2017: Over One Million Viewers!

After the record year of 2016, the succeeding year brought new records for Slovak cinema. The gross box office grew year-on-year by almost 19% and totalled over 34.5 million Euro, which is the highest since Slovakia gained independence. Total attendance increased by 18% to almost 6.7 million viewers, being the highest since 1993. And the share of domestic films in the total attendance increased to 21%, which would formerly have been an inconceivable figure.

Last year’s record attendance dramatically altered the ranking of the best-attended domestic films over the era of independence. Four of last year’s premières were placed among the historical top ten and the most successful of them – All or Nothing (Všetko alebo nic) with 340,535 viewers – even challenged the second place of the seemingly unassailable The Fountain for Suzanne 2 (Fontána pre Zuzanu 2, 1993). Two domestic titles were viewed by more than 300,000 people (All or Nothing and The Line/ Čiara) and altogether four exceeded 100,000 viewers. This situation will probably not be readily repeated.

As regards production, last year was also a recordyear. 27 full-length Slovak and co-production films (of these 14 minority co-productions) were made. And the number of premières was also a record. As many as 31 Slovak full-length films were released in cinemas – 21 feature films (of these, 10 were minority co-productions), 9 documentaries (of these, 3 were minority co-productions) and one minority animated film. Two mid-length documentaries were also in distribution – Hotel Sunrise (Hotel Úsvit) directed by Mária Rumanová and Varga by Sona Maletzová. Two short Slovak animated films were screened prior to the main film in cinemas – 39 Weeks, 6 Days (39 týždnov, 6 dní) made by Joanna Kozuch and Boris Šima and Yellow (Žltá) by Ivana Šebestová.

The Lust for Power (Meciar) by Tereza Nvotová with 15,621 viewers was the best-attended domestic documentary. In turn, Nvotová’s feature film Filthy (Špina) with 50,564 viewers was the most successful minority co-production.

Ten distribution companies distributed Slovak films to cinemas; the Association of Slovak Film Clubs (ASFK) with seven domestic premières was again the most active in the field.  Three production companies (Peter Hledík – Barok Film, Reminiscencie and Wide Road Films) released their films directly in cinemas, without collaborating with the standard distributors.

We were happy when the average attendance at a 100-percent Slovak film or majority co-production increased from 30.26 viewers in 2015 to 31.83 viewers in 2016. However, the average attendance almost doubled last year, as 61.67 viewers on average came to watch a majority Slovak premièred film. The feature films All or Nothing (79.34 viewers), Kidnapping (Únos, 78.48 viewers) and The Line (68.97 viewers) had the highest average attendances.

While in 2016, 377,072 viewers came to cinemas for all the screened domestic titles, not only the premièred ones, which was a 6.6 percent share of total attendance, last year almost four times as many came to view all the screened Slovak films – 1,431,297 viewers. The share of domestic films in the total attendance increased to 21.37% and, as regards this indicator, we will probably be ranked among the best within the European Union for 2017.

— text: Miro Ulman —
photo: All or Nothing/Continental film —