07/01/2016 - FAPAE has thanked the public for its faith in national titles, which, boosted by the huge success of Spanish Affair 2, racked up a 19% share of the takings

Spanish Affair 2 by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro

In the run-up to Christmas, Ramón Colom, president of FAPAE (the Confederation of Spanish Audiovisual Producers), presented a positive assessment of how Spanish films have been welcomed on their home turf: with a 19% share and takings of over €100 million. For the second year running, a local title, Spanish Affair 2 [+see also:
trailer
film profile], found itself at the top of the box-office charts, as did its predecessor, Spanish Affair [+see also:
trailer
film profile], 12 months beforehand. In the list of the 20 most-seen movies, Spanish Affair 2 was followed up by such titles as Capture the Flag [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Perdiendo el norte [+see also:
trailer
film profile], Regression [+see also:
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trailer
making of
interview: Alejandro Amenábar
film profile] and It's Now or Never [+see also:
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interview: María Ripoll
interview: María Valverde
film profile], which sold more than one million tickets each. Palm Trees in the Snow [+see also:
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Colom asserted, “Spanish films have again made a connection with the public. We have noticed a change in perception towards watching films and watching Spanish films. Our productions have been achieving historic shares over the last few years, thanks to the joint work undertaken by all the sectors, including the television channels. We would like to highlight the involvement of Mediaset, Atresmedia and TVE in the most successful Spanish movies of 2015.” He also underlined that, for the second year in a row, the overall box office had increased in Spain, since according to the data provided by Rentrak, there had been a rise of 8% in the takings of the films screened (from all over the world), and a 6% jump in the number of viewers.

A great deal of this success should be attributed to Spanish Affair 2, which stayed at the top of the charts for four weeks, taking around €30 million and causing almost five million people to give in to this comedy by Emilio Martínez-Lázaro, which is already the third most successful Spanish film of all time, following in the wake of its “mother”, Spanish Affair, and The Impossible [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Juan Antonio Bayona
film profile]. In addition, although it was only released in Spain, it was the most-seen title in Europe for two whole weeks, and its first weekend saw it reach ninth place in terms of screenings worldwide; for three weeks, it then held firm as one of the 15 films with the highest number of viewers.

(Translated from Spanish)