2010 Dutch figures strong
During the Netherlands Film Festival, which came to a close last month, the official industry numbers of 2010 were presented and appear to be rather good, even if it remains unlikely the current budget cuts will be able to sustain further growth in the sector.
The total worth of investments into Dutch films that were released in 2010 came to €89 million, with €29.5m coming from the Netherlands Film Fund, €13.5m from foreign investors through co-productions and the like and the remainder from Dutch producers, distributors, other funding bodies and the private sector.
The sector's products generated a total of €93m in sales, with the Dutch government receiving about €22m from sales and revenue taxes directly related to the film business.
Dutch films accounted for 15% of all cinema tickets sold in 2010 and 14% of DVD, Blu-Ray and VOD sales. A total of 7.7m units, between cinema tickets, discs and (legal) dowloads of Dutch films were sold in 2010, while 30m viewers tuned in for a local film on either the public broadcasters or the commercial channels of SBS or RTL.
Three local films topped the cinema charts during the year: Antoinette Beumer's drama The Happy Housewife [+see also:
trailer
film profile] (pictured), which was the top film during its first, second and fourth week of release; the holidays horror film Saint, which was the most visited film during its opening week, and the phenomenon that was New Kids Turbo [+see also:
trailer
film profile], which topped the charts not only during the last four weeks of the year but also during the first week of 2011.
Lastly, one of the most interesting numbers from the study was the fact that about 90% of Dutch films received a form of funding from the Netherlands Film Fund and that every euro that the fund invested generated €3.20 in revenues, making it a good return on investment.
The study was carried out by the Stichting Filmonderzoek in collaboration with Paul Verstraeten Communicatie and was commissioned by the Netherlands Film Fund and EYE Film Institute Netherlands.
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