26/04/2006

According to figures recently published by ICAA, the comedies Los dos lados de la cama [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Álvaro Curiel
interview: Emilio Martínez Lázaro
film profile] (see focus) and Volver [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Agustín Almodóvar
interview: Carmen Maura
interview: Pedro Almodóvar
interview: Pénélope Cruz
film profile] (see focus) were the most successful Spanish titles in the first trimester of 2006. The two films take the eighth and ninth spot respectively in the overall Top 10 list, which is led by US title Memoirs of a Geisha.

Released by the Walt Disney Company Iberia on December 20, 2005, Los dos lados de la cama has had 830,420 admissions and grossed over €4.3m so far. However, those figures are still far from the amazing results achieved by Emilio Martinez Lázaro’s previous musical, El otro lado de la cama (2002), which recorded over 2.8m admissions and grossed over €12.6m.

Warner, which released the Cannes competition title Volver on March 17, has witnessed Almodóvar's new comedy rise to the second most seen domestic title in the first trimester of the year: 749,328 admissions and over €4m at the box office confirm yet another hit for the El Deseo slate.

Other Spanish titles to make a splash in the box office are Miguel Albadalejo's Volando voy (219,133 admissions/ €1.1m), Isabel Coixet's four-Goya winner The Secret Life of Words [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Isabel Coixet
film profile] (121,775 admissions/ €599,689 – see focus) and Italian co-production Teresa de Calcuta by Fabrizio Costa (66,895 admissions/ €341,464).

Malaga titles Rough Winds by Gerardo Herrero and The Idiot Maiden by Manuel Iborra also registered good box office results, especially as their theatrical release was March 24 (see news). Herrero's film attracted nearly 25,000 spectators and grossed €129,812, whereas Iborra's historical drama was seen by over 13,000 people and grossed €72,201.

As for European productions, a total of 301 titles from Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Netherlands, Italy, UK and Sweden attracted over 6.57m filmgoers, the equivalent to a market share of 23.67%.