Rise and Shine World Sales

Overview

Rise and Shine World Sales is a Berlin-based international sales agent founded in 2007 by Deckert Distribution and specializing in creative documentary films and auteur cinema. The company represents films for sale to distributors and broadcasters worldwide, focusing on documentary features that combine formal ambition with compelling subjects, and on fiction films with strong authorial identities. Rise and Shine has a particular presence at the Berlinale (Berlin International Film Festival) and at European documentary festivals including IDFA, CPH:DOX, and Sheffield DocFest.

The company's Berlin base positions it within Germany's strong documentary film culture, which benefits from significant public funding through ZDF/Arte (the German-French public broadcaster), WDR (the West German public broadcaster), and German state film funds. This proximity to major documentary co-financing sources gives Rise and Shine practical access to the co-production relationships that underpin many of the films it represents.

What Rise and Shine Represents

Rise and Shine's catalog spans creative documentary features, hybrid documentary-fiction works, and fiction films with documentary sensibilities. The company has a particular strength in political and observational documentary, essay film, and documentary work that crosses cultural and geographic borders to engage global subjects.

The company typically represents between 10 and 20 new films per year alongside its back catalog. Films represented by Rise and Shine sell to distributors and broadcasters across Europe, North America, Australia, and Japan, covering the full range of arthouse documentary markets.

Broadcaster Relationships

Documentary sales in Europe rely heavily on broadcaster pre-sales and licensing, with public broadcasters including Arte, ZDF, BBC, ORF, SVT, and YLE providing significant funding and distribution reach for documentary features. Rise and Shine's relationships with these broadcasters -- built through years of market presence and filmmaker relationships -- give it the ability to pursue broadcaster licensing alongside theatrical and streaming sales in a way that adds real value to the films it represents.

For documentary filmmakers, broadcaster licensing in Europe is often the most reliable revenue stream in the distribution portfolio. A film licensed to Arte reaches both French and German audiences through one of Europe's most prestigious documentary platforms, adding both revenue and cultural credibility.

What Filmmakers Should Know

Rise and Shine is a realistic representation target for documentary filmmakers whose work has screened at or been selected by major European documentary festivals, or whose projects have strong creative documentary credentials and subject matter with international resonance. The company is particularly relevant for European co-productions and for international films that have navigated the European film fund ecosystem.

For filmmakers based outside Europe, Rise and Shine's specialization in the European documentary market makes it most valuable for projects with European co-production involvement, international subjects, or the kind of formal ambition that resonates with European festival programmers and broadcasters.

See Also

For how broadcaster licensing fits into a documentary distribution strategy alongside theatrical and streaming, see Documentary Financing: Building Your Stack. To model the revenue from European broadcaster licensing combined with international territory sales, use the Revenue Forecast Calculator.