Canada is an international leader in coproduction, with treaties in place with more than 60 countries – and counting. What is a co-producing experience like behind the scenes? To celebrate Canada’s presence at this year’s Berlin International Film Festival(site externe) and at the European Film Market (EFM)(site externe) , taking place from February 12 to 22, 2026, we spoke with creators behind four Canadian coproductions, with two premiering at the festival and two featured at the EFM. Read on to discover what these homegrown filmmakers, directors, and producers have to say about inspiration, Canadian stories, and their coproduction journeys.
First, feature films! We’ve got two Canadian coproductions, supported by Telefilm Canada and Eurimages, in selection this year (Nina Roza in the Competition section and Paradise in the Panorama section), and an animated coproduction, The Last Whale Singer, taking part in the first edition of the European Film Market Animation Days. Other Canadian market screenings include Perspective Canada and First Look – where international sales agents and festival programmers take a sneak peek at excerpts of eight Canadian and coproduced features currently in post-production, such as Where the River Begins.
Let’s meet some of the Canadian voices behind these world-class projects and learn how coproduction shaped their films!
Panorama
PARADISE (Canada-France)
Entract Studios (Canada), EMAfilms (Canada), Constellations Productions (France)
Making its world premiere in the Berlinale’s prestigious Panorama section is this first feature by Oscar-nominated Jérémy Comte, whose 2018 short Fauve earned a Best Live Action Short Film nomination at the Academy Awards. After premiering at Sundance (and taking home a major prize), Fauve won a Canadian Screen Award and was named to TIFF’s Canada’s Top Ten list.
As for Paradise, ten years in the making and co-written with his close friend Will Niava, a Canadian screenwriter who grew up in Ghana (whose short Jazz Infernal recently won the Short Film Jury Award for International Fiction at the Sundance Film Festival!) Paradise follows the parallel journeys of two men, one in Ghana and the other in Canada, both seeking their fathers. “The idea came from a personal experience from my teenage time, and specific themes I wanted to explore; trust, love, distance, how we’re all connected,” Comte says.
“This film is like a meeting of two cultures, so to present this at the Berlinale is very meaningful,” says the Montreal-based filmmaker. “Panorama is a beautiful section that showcases daring, innovative storytelling, and we tried to make a challenging film in that sense. I personally want to reach the public and create interesting discussions with people.”
Crediting his producers mastering the details behind the coproduction process while he focused on the creative, Comte describes his debut as an ambitious movie, with a lot of big ideas, and many trips to Ghana, where part of the movie was shot. “Because of coproduction we were able to push the movie to another level,” he explains.
He feels the co-production experience of making this film changed him as an artist and as a person. “Making your first feature, you learn a lot about the craft, collaborating with the team and communicating, wanting to stay grounded through the process. You never know if a film will connect to an audience or not, you can only speak from the heart, be honest, and try to enjoy the process… I’m super grateful the [Berlinale] programmers picked Paradise and very excited to present the film there!”
Competition
NINA ROZA (Canada-Italy-Bulgaria-Belgium)
Colonelle films (Canada), Umi Films (Italy), Ginger Light (Bulgaria), Premier Studio Plus (Bulgaria), Echo Bravo (Belgium)
Geneviève Dulude-De Celles’s Nina Roza is making its world premiere at the Berlinale, in official competition! For this Montreal-based filmmaker, this festival is a full-circle moment. Not only will she be surrounded by her dedicated team of international collaborators, she will be back at the fest that honoured her debut feature, A Colony (Une colonie) – which in 2019, took home top honours at the Berlinale’s Generation Kplus section.
Her second narrative feature, Nina Roza, was partly inspired by the idea of what might happen if an immigrant who never returned to their country of origin had to go back, and a viral video she happened to see. “I came across a viral video of a child painter, I was stunned by her maturity, so I read about child painters and got interested in the process of buying those artworks, there’s a trust issue. You don’t know if a parent or adult is behind it, which became the quest of our main character Mihail,” she says.
The story behind making this coproduction reflects the quality of its storytelling, its producers’ creativity, and the value of attending international markets. For example, at the Locarno Film Festival’s Locarno Pro event last summer, the unfinished film won two big prizes.
While it’s special to be back in Berlin, for Dulude-De Celles, the biggest reward is the chance to work with “fantastic collaborators” and nurture the international creative relationships that brought this story to life. “I have an artistic family in Quebec, now I can say I have an artistic family in Belgium, Bulgaria, and Italy – so I’m lucky.”
Read more about the making of Nina Roza in our in-depth article, right this way!
European Film Market Animation Days
A new program that showcases animation projects with strong market potential bringing international collaborators and investors together.
THE LAST WHALE SINGER (Canada-Germany-Czech Republic)
La Boîte à Fanny (Canada), Telescope Animation (Germany), PFX (Czech Republic).
For seasoned producer Fanny-Laure Malo of Montreal-based production house The FLM Box (La Boîte à Fanny), making The Last Whale Song was a journey of “firsts.” It was her first English project, her first animated film, and her first international co-production. It’s fitting that this feature – already sold in more than 20 territories and being commercially released in Germany, Czech Republic, and Poland this month and thrs the object of an in-depth case study at the first edition of the Berlinale’s European Film Market Animation Days!
Featuring a “very personal but also very universal” storyline with global appeal, the film (which also has an environmental message) is about “trusting yourself and finding the inner strength to make a change in the world,” says Malo.
Malo joined the project in 2019, recommended by aproducer friend. “He said, ‘You know about financing so you should definitely talk to them, I have a feeling you would get along.’” From their first virtual meeting in 2020, it was obvious they were “on the same page creatively,” and started actively working together during the pandemic. “The fact that it was animation was an advantage,” she says about the coproduction process. “Everyone could work remotely from their respective territories.”
Her favourite part of the process? Creative collaboration with the project’s various partners. On that note, Malo is glad the film’s writer and director Reza Memari (from Germany) openly welcomed creative notes. “He really saw the plus value of having creative minds from different countries coming on board and bringing their insight into the film!”.
In addition to the 20 minutes of animation done in Canada, the film’s sound mix was completed entirely in Canada (except for the music, which was recorded in Czech Republic with an Icelandic composer). “We had this incredible setup. Reza was in Germany, and for the original voice recordings, we had a Montreal voice director sitting in the studio with me. Reza would talk to the voice director, who would direct the actors.”
Ultimately, she feels communication and kindness are at the core of international collaboration. “It’s so important to really talk. Our team of three producers had such open discussions, always asking, ‘How are you today? Are you taking care of yourself?’ This kind of loving way of communicating is super inspiring. I hope it brings more gentleness and genuine care into the work we do and I hope it’s the new way of doing business.” With plans for a sequel already underway, Malo notes that “international partners say they enjoy how professional and rigorous we are and how our teams work from the heart, how much they give, and things get done.”
Telefilm's First Look initiative
WHERE THE RIVER BEGINS (Donde Comienza el Río) (Canada-Colombia)
12 PM (Canada), Inercia Películas (Colombia), Midi La Nuit (Canada)
Juan Andrés Arango believes films carry the energy of the people who made them. “I’m lucky that my film was done with a lot of passion by the whole team,” says the Colombian-born, Montreal-based writer and director. He’s speaking about his third feature, Where the River Begins, which will be presented at First Look at the Berlinale. (First Look is a Telefilm Canada market screening of eight six-minute extracts of features currently in post-production, giving international sales agents and festival programmers a “first look.”)
Shot throughout Colombia, where Arango is from, Where the River Begins is about a young Indigenous woman who journeys with her daughter to the jungle. “For me, the spirit of the film is reconnecting with something you have deep inside you,” says Arango.“For the main character – and also for the whole production team – it’s about taking a geographical journey, but also, reconnecting to the place inside yourself that you call home. A place to stay inside you, where you have your roots, that doesn’t change, even though the world keeps changing constantly.”
Arango chose his production partners . “We chose people who really connect with the spirit and energy of the film, all their love and passion is what made the film work. Not just mine, but all the artists working together,” explains Arango, whose 2012 debut feature La Playa DC won the Lions Film Award at the Rotterdam International Film Festival after premiering at Cannes, in the Un Certain Regard section.
From Bogota to the jungle, filming throughout Colombia “was very intense,” he explains, noting that Colombian producer Paola Pérez Nieto (Inercia Peliculas) “really helped organize my research trips to the region, coordinating everything, she has a lot of experience in the field there.” Although complex, the shoot was incredibly rewarding for the team. “Everybody was passionately connected to the story,” he says. “We were traveling all around the country, shooting in extreme heat conditions, then going to the jungle. Because we were always taken by the hand by [local] communitiehich allowed us to go to those territories and work safely in those spaces. We were a team with members from different countries, and that passion and our friendship made it possible to have an amazing experience.”
Norway’s Stær came on board as a financial coproducer through Sorfond as a result of two markets: the San Sebastián’s Co-Production Forum (where the project also scored the DALE award) and Cannes’ L’Atelier, with post-production done in Montreal. “I love their energy and freshness, it’s a great match,” he says about his Quebec partners.
Arango is excited to preview his labour of love at First Look! “Berlin is such a beautiful place, welcome to the diversity of voices in the world, so I think it’s a beautiful place to present this short version of the film,” he says. “We are very much looking for a sales agent who will fall in love with the project. The film has been made out of love and we’re looking for partners that love the film as much as we do.”
Ultimately, he’s thankful and inspired by the coproduction experience of making Where the River Begins. “This definitely proved that people from different cultures and countries can work together and create something together. I think the film really contains part of the sensibility of everybody that worked on it, and this diversity is what makes it rich and powerful.
