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BOX OFFICE Slovakia

The Slovakian box office sees an unprecedented peak for local cinema

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- Over one million theatregoers have already seen domestic films in the cinemas this year, a historic high

The Slovakian box office sees an unprecedented peak for local cinema
The Line by Peter Bebjak

Slovakian films have enticed over one million viewers into local cinemas so far this year, thus setting a new record, and Peter Bebjak’s thriller The Line [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Andrey Yermak
interview: Peter Bebjak
film profile
]
, which straddles genre and arthouse cinema and was awarded for Best Director at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, performed particularly well in domestic theatres over the summer. The Red Captain [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
 already proved domestic audiences’ appetite for genre fare last year, drawing in a total of 87,000 viewers. The Slovak-Czech-Polish film by Michal Kollár set a new record during its opening weekend, enticing 38,184 visitors (including preview screenings), but The Line broke that record, with 69,776 admissions (including previews); however, The Red Captain’s score had already been beaten twice this year ahead of the release of Bebjak’s ethno-thriller. 

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At the beginning of the year, the Slovak-Czech co-production All or Nothing by Marta Ferencová, an adaptation of the “chick-lit” bestseller of the same name, set the opening-weekend record, taking 68,352 admissions. In March, the political thriller Kidnapping [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
 by Mariana Čengel Solčanská exceeded that figure, with 69,354 admissions over its first weekend. And then came The Line at the beginning of August.

In the six weeks since its theatrical release, Bebjak’s latest oeuvre has been seen by 287,408 theatregoers, grossing over €1.5 million (The Line grossed more than Despicable Me 3 did after 11 weeks, and it’s worth remembering that US imports aimed at children are usually the highest-grossing films in domestic distribution). Tereza Nvotová’s rape drama Filthy [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tereza Nvotová
film profile
]
 racked up 48,000 admissions, quite a success for a pure arthouse film.

The LineKidnappingAll or Nothing and a comedy, Cuky Luky Film, contributed to the historic moment of Slovakian cinema smashing through the one-million-admissions mark for domestic films in a single year, an unprecedented feat for Slovakian movies (The LineKidnapping and All or Nothing were distributed by Continental Film, which proved it had the perfect formula for marketing domestic productions). For comparison purposes, the entirety of the 29 domestic co-productions (including minority co-productions) managed to record only 377,000 admissions in total in 2016.

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