One of the canniest film buyers I ever met – from London – once told me his tactics for operating at film markets. On the first day of a market he would quickly jump on the movies he knew he was most strongly interested in, and if possible seal a deal there and then.

Having made it clear that he was serious about buying, he would then sit it out until the end for any other titles he was interested in, but were lower priorities. At the AFM he described this as waiting for "price cut Wednesday."

I mention this because Thursday/Day 4 of FilMart was pretty deathly. Most people had a lie in, went shopping or frankly rushed home in time for Easter.

However those left behind may have been on to something clever.

Having belatedly found out that I had a pass that got me in to the Dragon Lounge, I sat down for an hour with Kaiju Shakedown's Grady Hendrix.

The quality of the market stragglers put the Grand Hyatt Coffee Shop to shame. Around me as I nibbled the free biscuits and coffee were Mandarin Films' Nansun Shi, Arclight Films' Gary Hamilton, IDG's Ted Perkins, (UK) Showbox Entertainment Steven Rivers, Infotainment's Cindy Lin and Lotus Entertainment's Thomas Leong. Not too shabby.

(P. Frater)