2019 after the event was cancelled along with the physical festival last year.

Speaking to IF, 37ºSouth Market and Accelerator Lab director Mark Woods said the forced hiatus had allowed organisers to spend time fine-tuning elements to suit a changing market.

“We used the time to stop and think about what the market would look like coming back from a pandemic,” he said.

“The marketplace had already been impacted pre-COVID; there were difficulties to releasing independent cinema and there was a shift that came from the influence of the streamers.

“These marketplace factors, taken with effects of COVID, led us to have a big industry consultation which was made up of about 85 Zoom conversations across every sector of the industry.”

“They proved to be really enlightening as to what role we could play in this new climate.”

The 37ºSouth Market will be held on August 5-8 during the opening days of MIFF’s 69th edition.

Discount applications close on May 31, with late applications closing on June 15.

Find out more information here.