Record attendance levels for Poland in 2015
- With 44.58 million admissions, up by 10.2%, Polish movie theatres recorded the best result of the last 25 years in 2015
44.58 million admissions (up 10.2% on 2014), estimated takings of €182.6 million (+13%), and audiences flocking to theatres the likes of which have not been seen for the last 25 years: this is the very positive bill of health for cinema attendance levels in Poland in 2015. In total, seven titles exceeded one million viewers, with the best scores racked up by two films that were distributed in the last quarter of the year, namely the Polish romantic comedy Letters to Santa 2 by Maciej Dejczer (released on 13 November, totalling 2.9 million admissions) and US blockbuster Star Wars: The Force Awakens (released on 18 December, enticing over 2 million viewers by the end of 2015). The final film on the podium of Poland’s biggest box-office performers of 2015 was another US production: Fifty Shades of Grey (1.8 million admissions).
Despite Letters to Santa 2 [+see also:
trailer
film profile] being in pole position at the annual box office, 2015 was not as kind to national films as previous years. The 41 Polish titles brought out in theatres (out of a total of 343 new releases in 2015) took 8.3 million viewers, as against 11 million in 2014 (for 39 national new releases). Titles that stood out in 2015 were Disco polo by Maciej Bochniak (877,000 admissions), Wkreceni 2 [+see also:
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film profile] by Piotr Wereśniak (769,700), Karbala [+see also:
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film profile] by Krzysztof Lukaszewicz (408,000), Chemo [+see also:
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film profile] by Bartosz Prokopowicz (318,000), Carte Blanche [+see also:
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film profile] by Jacek Lusinski (290,000), A Grain of Truth [+see also:
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interview: Borys Lankosz
film profile] by Borys Lankosz (289,000), Body [+see also:
film review
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interview: Malgorzata Szumowska
interview: Malgorzata Szumowska
film profile] by Malgorzata Szumowska (289,000), The King of Life [+see also:
film review
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film profile] by Jerzy Zielinski (216,000) and Life Must Go On [+see also:
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film profile] by Maciej Migas (210,000).
Also of note was the increase in the production fund managed by the Polish Film Institute, which will rise to €20.1 million in 2016 (as against €19.8 million in 2015). And this year, which is only just getting started, already looks extremely promising for national film production, with the highly anticipated upcoming films by Andrzej Wajda, Agnieszka Holland, Wojciech Smarzowski, Patryk Vega, Ryszard Bugajski and Katarzyna Roslaniec, among others.
(Translated from French)
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