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BOX OFFICE Slovakia

Another record-breaking year for Slovakian cinemas

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- The box-office figures continued to rise in domestic theatres last year

Another record-breaking year for Slovakian cinemas
The Red Captain by Michal Kollár

The trend of rising admissions in Slovak cinemas continued during 2016. The total number of 187,017 screenings were seen by 5,667,071 cinemagoers, the highest number since 1994, thus giving a growth of 22.81% compared to the previous year. The total box-office takings rose by 22.32%, with movies grossing over €29.02 million. The top ten of the most-seen films in cinemas was exclusively dominated by US imports, the first four positions being occupied by animated features aimed mostly at child audiences.

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A share of 4.79% of the total number of admissions was secured by domestic production including majority co-productions, which was visited by 272,539 cinemagoers. Michal Kollár’s The Red Captain [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
, based on a book by Dominik Dán, had a record opening weekend, knocking Juraj Jakubisko’s 2006 period drama Bathory [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
off first place. Kollár’s thriller reached number 13 in the chart of the top 20 most-visited films of 2016. After The Red Captain, Jan Hřebejk’s The Teacher [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Jan Hřebejk
film profile
]
was the second most sought-after domestic film in cinemas. In 2016, Slovakia produced 28 feature films, including co-productions, and 26 features were released theatrically, comprising 13 fiction features (seven minority co-productions), 12 documentaries and one minority animated feature.

2017 is already looking rather rosy for domestic cinema. The Slovak-Czech romantic comedy All of Nothing enjoyed a stellar launch and took a very healthy number of admissions, earning it eighth position in the top ten of the best opening weekends; it went on to become the third most-seen domestic film and the 13th movie to break through the threshold of €1 million in takings since 1993. The film has already been released in the Czech Republic, and the Polish premiere is scheduled for March. 

At the beginning of March, the Slovak thriller Kidnapping [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
by Mariana Čengel-Solčanská will be rolled out after a wide promotional campaign. The film revolves around the infamous case of the kidnapping of the president’s son in the 1990s and is based on a book by Dominik Dán. Taking into account The Red Captain’s previous success along with that of the political thriller The Candidate [+see also:
trailer
film profile
]
(the eighth most-visited domestic film since 1993), Kidnapping is expected to perform well at the box office. March and April are ripe with domestic titles, plus a handful of premieres such as Bohdan Sláma’s Ice Mother, Iveta Grófová’s Little Harbour [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Iveta Grófová
film profile
]
, A Prominent Patient [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile
]
by Július Ševčík (the latter two were both recently unveiled at the Berlinale), Robert Kirchhoff’s documentary A Hole in the Head [+see also:
trailer
interview: Robert Kirchhoff
film profile
]
and Cuky Luky Film, a comedy based on a television sketch show.

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