More than 120 companies buying films from 23 countries, a record high, will be first-time participants at the 2012 American Film Market, which runs Oct. 31 to Nov. 7 in Santa Monica, AFM announced on Tuesday.
About 8,000 particpants attend the market, with 1,500 buyers representing more than 750 companies from 70 countries.
“We are seeing a shift in the way sub distributors acquire films as they steadily rely less on local distributors and more on direct acquisitions," said Jonathan Wolf, AFM's managing director and the executive vice president of the Independent Film and Television Alliance, which organizes the event. "We also expect a significant increase in buyers from China.”
The country with the most new companies is South Korea (25), followed by China (13), the U.S. (11), Japan (6), Turkey (6), Russia (5), France (4) and Italy (4). New companies attending include Snap TV from Argentina, Lume Filmes from Brazil, JY Entertainment from China and Mountain Pictures from South Korea.